Purchase Mismatches

Same here.  I've tried very hard not to"fall off the wagon", but had a relapse a couple of weeks ago.

Ditto. Next week I'll be posting pictures of my orphans on the Buy/Sell forum. They need to go to a nice new home. Some times it was, "gee that looks nice", or "what a great deal!". Either way if they don't fit into my N&W Steam theme, they need to be going away from here.

 

Gilly

"What a great deal" has been the bane of my existence lately as well, the will power to resist so far has held up mostly due to what I have ( the two previously mentioned units) sitting there reminding me there's a reason not to go haywire. Maybe Ill keep one around just to jog my memory.

I have to resist that temptation several times a day!

Not as frustrating as having the money.. and nothing to buy

Oh yeah. Been there, done that. I can recall many a Saturday wandering off to the hobby shop or train store “just to look.” I think there’s some unwritten rule about if you go in you must buy something. That’s how I ended up with, say,  the Northern Pacific Log Car for my B&O pike. 

 

I think we need a 12-step program for train nuts!

Back when I first got back into the hobby, I made a bunch of purchases at a local dealer's after Christmas clearance sales.  All of it was traditional Lionel that doesn't really fit my interests now (at $20/ea, they were hard to pass up ).  Some day, I plan on digging them out of the closet and either putting them on the forum for sale or taking them to York and getting a table.

 

Andy

How about this one... "I dont want to pay shipping for one car.... oh hey that one looks like a good deal!" Paying $10 to ship $40 or $50 bugs me, but if its all that I want, I sometimes end up doing this. I've just learned to find places that have more than one thing I want or to accumulate a number of items and just place one order for everything I need/want at once. I've got a couple cars that seemed like a good idea at the time. Its not that they dont fit in, its just that they're "filler cars", but I've got enough that I wanted now that I dont need filler anymore.

Impulse buying is something that I have never done much, but that then creates two
other problems for me:

1 - I have often mulled too long a good and wise (well...) purchase at a train show,
gone back to get it and, you know the rest. That frustrates me so much that I have some-
times then tracked the item down later and, of course, wound up paying more for it.

2 - Because most things I have were well-liked and considered before I bought them, I
still like them, and "thinning my collection" is therefore a very difficult thing to do.
I don't have many "what the heck did I buy that for?" items.

To paraphrase Freewheelin' Franklin: "Trains will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no trains."

My "problem" was winning a raffle and being too sentimental to sell the engine that doesn't fit with anything else on the layout.  I finally came up with an excuse though. I have a "Steam Railroading Institute" that is home to my PM 1225 and runs steam "excursions" around the layout.  I decided last month that they just "acquired" a new engine. 

 

For the most part, my extremely tight budget has prevented me for going too crazy.  Although my focus has changed somewhat, I plan on using at least 90% of what I have in some way at some point.  More than one layout is going to be pretty much a given.

 

So, to answer the original question...  Mismatches really haven't been a problem.  You can probably find a reason to operate whatever you like.  With a little creativity, you can explain pretty much any anachronism.  Well, except maybe for that Stargate...

The two times this happened to me were with a Lionel NP freight set and an Ann Arbor related book.  I saw the NP set at a show in 1999 or so and it took me 10 years to find one when I had the money to buy.  The Ann Arbor book was similar.  I saw one on e-bay and got cheap about bidding.  I didn't find another for many years.  My takeaway lessons were to get a good handle on evaluating quickly but wisely how much something is really worth to me and then pulling the trigger or not.  I end up with less regrets that way.  I also don't agonize over seeing something on my want list when there is no money for it.  There is nothing I can do at that point so I move on.

Electroliner:  See, that's what train shows were invented for; to give us a chance to peddle our mistakes.  I suspect that a good share of the stuff you see on other guys tables at York are there because it's owner has had second thoughts about having bought the stuff in the first place.

 

Speaking of which:  C'mon by my table in the Blue Hall.  I've got some really cool stuff that I sometimes wonder why I "had" to have it in the first place, including a brand new MTH "Electroliner" itself.

 

Paul Fischer

I did the samething back in the 70's and 80's i got any kind of train in HO or N scale didn't matter what road name  i model O scale in Chessie System and some mixed C&O and B&O and Western Maryland  and i try to stay in that model its much easier to keep track what to buy i almost got all the cars i need but still need to buy 5 to 6 more engines yet i be done with that in O scale i also model N scale in CSX and HO in Northfolk Southern still need to buy alot for the N scale and HO

What I have done was take photos of real freight trains on the CNW, GTW and SOO LINE years ago and find other photos of real freight trains on the CNW, GTW and SOO LINE in order to see what freight cars and locomoitves they had in common to narrow down the purchases.

 

Andrew

  I'll be retiring in a few months.  That will surely affect the train budget.  I have HO as well as O, so I figure I'll have quite a bit to keep me busy.

haha nice one!

When I first started I had to have everything. Now I'm more selective and keep it down to about 3 roads B&M being the main one and of course my tinplate. I try to stay away from the impulse buy by asking myself do I really need that? I don't believe in having shelf queens if I don't run it I don't need it. 

 

I am glad that you have been able to break the habit!  I have been in the hobby for 54 years now and although I have been able to become much more selective in my purchases, there are still times when a great new item or a really stunning paint scheme will cause my heart to race and just have to have it. 

 

Just as an example,  I have no interest in the DT&IR but the new Lionel Mikado pictures that a fellow formite posted pictures of has me thinking how that would look on my layout.

 

Good luck continuing to overcome and happy railroading,

Don