How many of you are train acquisition junkies?

Uh-O. Now you've started it...

Its not an itch. I call it a "gene defect", "gene mutation". Once its in your blood, you can't get it out.

Yes I have it.


rat

I'm afraid its incurable.

Been acquiring for 50 some years

oh yes i have it and the wife had enough of it.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdogjeff1:
oh yes i have it and the wife had enough of it.

What does she do and how do you handle it?

I really must say that folks who think I have a train addiction problem are really . . . . hang on, hang on, I have a call coming in about a Challenger.

As I was about to say, threads like this on a train board are simply . . . .
just a second sir, Yes I am interested in the Y6b, but I'm trying to type a response to a Forum thread. I know it's Like New, just a second be patient I have another call coming in, hang on . . . .

Yes, it's Eliot Scher.
Yes, I am looking for a Santa Fe F3 in freight colors but I'
m on the phone with a guy who wants to sell me a Y6b, can you hold ?

As I was saying, it really makes me . . . .

Is the Y6b Like New or has it been run?

It has how many miles one it? 14,000 miles?
OK, I'll take it.

Now, as I was trying to say before I was interrupted . . . . .

I have storage boxes under my layout with boxcars, rolling stock and sets I have no shelf room for. I'm in the process of moving stuff from the shelves and back to their boxes so I can put my passenger sets on display. Can't anywhere near what I paid for most of them so I've begun giving them to my grand children.

And when you acquire enough O scale stuff you'll start on another scale, like G scale. Like I did.

Rick

I have one word for those of us with this affliction... Therapy!

Do you think we may be able to get a quantity discount?

Just wondering.

Mike

I've had that problem for a while and am finally getting over it, due partly to needing money for other things and partly to running out of storage space. Also, there just isn't that much left that I really, really want that I don't already have. I currently have no locomotives at all on pre-order, and just a few pieces of rolling stock. Focusing on just one railroad helps. I buy new and interesting Milwaukee Road items, and the odd other item, and that's it. The recent Lionel Milwaukee Road 261 4-8-4 and the upcoming Weaver Milwaukee Road ribside boxcars are things I will spring for, but I've resisted the Orient Express, assorted big articulated engines, and a whole lot of other stuff. I no longer buy things "just because they're cool." I don't buy traditional and I don't buy semi-scale. There are one Standard Gauge locomotive, one Standard Gauge passenger car, and one 0 gauge passenger car on my "must get" list, and that's all (five years ago that list would have been a couple of pages). I think I'm near to a reasonable balance - but I still should sell off an awful lot of stuff (see my ads on the For Sale board; it's a start).

This could be an interesting episode of hoarders.

So, what's enough of any good thing? There have been numerous times when I've said that I really don't need that engine, or these cars, no room for more buildings, but when they hit the market, I just gotta have this one more. On my layout there are certainly 40 locomotives and I'm not looking to add even one more. So then, Lionel comes out with the Milw Rd S-3, and even though I already have a Weaver model of the same engine, I still plunk down the cash for the new one. So now I have #261 from Weaver plus #265 from Lionel. (I also have two streamlined F-7 Hudsons, one from Weaver the other from MTH.)

Cars: I have so many that I can never use them all; just no room for all of them at one time. But, when our club offers a new car, or one of the manufacturers comes out with a new design from one of my railroads, here I am again, buying more. My passenger yard is absolutely filled with trains, but I just can't wait until I get two more complete trains back from a guy who's putting interiors in them. I also have six or eight buildings which I bought because I thought they would make excellent additions to the layout, but they're still in their original boxes because I simply don't have a place to put them.

Having talked to friends around here that are in the very same fix, I realize that this "disease" is incurable and that I'm just going to suffer along with the symptoms. After all, the manufacturers are absolutely relying on it!

Paul Fischer

I am blessed with having modest wants and needs, train-wise. And I learned a long time ago that you can't fill holes in your soul with stuff. Somehow, however, I seem to be running out of room for my trains and train boxes. It's only because O gauge stuff is so dang big... right?

Pete

I acquire what I can run and store on the layout or display on about 16 feet of shelf space. I went through the acquisition phase for a couple of years and enjoyed having certain items, but lost interest when many very fine pieces were relegated to plastic tub storage.

It happens fast. I'm new here, and i'm already overwhelmed with "wants" (or as I perceive them, 'needs'). I experimented in HO and N and I didn't really suffer this affliction, but I've had more (less?) luck with 3-Rail. Now, I find myself checking the Sale forums pretty regularly and I've begun "pre-ordering" stuff that I'm afraid to miss out on. The way the hobby is now, if you miss something, you either have to scavenge on the web for it or wait until it comes around again. For obsessive compulsive people like me, this is a problem :-) Once I decide that I need more PRR steam, I have to find it, or at least order/put my name on it when I find something that fits my budget. I think it will eventually lead to insanity because every engine leads to an offshoot. For example:

- Even though most of my stuff at the moment is transition PRR, I had to get a modern diesel to represent current hardware (NS SD70). It doesn't look quite right running alone so I feel like I should probably get a couple more to run with it for a "modern theme". So now I'm looking for a CSX ES44...

- Even though I have no personal connection to Union Pacific, I feel like I have to have a 'Big Boy' just because of what it is large and cool. But I don't just want one UP piece on the layout, so I should probably have a Challenger at some point as well to represent the apex of UP steam. And if I'm going to have UP on the layout, I would want to be able to run a more "Western US" theme, so the logical choice for me is Santa Fe steam, and since you can't really have Santa Fe on your layout without a red War Bonnet F3/F7 consist because they look good and are synonymous with model trains, but then the yellow bonnets look pretty cool too...

And you see where this leads...

But I'm having fun :-)

I want them all!

quote:

Originally posted by DShellie:
This could be an interesting episode of hoarders.

Uh no it won't there buddy,

On hoarders they take their stuff and get rid of it as therapy .They try that with my trains and they're leavin here in a bag with a zipper.

I think Charlton Hesston said it best:

When they pry it from my cold dead hands.

David

To quote Lieutenant Commander Spock: "Having is not so pleasing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." (Spock in Amok Time).

TOY TRAINS are like peanuts-you cannot eat just one-toy trains you cannot have
just one.it brings out the hoarder in most of us.

You really never get over the thrill of a new train item. That is why the manufacturers keep coming out with new catalogs to make sure we do not get over it.

What?

Who, me???

A TAJ?

Nah...

I can quit anytime!

Honestly...

Rusty

although im out of room im still buying stuff.five steam engines and one diesel as well as one car in the last three days.

going out to walmart now and get a couple more tubs to store stuff in.only been in o gauge for a few years now and i have amassed a pretty big collection. i had quite an addiction to ho scale trains as well.

it took me over two years to sell all my ho stuff(45 plus yrs of stuff).what a job!

thop......

When I first came back into the hobby in late 70's I started buying anything and everything in an effort to make up for my childhood wants that were never achieved. I became a collector of monumental proportions and joined the TCA in 1979. After many years of agressive buying activity and when my interests migrated to operating, it finally dawned on me that I had more trains than I could ever hope to run. I asked myself, what good is all this stuff just sitting in boxes on the basement walls? I had every accessory, most cars and postwar engines that Lionel had ever produced.
Now I only buy very selectively for items mostly needed for layout completion. I still notice that the train greed sickness still runs rampant at the train shows and find it amusing.I just wish that I had the plan back then that I do now to own six to eight complete train sets, a few accessories and enough rolling stock to populate the layout.

hello my name is Dave I have an addiction it is trains I cannot get enough if the postperson doesn't bring one to my house weekly I get the shakes and I cannot think straight I get confused I walk the windows looking to see if one is coming I cannot help my self I am on the computer by the hours drooling on the keyboard at the pictures of the o gauge trains in the sale boards please help me. I have to have my train fix who has one for sale

how much I'll take it send it next day air...............

It is a weird thing. Wanting more. And, truthfully, I don't really know or understand where it comes from. I have plenty. More than plenty. And right now I got a two bit bet on another box car. It's an oldie. Ready to be cleaned up and shine again. It's another piece in a collection of time when time didn't seem to move so fast.

What I do know is on the day I drop dead - somebody is going to get a big, big task to distribute or sell all of it. I'm sure I won't mind as long as they put those SF f3's in with me. If not, the deals off and I'll just keep getting more.

The only way I can answer this question is with this famous quote, "Putting me next to any O Gauge train, is like Dracula in the middle of a Blood Bank." Acquisition junkie, you bet. However, I run em. To me it is the best way to have fun, and relive my youth.

Many thanks,

Billy C

After a buying frenzy over a period of 12 years and thousands of dollars, thankfully, it ended suddenly about a year ago! I don't think I took big enough breaths between purchases! I became a habitual buyer where the "thrill" of a new engine only lasted a couple of weeks, so I'd buy another to get the thrill back. A year ago I ended up settling into a small group of engines and cars that I run all the time, leaving (shamefully) hundreds of others on the shelves and in storage. Just like my vintage guitars, hammonds, and amplifiers, they will sit, probably until I die, as I have no desire to ever sell, as everything seems to be a part of me.

My wife along with others feel I have a problem, and I guess I do. I don't know why I am like this, I am generally very happy with my life, and I don't judge others for their "quirks". No one of relevance to me has ever suffered from my buying habits. Trains, if only to look at them, make me feel good for whatever reason, even replacing my lifelong passion- playing music. There are only two engines I'd add to my collection, if they are ever made, being a VL Pennsy T1, and a pair of Baldwin Baby Faces in NYC cigar band, which I doubt will ever see production.

Remember my fellow junkies, BIG breaths!

Stack

I guess I'm like a drunk with a drinking problem who doesn't want to face it.

I don't have a train buying problem. I buy trains....no problem.

David

I'm trying to learn how to part with things so I can buy others, it's hard.

-Jay

me.

I have TAS (Train Acquisition Syndrome)

hello guys and gals........
I LOST that "KICK" few years ago when in fearing of opening box of a brand new locomotive and finding something wrong with it and ending up having to send it back for repairs. I gotten tired of doing that so i stick with ONE engine i have as i got lucky with the one i have. if i want to buy more engines, i will stick with postwar.
the woman who loves toy trains
Tiffany

Its an addiction with me, but I think a pretty harmeless one. Regardless, I don't plan to stop. As I say in my signature on this forum: "I never met a model locomotive I didn't like" and practice what I preach by buying far too many of them.

I can't wait for the new Lionel and MTH catalogs that come out soon.
I actually have no room to store even one loco, and among other things, I feel I just have to have an Orient Express! This afternoon I am measuring my train room carefully, and next week plan to remove all my train shelves and build a new set that will just barely create enough room to display 8 - maybe 12 more locos.

quote:

Originally posted by Lee Willis:
Its an addiction with me, but I think a pretty harmeless one.

I tell my wife all the time... It's not that bad... I could be into strippers and blow!

Ben

Did you ever hear of the other TCA? That is Train Collectors Anonymous.

My name is _______ and I'm a train collector. It's been ______ since my last train purchase.

quote:

Originally posted by Tiffany:
hello guys and gals........
I LOST that "KICK" few years ago when in fearing of opening box of a brand new locomotive and finding something wrong with it and ending up having to send it back for repairs. I gotten tired of doing that so i stick with ONE engine i have as i got lucky with the one i have. if i want to buy more engines, i will stick with postwar.
the woman who loves toy trains
Tiffany

Right on Tiffany, the same with me! I've kicked the habit thanks to Chinese Lionel.

I'm not a junkie. I can quit any time I want. Yeah. Right after I go pick up my new MTH Gainery, and Lionel 4141 Bush Caboose, and Coaling Station, and....

Need more Beer Reefers and then there's all those new N&W Steamers.......

IT's NOT MY FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

quote:

if i want to buy more engines, i will stick with postwar.

Really? I thought Williams items were made better

Just teasing of course.

As for me, it's an incurable disease. It's like magic. Every time I tell myself I have enough, another engine comes home with me from the train show

Joining the Glancy modular club has helped a lot. I spend more time playing with what I have and less time looking around the show.