Selling it all? Possibly

No longer in 3-rail but my advise to you is avoid storage fees and sell off the entire collection. You'll most likely feel very different about your train collection 10 years from now so its just not worth keeping it for any valid reason and you and your son(s) will get over it. Trust me 10 years is a very long time especially when living in another country with a different way of life, environment, customs, etc.

If you are like many here, few of your accumulation of trains hold sentimental or emotional value, let alone value based on collectability.  Keep those special few items--take them with you and display them--and sell the rest.

 

Ten years from now your current trains may be electronically and/or feature-wise obsolete in your opinion.  All the more reason to sell the ubiquitous items now.

 

Use the $$$ you'd pay for storage for a new "train fund" or otherwise.

 

For your "train fix," join a model RR club in Australia and maintain contact with this forum and friends you made/make here.

 

Best wishes for you and your family.

I say dump it.  Honestly, it's a hobby that you can no longer accommodate, and why let it become a boat anchor collecting dust and bills in a storage facility while you are embarking on a new chapter in your life. I suppose if there's a special piece, save it as a display item.  Otherwise, dump it. In 10 years the world will change. Interests change. You might still like O gauge and maybe the engines and control systems will be even more amazing than today.  Or you might like HO or Golf.  

 

Peter 

Sell it all….!!! and if you decide to come back to the hobby.   I'm sure there will be train gear that you will be just as excited about when you got out..!!!

I was in your shoes a number of years back.  However, I was overseas for only a year and my employer paid for storage so I kept everything.  Ten years is a long time.  I wouldn't take anything if I was going for that length of time.  

 

Australia has a wonderful model railroad community.  You may want to try something totally different while you are there.

 

I recommend that you sell your American trains and take a look at what is available in Australia.  

 

Joe

It's a 3000 with official racing records from the 1960 Le Mons.   It's been in the family since 1965.   It's a right hand drive (the proper way!).   

 

The 1966 GT350 is personally signed by Carol Shelby and is 1 of the 11 with a Paxton Super charger.   I inherited it from my uncle who lived in Indianapolis and owned a Ford dealership in the 1960's.   My uncle got it as a gift from Carol Shelby in 1966 for most sales of Shelby Mustangs in 1966.   He kept it garaged until it was willed to me in 1984.  I'm the registered 1st owner since the car was never sold.   :-)  Kinda fun since I was born in 1967 to be the first owner of a car made in 1966!   

 

Anyway....   neither car will ever be sold.   They will be kept forever in the family!   Unlike trains....   these 2 cars are "real" investments.   Tho at this point an investment that can't ever be parted with.

 

 

Both of those Automobiles have some seriously awesome Automotive Heritage behind them.  If I owned either one, I would never let them leave the family, except to maybe be added to an Automotive Museum such as for example: The Indy 500 or The Corvette Museum.

 

Thanks for sharing the background on them.  That is just too cool.

To expand on Pingman's comment about the future of electronics and features in trains:  Maybe in ten years we will be running on battery power with radio control, and the whole three rail concept will be looked down upon as passe.  Who knows?

Maybe in ten years we will be running on battery power with radio control, and the whole three rail concept will be looked down upon as passe.

I think that time is closer than you think.  SOP for Outdoor G Scale.  Lot's of interest in the HO and On30 community too.

 

If I was starting this hobby today and not already heavily invested in DCS... all my new stuff would be run by lithium battery using the Crest RC system. 

http://www.crest-electronics.net/

 

Ron

 

 

I offer a slightly contrarian view from what has been said.   I have collected trains for most of my 70 years, however my interest has waxed and waned throughout my life.  When I retired I decided to go on a long sailing voyage (5 years now).  I sold the house, furniture and lots of stuff. Some went to storage for the eventual return.  At the time I had been in an off period with trains, but was not ready to give up the hobby, so I decided to downsize my collection by about 1/3 and put the rest in climate controlled storage.  I had a lot of stuff that I spent decades tracking down.  What I decided to put in storage was very carefully packed.

 

To my surprise I have rekindled a very strong interest in trains over the years that they have been in storage.  This forum may have a lot to do with it. The last two years, while visiting family for the holidays, I have pulled some trains out of storage and did a carpet central layout and got into command control.  I really enjoyed it.  I have now brought some engines to the boat to convert to command.  I am so glad that I did not sell out my collection when I was tempted.  I regret much of what I sold in downsizing, though selling some of the PS-1 engines was a good move.  I have not gone to the far side of the world as the original poster plans, so that might make a difference. 

 

Bill

Question about engines that have batteries, if you remove the battery will the electronics keep whatever info there is in its memory?  For how long?  I wouldn't store an engine with a battery in it, unless the data would be lost otherwise.

 

Trevize, I'd sell the cars and retire on the $$$ they'd bring, no need to go to Australia then except for vacation.

Maybe you'd like to downscale to N or Z and take it with you?

I will have to agree with Marty. I had to sell of my layout the last two years getting ready for a move from Ohio to the coast of NC. In Ohio we had a basement and all was good. New house on coast = no basement. The layout had to go after 25 years. As I looked at it brought back many memories of working on the layout with our trusty Golden Retriever laying beside me. He is long gone now, but not the memories.

 

Running trains with the kids. Daughter not too much but the boy was a different story. We had the first operating helicopter MTH came out with. I can not tell you how many flights that helicopter took. He loved going down there and trying to catch it before it hit or landed on anything. Running the handcars and gang cars around being chased by the engines with horns blaring. 

 

Long story short, out of 30 engines and over 200 cars. I kept 3 engines and 16 cars that meant the most to me. Those few still bring back the good times and mighty sweet memories. I guess you can say, they are priceless now.

 

Hopefully yours will too.

 

Gene

My trains went into storage when I was about 15 and stayed there until I got married 13 years later. Then I started on a buying binge and had a small 5 x 9 layout in the basement. Most of everything that I purchased stayed in boxes until we move to our new home. Then the buying binge continued still with the 5 x 9' layout and one loop while raising two boys, working hard and having little time for trains. It wasn't until 13 years ago that I finally had the time to build the train room and start construction of my dream layout. Now that layout is 95% complete and I am running six sets and finally taking stuff out of boxes. It can be said that most of my trains remained in storage at my moms house and in an unfinished basement for 30 years of my life. You never outgrow your needs for trains!

 

Lots of talk about what it's "worth" - to other people. "Dump" it. Uh-huh. What's it worth to the only one who counts - you? Who knows the future of model RR'ing? You don't, I

don't, but I guarantee you that no on else here knows that either.

 

But, if you're going, and you aren't crying for the money (and you probably aren't), how

about choosing a half dozen display locos/special cars to take with you and putting the rest in  storage in the States -temporarily- (a year?) until you get the lay of the land professionally and emotionally, then decide what to do with them. I'm sure that there will be the odd trip back every so often, and by then you will almost certainly know what you want to do with them.

 

I would think that you have more important issues on your mind right now.

 

Also, jet-packs never happened, and neither will home-printed, interplanetary-controlled

2-8-8-2's, either. Besides, run them the way you'd like. The iPhone will disappear long before the Z4000.

In the past 6 months I found it necessary to whittle my collection down to a few pieces.  I wasn't moving nor did I lose my love of trains but I just wanted to simplify some things in my life and one of the things that I chose to simplify was my collecting. 

 

I carefully chose a few sets, some locos, cars, accessories, etc that I really wanted to keep and everything else was liquidated pretty quickly.  Although I’m still in the process of clearing things out, I found out a few things about myself and my collecting.

1. I didn't need so many pieces to be content in the hobby.
2. I found that I loved the pieces I kept more than I thought I did.   Because of this, I was taking care of them better, running them more often and just really enjoying the heck out of them more than I ever had before.
3. I found that I never regretted selling most of my collection.  After I passed the original emotions of being upset of getting rid of lots of things, I asked myself “what was the big deal of holding onto so much?”  I've never felt better about it and I never thought about it since.
4. Because I didn't have so many pieces to take care of, I had lots more time for other exciting things within my life.

Trevize, I hope you make the best possible decision for you and your family and all the best in Australia.

Trevize,

 

You talk about multiple moves in the next 10 years, will these all be in Australia, or do you plan on bouncing all over the world?

 

Are you shipping any household goods? If so, adding a few more boxes into a container isn't really a big deal.

 

I agree with the storage thoughts.  Putting trains into climate controlled storage for 1, 2, and maybe 3 years is doable, but 10 years is an incredibly long time. 

 

I agree wholeheartedly with the thought to take a few of your favorite trains (or at least engines) with you.  You appear to have a large collection of 3rd Rail engines, many of which, if you sell, may be extremely difficult to replace.

 

If you are shipping a container to Australia and plan on living there for the next 10 years, my suggesting would be to take a couple of your trains and a couple of your son's trains with you.  Also, take enough O-72 fasttrack to easily set-up (and take down) a carpet layout. 

 

At the very minimum, I would suggest that you pick out your favorite one or two engines and get a nice roller display case (like John has suggested).  This would take up virtually no room, still allow you to enjoy a couple of your engines, and would make for a great conversation piece when any new Australian train buddies come over to visit!

 

It's a very personal decision that you will have to make.

 

If I were to consider such a move at this point in my life, with our daughter grown, I would probably take my SGL Reading G3 passenger set, my 3rd Rail Train of Tomorrow, my 3rd Rail B&O T-3 (with a roller base), and some O-72 fasttrack.  Everything else, I would sell.

 

Best of luck to you and your family, it sound like a great adventure for all!

 

Jim

Trevize, given what you have stated about your personal circumstances, selling everything looks to me to be the best possible option.  But, prepare to let it go cheap.  Based on what I'm seeing, you will be lucky to get 60% of the original list price.  I'd be curious as to how you are going to go about selling everything.  Are you planning on piecemealing it away on the Buy / Sell board? E-Bay?  Consignment?  One of the independent auction houses or resellers?  

 

I've traveled down to Australia several times since 1995 on business.  Can't say I share your fascination with the place, but everybody has different tastes and opinions.  Contact me off list if you would like to chat, or want some contacts of modelers down there that you can chat with if you want to involve yourself in with local modelers, most of whom model North American prototypes.  

 

Regards,

Jerry

 

 

 

Sell them. Why even have then hanging out there for eight years?  One less thing to think about.   Just get rid of them.  They are only toys, and there are always other toys when you have your sandbox again. 

Trevize:

 

Sounds like you're thinking this through. You're receiving some very good input. (Like the investment input.)  You'll make the decision that is right for your circumstances.

 

IF you still want trains, regardless of the format, sounds like you're a good candidate for "V scale", or "virtual scale".  That is, computer simulation.  All that takes is space for a decent PC.  There are several ways to go in V scale:

 

* Microsoft Train Simulator - The core program was released over 10 years ago, however it still remains one of the most prolific and stable platforms. There are literally thousands upon thousands of free items for this program. It has been upgraded by the user community to the point of still holding its own.

 

* Open Rails - An open source simulator still in development that is backwards compatible with Microsoft Train Simulator. The Open Rails development team releases new versions almost weekly as this sim continues to develop. Many have already left Microsoft Train Simulator as the core program to run their Microsoft Train Simulator routes (layouts) and use Open Rails instead.  Open Rails is very promising and is in continual development.

 

* Railworks - Very pretty (looks good), easy to dabble with, but lacks prototypical considerations such as train handling physics, signal logic, "artificial intelligence" trains, etc.  Also, can get costly seeing as most of the add-ons for it are payware.

 

* Trainz - Currently undergoing yet another upgrade, but still command quite a following. Trainz has been said to be like model trains in virtual. That is, nice to look at, the virtual trains handle easily (less exacting physics), and a layout can be made fairly simply. Excellent artificial intelligence capabilities. Lots of add-on content available for the various versions, both free and commercial. Downside is the downloading nightmare the parent company puts the end user through.

 

There is a learning curve with all the platforms, but once you spend a bit of time learning this n' that... the world really is your oyster. My latest V scale project is recreating the Central Pacific's Donner Pass line, circa 1869, from Colfax to Truckee using Microsoft Train Simulator's route building editors!

 

V scale is the CHEAPEST way to indulge in the train hobby there is!!  Once set up with a good PC, and perhaps some supporting programs (if you want to learn to build your own structures, routes, engines, rolling stock, etc.), then your main investment will be your hobby time.  Once up and going not much else is required!

 

Best of luck to you and your family.

 

 

If I were you I'd seriously take Serenskas' advice. He truly has probably the best "plan"  The only second obvious action to take is keep just 3 or so engines; three or so cars and sell the rest.

 As others have said......that saves any worries......storage bills to pay.....insurance.....theft.............sell 'em ( perhaps ALL)  - take the money and save it in a special train account -  then go hang out with Dave Allen!

 

I'd would talk to Dave Allen. Because he will know the O gauge scene in Aus. I seam to remember Dave posting pics of his clubs layout.

 

So if your moving to his part of Aus or an area he knows that has a club you could keep some pieces to run on a club layout.

 

Nick

I agree with Lee Willis.   Sell all of them. They are only toys that can be replaced if and when.

I wish I had sold my older 50 and 60's Lionel trains before our move to the islands. Much harder to sell here plus shipping is higher. If I knew I couldn't have a layout I would do what others have suggested. Keep maybe three engine you really like. Buy one of those glass displays and set it on a shelf. Rotate the engines in and out when you feel like it. Don

I think the real subject matter here is about change. And how a person deals with the change that there presented with.  Also whether or not the person is accepting change.

Who are you going to sell it to? all the old guys like me have everything they want and buy little anymore. Their shelves are full, their layout is full, and they already have more stuff stored away. And young people don't care about model trains.

I've heard of people listing desirable trains on eBay with a low starting bid and no bids.

Battery power?  Radio control?  Three rails passe?  I predict model railroading will be dominated by holography in ten years.  Can you imagine the flexibility and efficiency?  Those that want to enjoy the hobby year-round will have an holographic layout in any scale, and those that only want to run around the holidays will select the option to have a train running around their holographic Christmas tree.  Throw away the liquid smoke and lubricants!

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?

 

 

  

It's all in the art of merchandising.  eBay may not even be an option, depending on how many items Trevize has to sell and how much time remains before he moves

 

 

 

 

What, me worry?.

Another possibility is to just pack most of it and plan to sell it in Australia. North American models are harder to come by (shipping, customs, etc) there but they are reasonably popular. Any power supplies I would sell here because of the incompatibility. I would think that they could be off-loaded relatively easily as your selling price would likely be much much less than they could buy from the States. This way you don't have to worry about trying to downsize this stuff right now along with everything else you have to do for this move.

 

Peter

1.  the most important sentimental items you list here are your Wife and Children.

2. Enjoy your journeys they will be life experiences you will treasure

3. SELL EM ALL, and place the funds in a dedicated train fund

4. In 10 years or so when you ready to jump back in the technology will change and there will be plenty of new toys out there for you to get and enjoy.

just my opinion...

 

Unless it might be a childhood present treasured because of who gave it to you, if not, to be honest, I would keep one train for under the Christmas tree and dispose of the rest! It's just stuff, and at some latter date when you move back home, you can enjoy the thrill of the hunt all over again!

Sell everything.  You have the right idea.  You might find a new hobby and soon forget about trains.  How about crocodile hunting?  I hear they are very prevalent in Australia.

 

Who are you going to sell it to? all the old guys like me have everything they want and buy little anymore.

 

You don't really believe this do you?

 

Ron

 

 

I've been going to the local train shows lately and from what I can see the hobby is at a transition point. The new stuff is certainly up there in price, caters to the select big bucks audience (that still wishes to spend) but I see older trains selling at rock bottom prices. If you decide to sell you must answer the question of to whom will they sell to and how much will they sell for?  If you can answer this question then it will guide you to keep and store or sell. I have a large collection and believe me, if I ever decide to sell they will sell for less than half of what I paid for them 10 -20 years ago. In a few years they will be worth less than that. Prices are caving and the market is flooded with trains.

I have a large collection and believe me, if I ever decide to sell they will sell for less than half of what I paid for them 10 -20 years ago. In a few years they will be worth less than that. Prices are caving and the market is flooded with trains.

 

I agree with you Dennis.  I think model trains are like cars.  They are not all collectables.  Some lose value the minute you buy them.  What makes them valuable is the popularity vs the availability.

 

If people are buying them brand new with the expectation of selling them for the same price or more 20 years from now they are living a pipe dream.

 

Ron

 

I've done some periodic purges of my trains.  Sometimes I've sold in bulk to a dealer, other times at a swap table. 

 

Profit isn't a motive.  I price them so I don't have to take them back home.

 

Rusty

Be careful if you take up crocodile hunting.  You can be eaten.  

 

 

My current thoughts.

 

At present I've reached out to places like trainz.com for quotes on the entire collection.   I've finally finished the inventory of engines, cars, and accessories.   I have not inventoried the track and there's a LOT of atlas track.   The track is mostly 40' flex and #5 switches.   I've also got boxes upon boxes of parts..   I feel I'm going to be inventorying stuff for ages.   Things like un-opened Kadee 805's packets by the box load!   

 

Anyway, my present thought is to sell the bulk to a place like trainz.   I'm happy to send the excel spreadsheet out to anybody wanting to take a look.  1 of my problems is I long ago threw away most the boxes.  Only boxes I kept were the 3rd Rail boxes and a handful of other engine boxes.  At this point don't get too excited (yet!)  The final decision to actually sell hasn't been made.   I trying to be very pragmatic about it and doing the math of storage vs moving it to Australia and storing it vs selling.   There's a bottom line figure I need from places like trainz.com before I decide.  

 

Also, I really like all the ideas presented about selling and making a train fund for future use.   Honestly, I've already had my own thoughts on that.   If I sell, I'm going to reinvest in my astronomy hobby and upgrade my telescope.   Astronomy is awesome in Australia and telescopes are very portable (unlike O gauge trains).   The rest of the money would go to moving and kids college.   If someday I do get back into building a layout, I'll likely do HO as I will (sadly) inherit my father's HO Santa Fe stuff before I retire.  His HO layout is enormous (80x60 basement) and is a premier stop for HO guys who do layout tours.  He's got the entire Raton pass modeled.   It's an amazing layout.   He even has a Prairie Class!  :-)  Anyway....   that's my present state of mind.

 

 

OK Trevize......here is PLAN C.....  sell all  your trains NOW!  take the funds and have a special run made of Aquarium Crocodile cars to take to Australia to sell for even greater profit...

       .....or maybe not (lol)

 

Get this man a burger!

 

 

Seriously though, when I was in the USAF I collected N scale boxcars. Displayed but did not run them. Got to move? They all fit in one suitcase....