Over the past year I have read allot of posts concerning the price of our hobby. Yes it can be expensive but there are allot of deals at shows, online, right here on ogr buy/sell and many other places.
I have a few for those like myself that cannot no longer buy the scale stuff I really like. One place is Menards that has cars like these 40' gondolas also some 40' hi-cubes that are close to scale from the mpc era. Although all these have plastic trucks they all run well. Now if you want to change to diecast then that's up to you.
All the cars in the pictures cost less then $17 each new.
David, you got some great looking cars at a fair price. That’s one of the best parts of this hobby that any budget can participate and enjoy great satisfaction!!
Always looking on "the bay," got the caboose for $10, got the boxcar for $12, I will repaint and decal the caboose and give my hockey son the boxcar for Christmas.
Those early hi cubes from Lionel were really nice and I have everyone. There were 10 cars 9600-9609. They did some later on but the first ones were the ones I liked.
Btw you can still buy them today for almost the same price I paid for them in 1976-77.
With some of today's cars reaching $100 it's nice to know there are other alternatives.
Your layout should be featured in the OGR series O Gauge in a Small Space!
The best part of all those deals is the ability to acquire a multitude of consists which can easily be changed out for whatever your 'flavor of the day' happens to be.
You are absolutely right, the hobby can be as expensive or inexpensive as you choose. If you buy new Locomotives, yes, a little pricy, however if your like me, you’ll find the secondary market to be just right. The OGR FORUM. The only time I go for new is on limited edition runs, like Lionel’s Brass/Hybrid Models. Even the BTO pricing is higher than the secondary market. Great thread, Happy Railroading.
I'm just getting back into model railroading and I buy virtually everything used. I started out on E-Bay because I didn't know any better and then joined this forum. I have bought a lot of stuff here when the prices were reasonable. I cannot afford to spend $1,000 plus on a locomotive so used is my option. So I agree it can be kept reasonable. Besides I like the older stuff I can work on and repair myself. You save a lot of money that way.
If one does not have to have new or scale trains, post WW II Lionel and Marx trains can be had at reasonable prices. During the post war period these trains were owned by many and millions were made and many are still available. Fixer up cars and engines are even less expensive. I find TCA, other train clubs, large train shows and the OGR Buy/sell forum to be less expensive than eBay although the selection is better on the bay.
For operators, Marx 027 switches are inexpensive. Plasticville building and scratch built building will save lots of money too. 1950s type layout construction techniques also will save money.
Check out my OGR Post linked below, on my 1950s 027 gauge type layout with a $10 scratch built turntable and 27 Marx switches if interested.
There was a Pennsylvania Hi-Cube box car made for LOTS back in the eighties. I believe they were custom painted by the Newburgh brothers. I'm not sure about the spelling. I believe they were at the LOTS Train Show held at New Stanton PA.
I have a boxful of train stuff in my house I no longer use. I either give it away to some friends kids or sell it cheap. I'll never use it so if I get a few bucks out of it I'm happy and a hair richer without charging a ton. The people that get something from me gets a great deal and I get some room in my house. I always like to sell low so I can pass along the hobby to those who might not be able to afford todays prices.
Agreed. A lot of good postwar 'iron' still out there at reasonable prices. Even better bargains if you have some fix-'em up skills. Most of my collection is like this, a few new items, but nothing crazy. I'm happy.
Marty, I am 5 months into the hobby and slowly acquiring stuff. I am focused just about exclusively on Postwar Lionel O Gauge, because that's what we had as kids in the early 50s. My aim is to buy distressed locos, cars, motors, parts, tracks, switches, etc. at modest cost, get rid of the rust, clean them up, and figure out how to repair them, and make working sets for my grandchildren.
I don't know what you have in your magic box of train stuff. If you would email me off this board with a description of your treasures I would probably see a bunch of things I need and pay whatever price you think would be fair.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program:
I have bought cheaply a lot of "junk" on EBay on purpose, and I'm sure the sellers were happy to get something for the stuff. This junk is teaching me to turn sows ears into silk purses. I do not buy "good stuff" on EBay because I believe they charge too much, and it annoys me when sellers juice up the price with fantasy "handling and postage" charges. I have gone to a number of garage sales and estate sales. Most of the time I lose out to the dealers who get in earlier than advertised. Often, garage sale sellers think the word "Lionel" is written in gold, and you just have to be willing to walk away from a bad price. Sometimes you pay good money for a loco or a whistle tender that looks OK but is dead internally. Occasionally, you find a decent locomotive that has been neglected for over half a century with no guarantee that it runs or will ever run again, but at a decent price. That happened to me last Friday.
On Friday I drove an hour to an "estate sale" in NJ based on online photos of an old Lionel set. On close inspection, most of the stuff was rusty or broken. The tracks and switches were rusty and pitted, but this 2056 steamer looked pretty good.
I paid the seller more than he asked for but not a lot because it hadn't run since Eisenhower was president, and there was no guarantee it was anything more than a paperweight. When I got it home and touched its roller with a red clip and placed a ground, its wheels turned like a champion...a lot of friction but it worked. So when this project gets its turn I will take it apart, clean it, lube and oil it, and maybe replace the side rods and drive rods if they don't shine up well.
So it is possible to engage in this wonderful hobby at modest cost if you are disciplined and patient for the right purchase, and if you take great pleasure, as I do, in taking old broken things and making them work like new. If I can do it (and I have ZERO technical training) anyone can.
One way to reduce expense is to curb one's enthusiasm for making new acquisitions, which may entail staying off the web (specifically, venues offering trains for sale and forums like this where sponsors entice us with the latest deliveries and hobbyists brag about their latest purchases).
Not sure why the general perception seems to be that not buying brand-new equipment means running nothing but postwar and 027. I run 3rs, but I've never bought any new Lionel. It's always been the secondary market, at train shows or online, some of it NIB. New Lionel is well outside this retiree's pocketbook.
What some people pay for a new engine is about my years worth of buying used prewar (even with the repairs needed)
So I see it as buying just one new engine a year or to buy a whole lot of stuff that is easily repairable and that I could always sell it for what I paid.
Maybe one day when I win the lottery I will buy a brand new standard gauge locomotive and passenger cars
All my Marx 6" tin, plus locos are worth probably right around $300. I get a ton more play value out of the clattering tin than I would a brand new locomotive.
I currently have eight different locomotives on preorder--but all of them are HO scale, made by Rapido, including this little gem:
That doesn't leave much discretionary income for O scale, and most of what's left goes to On30, but I still find the money to buy a few things, such as a good deal on a WBB Peter Witt streetcar a few weeks back.
The next thing on my 3R list is a K-Line scale Hudson. Even when considering that I split purchases among different scales, my total budget for a year doesn't much exceed the price of a 3rd Rail/Sunset steam locomotive.
Another way to pay for things and spend less money at the same time, is by using your own time and skills (what they call "sweat equity" in real estate) and cheap (relatively) raw materials.
In other words, be a model railroader, not just a buyer of shiny choo-choos. Learn how to actually do some things, like Americans used to do all the time and as second nature - the feeling of independence is nice, too. ("Repair department? We don't need no stinkin' repair department!") Pride is part of it too: "I fixed/built that". It's not magic or only "talent" - it's just keeping at it and learning from your mistakes.
Secondly, as mentioned above, stay away from new items; the world, as we know, is full of now lower-priced scale items at 1/3 of the catalogue prices. (This does no good for Lionel, MTH and the rest, unfortunately, a fact that can come back to bite us, per future product. So give them a little business...especially parts!)
If you are patient and can avoid an impulse buy, ebay is a great source. For less than $10 each over the past year or so, I have purchased traditional sized Lionel MEC, B&M, BAR, Rutland and Reading boxcars all with diecast sprung trucks, MTH D&H horn only PAs, a Weaver D&H horn only Century C628 for less than $120 each, and a near flawless Lionel 2020 Turbine with 671W tender for less than $90. Still waiting for a bargain to appear on the Williams D&H A-A Sharks.
I haven't done this hobby on the super cheap, as there are specific things I wanted that cost some money, but I've been at it since I was a kid. I only buy scale sized stuff (except 60' passenger cars since the scale ones are too big for my layout) but I've come up with some rules/tips to keep the costs down.
1. Pick a railroad or two and stick with it. In my case I only buy locomotives for either the Santa Fe or Southern Pacific. Are there other railroads locomotives I like? Sure. But sticking to one or two railroads limits my choices and doesn't have me buying stuff willy nilly. Which brings me to my second point.
2. Only buy what fits on your layout. Every O gauge piece I own is on my layout. I have no shelves and no items sitting in boxes. If I want something it has to have a place to go on the layout. This means that on occasion I've sold some pieces to get new items. However this has kept costs low by preventing impulse buys. Plus all of my locomotives actually get run at least an hour or two a month.
3. Never buy new out of the catalog. I buy new items but only after they have been out for years. I recently bought a NIB Lionel Santa Fe F3 A-B set from 1996 (first with TMCC). I paid less than half the cost of the item new. I've bought used postwar scale size items (GP7/GP9/F3s) to restore or repaint. I've never gotten burned on them because they are bullet proof and easy to fix. I did buy a used MTH item on this forum that was advertised as perfect that ended up needing a new PS2 board, so buyer beware on newer, harder to fix items. I wouldn't shy away from used Postwar/MPC/LTI/LLC Lionel with TMCC but the MTH PS2+/Lionel Legacy stuff is another gamble.
4. Don't buy everything you see. Scour the internet and auction sites for something you really, really, want at a price you can afford. When you find it lay down the cash. Don't buy something to buy something. Run the stuff you have. Think about it. Chances are you really didn't want that shiny thing.
Now if you want a real expensive hobby take up my other hobby, cars
Imagine if Lionel and all the other manufactures folded? The Hobby would slowly die.
I don't think so. There is plenty of stuff out there for those who want it. Hobby (basement) manufacturers would fill the void.
I agree with C.W. I myself would become a basement manufacturer and start Lincoln Lines, trains made of wood, like log cabins encasing a motor and a CO2 fire suppressant system. I'd best start collecting popsicle sticks now.
Imagine if Lionel and all the other manufactures folded? The Hobby would slowly die.
I don't think so. There is plenty of stuff out there for those who want it. Hobby (basement) manufacturers would fill the void.
It's a pretty big void out there. That's pretty much the state of S scale/gauge right now. Sure, Lionel is making American Flyer, but they still haven't quite decided how they want to do it. MTH has S scale tooling but is MIA. We have one long-term manufacturer left: American Models, who has been consistent (although not exactly a ball of fire) with products and support for 33 years. All the rest are "basement" or "cottage" industries. It's a rough hobby life requiring some fortitude to stick with it.
Being new if you think S scale is tough try O scale pre- war. There is no support out there from the hobby stores. They are driven by staying open (survival) among the chain box stores to the online giants, hover items are in, trains out. I was just in a mom and pop store today and they claim Lionel driven by non-train owner ship no longer listens or cares. If you need a part for a customer being an authorized dealer you have to send the need to authorized part dealer (am told just 1 in Michigan). So depending on the situation you could get a new item something happens and you may not be able to use your set for months. So how do you get a non- warranty repair in a timely fashion? The largest train store in Mi told me they don't even work on pre-war A.F and had no where to send me.
Now I did find a Lionel part supplier that carried say 40 Pre and Post war A.F. parts thankfully the wheels and axles.. The cottage way is the only way for old stuff. But a realist knows you have to have new cars to get antiques someday. Future train collectors are out there they just need a spark. There also need to be tutors like many of you are to encourage. With the trend in houses being smaller I think the future will be smaller gauges, but there will be a few out there that will graduate into the S and maybe even the older than that.
I came into Scale O fairly late from HO and N. If I needed it to be inexpensive, I'd simply go back to those scales. I had a great HO layout as a kid and spent a lot time on the workbench, kit-bashing, custom building, and custom painting my trains. I could go to a swap meet and walk out with lots of trains for $100. However, the lure of high quality O scale product has me hooked. I didn't grow up with Lionel and don't have the appreciation for it that many do. I grew up around real trains and expect mine to look like them. To each their own. That's what makes the hobby interesting.
3D printing may change the industry in many ways. One way is with respect to these old parts.
A scanner can image any part, which can then be reproduced with a 3D printer (how Jay Leno is copying parts for 100 year old motorcars). Even now, basic 3D printers are available at local libraries. Perhaps the classic American Flyer fans and pre-war Lionel fans will form a network to share the 3D images of needed parts, which can then be printed off locally. It will be interesting to see what developments are ahead!
Hey Dave, here is my (mostly son's) first attempt at making something. The originals are quite rare and brittle. I have shot these over 30 feet. Also with a little chemistry been able to reinforce so they are less brittle.
I buy all ranges of things new and used. But my best way to stretch my train dollars is to buy things which are either visibly broken or advertised as not working. It is amazing to me how cheap scale articulated locomotives are which have dead electronics or simple mechanical issues. As an example, I bought a used brass UP Greyhound Challenger (4-6-6-4) last year for less than $300. It was advertised as only running in reverse. The issue was that one of the main rod guides was missing. For a couple of dollars worth of brass channel I made a new one and it has run perfectly ever since. The main advantage I get from this is that I get lots of practice fixing things which helps me keep my fleet running. Repairs also expand my confidence in the next purchase where I often go even lower on the price scale to tackle more complex issues.
I once rebuilt a Flyer log loader with PlayDough molds and epoxy and got a great working accessory for just a few bucks!
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