How Many Engines Are Enough?

How Many Engines Are Enough?

Six or eight more and I'll be close to getting started.

Two different road numbers of every steam and diesel engine ever made from each of the railroads names that ever existed

I don't know how many is enough.  I exceeded the enough speed limit a long time ago and now I need to sell some to get to the right number whatever it is for me.  My current thought is if I don't have room to keep it on the layout and to run it from time to time then I don't need that engine.

I know one guy who says he has over 500 engines.  I believe him.  I have seen his layout.  Most engines sit in boxes under his huge layout.   500 would be too much for me even if I could afford it which I can't.  How can you maintain and run that many?

Joe

For us, we don't like to store trains on a shelf so to speak or be inoperable.  What we have works great and we are happy with that.  We have 1 almost 60 year old AF Santa gave me one Christmas and 7 other Mth/Lionel's that can all be running independently on our 9 X 16 foot layout.  A lot of fun for sure.

To me one train can be as much fin as possibly 50.  It is who you are running them with and what is in your heart.

One more than you currently have.

42

Lust for engines is infinite, so the number is infinity plus one! My roster has 31 at present. I want more, more, more................

I have more than I probably "should", but I usually try to keep it to the following formula:

Engines = Number of trains the layout can hold operationally x 2/WAF

WAF = Wife Anger Factor - this is a variable between 1 and infinity.  Lower is better.  As WAF increases, the number of trains decreases.  We try to keep that at at '1'.  It is possible to have a fractional train result.   

So, if my layout can house 4 operational locos (not just crammed on to fit - they have to have a place and the ability to run) then I typically have 4 more in reserve to change up the feel of the layout.  I get bored without some change.  However, if WAF rises to a high level, things can change quickly

i try to only keep engines and cars equal to what i can run at one time.  i hate to look over and see boxes of stuff that have no home.  if you're into the holiday trains, you can have that many again IFF you replace all your layout trains with holiday trains.  otherwise you get 1 for the tree.  right now i have 3 engines and their cars and to windups (no cars) and no layout.  i'm out of kilter with the world...crap's going to be getting built and sold

I collect engines, O gauge, mostly Lionel but have Ives, Marx and pre-War Am. Flyer. Probably close to 50 over all but want some more diversity-Ives, AF and, maybe a Marx but always looking for good buys on Lionel. Mostly steam. No wife to placate but she liked trains, anyhow.

Can't talk buying more engines to out pace my wife's shoe collection!

No such thing as too many.

They used to say with reference to muscle cars that too many cubic inches are just right...

I would utilize that thought process here as well....

I've always had small layouts (4'x8') so one could argue I have too many.  But for me, it's all about matching it up with what its pulling.  Of course I mix an match, but I have a mental list of what each engine "should" be pulling.  I.E. I usually use my GG1 to pull my PRR madisons, but I also use the mikado to pull those, but that usually looks goo pulling the scale PRR boxcars.  Right now i'm looking at a Williams F3 and the matching passenger cars.  I could just buy the engine to have and maybe pull frieght, but I don't need a random frieght puller right now, so if i'm going to purchase it, I want to have the matching passenger cars.

Of course, I don't need anything right now since eveything is in storage   (who am i kidding, that hasn't stopped me buying yet )

Well to each his own, but I try to have no more locomotives than I can realistically operate on the layout.  And I've already exceeded that amount.

(2) Pennsy K4s

(1) Pennsy L1s

(1) Pennsy M1a

(1) Pennsy B6sb

(1) Weirton Steel Alco S-2

Even with that small number, I've got to park at least two of them on my hidden siding.

George

Depends on whether you are a packrat collector, or modeler, and whether your are modeling that Illinois shortline that served a grain elevator with an 0-4-0T tank engine, or the Union Pacific.  I remember that MR used to have articles on modeling

lines like that Illinois one.  Don't see much of that in three rail.

I'm satisfied but still would like to have....

It's wonderful, that we can have discussion like this.

Mike CT 

I have too many steam and diesel engines and will be selling several off this year. 

I have all that I really need (more actually...) for both my layout space and modeling interests. 

I actually have zero modeling justification to have any diesels being a pre-1920 layout, but having 2 that are close to 100% reliable for when (if?) I ever have another open house seems prudent.  So, 3-4 should really just go to a new home this year,

I probably have 3-4 steam engines that have zero modeling justification and at least 2 (3?) will also be put up for sale this year after I get done re-working them to be acceptable.  I like the Westside Heisler....so I'm working to justify a logging operation probably cutting a hole in the wall someday.....

Traction and electric freight motors are my bane.....no real modeling justification other than I like building them.  Way too many boxcabs and freight motors, and more on the way in the project queue. 

And, there might still be one steam engine I would buy........but I am well past "enough".

I've just started out in this hobby with a small 8x8 layout with three loops running in conventional, and some how I've already accumulated 5 locos... Honestly though there are a few more I've been eyeing up. Need either more track to run them or need to branch the layout into the guest room!  

No mas!  The closer I get to my mortality and the fact that no one else in my immediate family gives a hoot about trains, I quit buying stuff.  Since we are only the caretakers of our personal possessions during our own lives and I really don't think I'll get any more psychic pleasure derived by yet another acquisition, I stopped.  It's like my library collection--I mean if a buy more books, I probably won't live long enough to re-read the old ones again.  I think it's time for me to evaluate things in terms of the acquisition/benefit ratio when it comes to any purchases--I guess I'm feeling old but I am not going to delude myself into thinking that someone in my family will pick up my hobbies and enjoy what I have later on.  It ain't gonna happen!  My kids have already told me they would get rid of all my stuff at "junk-be-gone" instead of selling it--they don't have the time or the inclination, regardless of how much I value the collections that I have.  Right now, I am thinking of selling rather than acquiring.

How does that song go....

"Too many engines

What's that mean?

It's like too much money

There's no such thing....."

I think the average household should own 9.375 engines.

That's the twenty-four dollar question. You will get as many answers as there are Forum members. Finances, size of layout, interest in steam or diesel or both, and level of interest in this hobby can be determining factors.

There never will be a perfect answer to this question that fits all.

I have a list of locomotives that I want, I call it my hit list.  Those are the ones I seek.  I made it early on, and it has changed very little since then.  That's not to say other locomotives don't catch my fancy, and I now have some that aren't on the list, but once I have fulfilled that list my buying will really drop.

I decided to sell the extra engines that were just sitting in display cases (because not

enough room on the layout) and keep only three, all Rio Grande: A-B-B-A F3 set (repowered Atlas), A-B-B-A FT set (recent Sunset 3rd/Rail), and rebuilt Max Gray L-105. I'm awaiting Sunset's new L-131, which will give me a stable of four. These are all 2-rail engines, and I have enough room on the layout to use them in rotation on a fairly long freight train. Less may not be more in all cases, but I'm happier with my layout now that it's not jam-packed with rolling stock.

The .375 can be supplied by RMT 

I have about a dozen or so with another 3 or 4 pre-ordered and I don't think that will be enough.

'You can't be to rich or too thin or have too many engines.' I think Mae West said that? She must have also been a train collector?

I would agree with some of the above posters - one more than you currently have. 

The RR I model only had three locomotives in the timeframe I model it, and I'm lucky that they're commerically made in the exact paint job I needed for the timeframe (all I had to do was re-number one and swap some sound-equipped components from non-sound to have them all sound equipped). The real RR had traded two ten-wheelers away to the White Pass & Yukon the year before (one of which is made by Bachmann as well), but I did an 'alternate reality' stance that instead of Alaska, it went to the fictional branch line my layout represents. But really, this is as many engines as I could own and make any kind of sense, and even here I'm stretching things an awful lot:

The green one, # 14, should be in Alaska by 1943, but I'll be keeping her here for now. But someday, I might just sell her off as she really doesn't fit as much for the specific year...

Bottom line, these are all the locomotives I'll have in O scale. As much as a 'wall of engines' display would be cool, I am disciplined enough to remain tighly focused on my hobby goals. It's tough sometimes, though...

Too many is not enough

But I really do need to concentrate on home improvements this year!

A,E,G,I,J,K,M,P,R,S,T,V,W,X,Y,Z 

Twenty; with duplicates for  A,J,K,& Y. That should just about do it.

Gilly

I guess engines are like friends--you can never have too many!

Paul,

   A man can never have enough good Guns, Bamboo Fly Rods or O gauge engines, sounds like you have been living around he wrong kind of people to long, just asking this kind of question.

PCRR/Dave

Whatever the number is, it's more than 124.

You actually bring up a good point:  a lot of it for me has to do with compromise and what I can fit on the layout in terms of rolling stock measured against over-crowding.  Too many engines = not enough room for stock and shorter trains/ longer trains that don't fit into sidings.  It's a balancing act, and I don't want to constantly be adding trains and consists all the time.  I'll typically change one engine out per week unless I'm struck by an odd mood and decide something like "all PRR today".  I'm convinced that I will destroy a train one day in transit to the layout, so I try to minimize it.  

How many engines are enough to satisfy you? 

I don't understand the question??????   I am satisfied with every engine I purchase but will never be satisfied.