what is one train you wished you did not buy?

Out of all my engines this one, it's very large and larger than even a scale engine. It does have that sweet Lionel smell when it gets warmed up though. I just bought it on an impulse due to the low price I paid for it. Now I think my purchases through before I buy. In general it's a great engine and one of the last U.S. made engines. I just regret it because it stands out of all my other engines and the equipment that I use.

Thankyou, sir, on both counts!

FrankM.

Geeze, Don, I thought my Challenger was a (_______fill in the blank...) but your Dreyfus sounds like a disaster! And you're such a nice guy, where's the justice!
FrankM.

THE FIRST ONE !  

I have to nominate MTH's Fall 1995 catalog offering of their MT-2124 Gas Turbine.  It has PS 1 boards with 4 can motors so it can't be upgraded to Protosound 2 economically and the use of "white noise" to attempt to simulate the sound of a gas turbine is ridiculous.  Well, if you run 2124 slowly for hostler purposes in the yard, the sound of the small diesel motor at least covers up some of the white noise. I understand that later MTH gas turbines have a sound file recorded from an Abrams tank which should be a reasonably decent simulation but for whatever reason, that file isn't compatible for loading on PS 1 boards.  

Frank, just ain't fair. Want to buy some brass? Don 

The Acela.

The Lionel Mohawk (with the smoke deflectors).

Both trains were a maintenance nightmare and stayed in the repair shop.

Scott Smith

Acela - too slow.

GM train of the future thing, the engine won't pull the cars.

Coors train - what to do with it? They don't even sell Coors in China!

Weaver first run FA-2: Looks good, and I suppose it's okay for 2-rail, but doesn't make it as 3-rail. It was B&O, which is a weakness of mine.

Williams Dash-9.  It was my first non-Lionel purchase.  Runs great and will pull tree stumps, but extremely lacking in the detail department.  I bought new UP decals, some detail parts, and started stripping the paint.  It now sits on a shelf with 1/3 of the paint stripped, and I have no interest in completing it.  I will most likely sell it.

While not O gauge, my second is an Athearn N scale Challenger.  It was a complete impulse purchase and I'm sure I'll sell it soon as well.

The Lionel Alaska RR Alco FA pair they did a couple years ago.  Nice paint scheme, but they ran like crap.  Lubed them properly, checked everything, etc.  I wasn't about to rebuild the motor on a brand-new $275 locomotive, so back they went.

What a long list...but I can't  blame the equipment. Most of my poor decisions have been bad because of my misguided plans, not because of a bad performing engine.

Right now I have several mistakes I'd like to sell, the most notable being an Atlas O 2-rail SP RSD-12. I also have an On30 Bachmann 4-6-0 and 2-8-0 that I'm ready to unload.

My biggest 3-rail mistake was a Williams Dreyfuss Hudson, but it's gone.

Jeff C

Thanks for your generous offer, Don, but I'm not up to the challenge. Maybe when I am older and more mature, lost 50lbs. and have run the NYC Marathon all the way through, and have given up ice cream altogether. And pizza, too.

A Lionel Dash 8 diesel engine. This engine was the add-on engine to Lionel's Norfolk Southern service set ( the set with 4 trailers on flatcars and a red caboose that smokes. set box is black and white with no pictures). On the rear motor, the motor has come out of the motor holder( it was made of cheap plastic) The other problem with the engine is the die cast truck frames has crumbled into pieces. If I had of know of MTH during the time I brought this engine (1994), I would have brought a MTH engine instead!!!

Down to two:

Among recent locos, a very nice Railking PS3 0-6-0.  It's a good little loco, but not scale.  Wish I had bought a scale 0-6-0 instead, as the RK looks just a bit out of size next to my scale 0-4-0 and 0-8-0 locos.

Another "initial" poor purchase was an unpowered Atlas Seaboard Air Line GP9, just had to have it being it was Seaboard.  After a couple of months I realized I had no need for an unpowered unit and was lucky enough to get a RailKing F3 with PS2 for around $110.  I gutted the F3 and moved the electronics into the GP9, ending up with a fine running engine.  I wanted a GP7 and was more or less told I better get the GP9 while I could because there were no plans for the GP7, which became available shortly thereafter

One more not so wise purchase was an unpowered Williams E7.  I stripped/repainted it into a Seaboard unit, but again decided I didn't need an unpowered unit.  I bought the power kit, then the ERR Cruise Commander, then the MRC AC Sounder.  After I got it almost to where I wanted it 3rd Rail comes out with my dream engine, a Seaboard E7   which I bought.  I later compared the 2 and found what I spent on the Williams E7 was just about equal to what the ready-to-run 3rd Rail E7 cost.  If I factor in the labor involved to get the Williams unit close to the 3rd Rail unit I spent way more $$$ for a lesser engine.

Since then I've gutted the Williams E7 and moved the electronics into my RailKing RS3 (original Locosounds) making it a fine running engine.  I reused the original RS3 speaker on the MRC AC Sounder and it sounds great, nice and loud.

I'll never buy another unpowered unit, unless it's something that is so inexpensive I'd be crazy not to.

Club cars/sets from TCA, LCCA, LOTS, TTOS, etc.  At one time I had the TCA Williams silver GG1 set, the TCA Lionel 1776 passenger set, the Lionel baby Hudson passenger set and others.  All gone now, thankfully.

I do have a few Lionel Pennsy club cars but they are mainly PRR decorated and as such add to my PRR by Lionel collection (my justification). 

Three or four years ago a K-line Santa Fe ABA and 5 passenger cars. Never have run them, What was I thinking? I have absolutely no use for it. I only go after military trains and trains that run or have run in the south. At the time I think it was the colors red, yellow and silver that got my attention, stupid when I think about it.

All the Century Club 1 &2 including all the box cars. What a waste of money. Could have just thrown the money in the toilet and avoided the aggravation

tcox009  i have a Rock Island northern it is not a bad runner.  mind does a good job.  

Count me stupid as well. I'm a complete sucker for color schemes. Hence I am up to my eyeballs in neat looking cars that have never run.

It was the POS DC power Lionel set Santa brought the sons in 1983, based on the brand and childhood experience.  Oy vey.  Only part worth keeping might have been the O27 track, but the whole deal found the trash kind of quick.  Ugh.  So crappy that it took me twenty five years, until 2008, to recover enough to take a chance on a Polar Express set which turned out to be actually good.  Now I have a cute little constantly morphing setup in the garage, but I still resent that garbage set.

Pete

i guess that would be my old k-line s2 the early lehigh valley paint scheme suckered me in. it pulls ok i guess but it runs rough and jerky and LOUD! not even my MPC gp's can touch it noise wise. i bought a bang in  bethlehem steel colors and i must say RMT did a great job improving these.

Dave

I have seen several posts that list the Acela, let me just say the best time in my train collecting life was buying the Acela. 

My second best time was trading it off. It was by far my worst experience in O gauge. I traded the entire 6 car set for a legacy Berkshire, I never looked back. 

The best thing that came out of it was getting my first legacy steam engine. Just the first of many others. 

MTH NS SD80 MAC trucks kept on getting to hot and shorting out engine, happened twice from NIB.  Sent back to hobby shop replaced did it again sent it back for refund.

LIONEL Mohawk with smoke deflectors, runs to slow.

quote:

Lionels remake of the

Union pacific

 Anniversary set.

The powered FA runs like a dog

and I have stripped 3 powered gears

in that locomotive.

it sits on the shelf

Which one? Lionel marketed an 027 UP passenger set in 1994, and then again recently.

The two scale Lionel steamers I bought at a reasonable discount..., and then were blown out at about half of what I paid...., and then were superseded by Legacy versions. Thanks, Lionel.  

Ken

Sometimes I regret buying them all.

Having read all these woebegone stories, I am reminded of another locomotive I had disdained, though I had forgotten about, since its presence on the layout was short-lived - just a couple days of wasted hope.

The offending party was a TMCC scale Lionel Sante fe A-B-A, which is something I had pined for since childhood in the 50s. (My intention was to make it an A-B-B-B-A, eventually.) I had bought a new set which had the B-unit powered. Every time the poor A-B combo was powered-up, it would wiggle and pant there, not moving, like a chihuahua desperately trying to get outside to pee but found its way unbarred. The A-B would grind its teeth and shiver but go nowhere, so I took it right back to the LHS who immediately replaced it with the same locomotive but in PRR livery.That one worked and still takes its ease around the pike.

So, instead of regret, I had pity and some satisfaction.

FrankM.

The Lionel 634 AT&SF switcher back when I was about 14 years old!  What a joke... and the paradigm for Lionel's infamous one wheel drive.  Last was the Lionel 2340 red five GG1 in CC config.  Couldn't be fixed for all the tea in China, returned to dealer and traded for freight cars.  I've had some pretty bad HO scale steamers over the years too, a lot of 'em brass.  Lotsa Chooch junk out there, a lot of it coming from people you'd never expect!   OF course the prototype builders are no different, with the Baldwin Centipedes and GE U 25 series Diesels taking the cake!

I'm actually looking for a few items from Century Club II. Email me if you'd like to sell any of it.

The two scale Lionel steamers I bought at a reasonable discount..., and then were blown out at about half of what I paid...., and then were superseded by Legacy versions. Thanks, Lionel.

 

I never let blow out sales upset me. Either the engine was worth the money when you bought it or it wasn't. A future blowout does not effect the way I feel. You buy trains just like you buy a computer; you buy them for what they do for you now. If they function the same as they were made to do when you bought them and you bought them at the price you thought they were worth then don't look back. If I paid $1500.00 for an engine and later they get blown out and other people buy the same engine for $800.00-Good for them.I hope they get all the enjoyment I do with mine and wish no ill will to the person who got the deal or to the company that blew them out.

Scott Smith

Oh, it's happened, you just don't know it yet!

What, me worry?

I bought the MTH Scale 6900 BN SD60 Premier with PS1 used from a train shop, and up to then, more money than I had ever spent on a single engine.  They were considered collectable and bought it for more than it retailed.  Bloody nose and strobe light, I had to have it.  I took it home and had many issues with it.  I now know the issues must have been tied in with a bad battery scrambling the board, but back in the late 90's, I do not believe the battery issue was advertised.  The engine went back and fourth to MTH many times, it would work then break down again.  I do not remember it ever running reliability. My dad had the same engine in NS road and it worked like a champ and was very reliable.   Frustrating purchase...  Still have it today still in its box (it is never run).

A Rail King Alleghany it has 6 wheel trailing trucks and is a long distance from the rear driver to the end of the cab. The overhang is so bad it hits a bridge and I'm not taking out the bridge so its in its original box.

I have bought several expensive engines that are now going for 1/3 of what I paid and I'm not going to sell it for that so I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

My layout is my last one, I plan to keep it for the duration.

Bill,

Now that's an idea on how to resuscitate a loser!  I have a pre-PS-1  GG-1 out for upgrade.  I may do this one next.

Thanks

Chris

That first run of Atlas RS1 had no low speed capability, making it almost useless. They later added EOB and things got better.  Still had the wrong engine sound 244 vs 539. The MTH is better in a lot of ways, but has lousy looking truck sideframes, which I replaced with FA2 frames.