For those of you out there who own many engines, what percent of those engines do actually run? I'm just curious.
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100% out of between 15-20 engines (haven't counted recently and I've added a couple since last time)
100%!!!!! If and when anything "breaks down" or has "issues", I put it asside and fix it the next day. NOTHING I have ever sits around "busted"!
100%, but I only have 4 engines at the moment I have two on the main and two in sidings at all times, and I have room for two more in the sidings. So until I get to six engines, I run them all.
Note that I will probably have more than 6 engines before I know what happened......
Then I'll have to choose or build more trackage.
-Eric
<EDIT> In case I misinterpreted, they are all currently in running condition. Two days ago it was more like 75%. This aspect apparently varies based on my karma any given moment.
I have around 30-35, and AFAIK, they all run. I will say that sometimes when I put one on the tracks, I find some little thing isn't working right, I usually open it up and fix it.
of the few I have two don't run one is just a shell and the other has no motor inner workings (steam dummy) I can still have it pushed around so it looks like a "lash up"
♦♦<Retired&Broke RR>♦♦
all of my 15 run. Whether it's pre war, post war or modern.
I have about 50 engines, but who's counting, and they all run.
Bruce "Lucky" Vincelette
I have 18. 2 pre-war, 4 post-war, 3 TMCC, the rest basic coventional stuff of no great value. They all work, except the mainspring on my Hornby wind-up is a bit shot.
Having a expensive engine that did not work would depress me, so I avoid them.
Lionel engines and locomotives - 100% run
MTH - 35% run
TEX
Steve
Lionel engines and locomotives - 100% run
MTH - 35% run
TEX
Steve
Lionel fan?
11 out of 12 run..All MTH and one Beep. One MTH McDonalds F-40 that I bought used was damaged in shipping and it's my only shelf queen.
As of now, I have 8 Railking Proto2 engines all vary from Railking Rugged Rails to Railking/Railking Scale and Imperial. All are run, about equal which isn't very much as I rarely run my trains. Included in that 8 is an MTH Subway set which sees almost no use and sits in a box most of the year. I also have 2 conventional engines but don't run them either.
100% out of between 15-20 engines (haven't counted recently and I've added a couple since last time)
Actually, now that I think of it. I do have one postwar 2037 mechanism in my workbench drawer (the shell is a decoration for my locomotive maintenance shop yard) that we bought as a parts donor for my grandpa's 2037. Ran fine when we got it, but the sentimental value of my grandpa's was more important to me and the donor engine. The engine was cheaper (at about $30) than the parts I took off of it would have been separately. I could always put it back together if I wanted, but probably won't happen.
I've got one engine waiting for parts (my fault), and one that loses it's TMCC signal, and I just haven't had a day to look at it. Everything else, from a 1932 #262 to a 1938 #238E to my Post War Berks, Hudsons, and K-5's up to my TMCC/Odyssey engines all work like a charm.
And all of my accessories and operating cars work too!
Jon
Out of 6 engines, 3 post war, 3 modern all are 100% working condition. If I discover one is out of service of it's own choosing, it gets repaired asap so it can be called up if needed at any time.
I have 122 Postwar Lionel locomotives (not including motorized units) I assume most of them run...I have not used them in awhile.
I have 35 MTH PS2 locomotives all run but two have bad sound boards.
BT
All of my MTH PS2/3 engines run fine. A couple of newer ones with the crappy printed-on flywheel strips have needed to have "tapes" put on to get them up to snuff.
I still have some old 5-volt engines that run great after 2000+ miles.
The only ones that are not in running condition are my two Marx engines from the 50's/60's. They need to be restored. Everything else I have was in running condition the last time I checked.
I have probably over 100, some are very old from my childhood, and everything gets track time. I certainly have favorites that get a lot more time than others, and I don't run my old locos regularly. Now that I'm enjoying command control, they are getting more time at the moment. But, when the new Train Engineer and PS3 boards become available, most of my conventional locos will get upgraded.
All my locos run and run well. 100%.
I have a lot of engines and most get run occasionally, might be a few years in between. I tend to run newer rather than postwar although I have two postwar GP-7 or 9 on the tracks right now double headed repainted to Southern Pacific. Railking gets run the most.
Its a lot easier to buy stuff for that future layout than to build one.
Now that I am reduced to a small layout I guess I would use only around 5-10%. A 9x16 round-the-room attic layout is too small for long passenger trains or double-headed steamers or lashed-up diesel freights where the combined engines are nearly as long as their consist. I also have 5 or 6 articulated locomotives that will now only be fired up on the layout for photo ops.
Due to age and health issues I dismantled my 5-track 14x32 operation at our mountain cottage in 2/08 and my 13x23/8x12 benchwork layout upstairs here in the Condo 10/09. Lot of "cold iron" sitting on railrax or boxed now.
I am a Southern Ry/N&W modeler and was thinking last night that I can run the famous Washington to Memphis "Tennessean" as my only passenger train and still utilize many locomotives for a single trip: Southern Streamlined Ps-4 Washington to Lynchburg, N&W "J" Lynchburg to Bristol and a pair of E6s Bristol to Memphis[ as well as other E units and Southern PAs occasionally]. That is the way "The Tennessean" actually was initiated and ran for several years. Then my 0-6-0 Passenger Yard Switcher would appropriately be on station in the Yard.
As for freight trains I plan to utilize my N&W "Water Buffalo" 4-8-2 for moving coal trains to supply the coaling tower and most likely only Atlantic & Yadkin 2-8-0s and Southern 2-8-2s for local and mainline freight service. I would likely station my 0-8-0 Freight Switcher in the Yard coupled to the Wreck Derrick just to increase the equipment population.
Quite a comedown from runing 30 car coal trains behind a Challenger or 14 lighted cars behind a Southern 4-8-2 Mountain or a N&W 4-8-4 "J"--all at the same time! But at 80 years and sort of lame, time to adapt and just dust the retired and newly crowned "shelf queens" occasionally.
About 75% run, I have shelved all the conventionals for the time being.
They will be donated to kids in the extended family as time passes.
I have 2 that want trains now, just waiting for the kids to have a space for a layout.
100% run 100% of the time . I do have 2 that are waiting on ERR upgrade boards but if they didn't run out they go.
I still have a long way to go before I have alot of engines setting idle.
Yep life is good
David
I'm at about 60 engines now and all of them will run. Of that total, I probably operate maybe 30-40 of them with any kind of regularity on my layout. I'll also "borrow" Max's layout from time to time and run two on his if he hasn't been spending much time in the basement.
My Postwar engines are operated only during the Christmas season around one of our two trees.
Curt
I run everything I own...engines and rolling stock. I may not run it for a month, but it will get its turn.
All of them. No shelf queens everything gets track time at some point.
since I do not have many they all get run all the time.
Out of 86, including motorized units, all run. Some conventional, but most TMCC. So the answer is 100%
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I've got a lot of engines, certainly more than I ever thought I would have and I love every one of them. Consequently, over the course of the year I make sure they all get run time. Some of them get more, some get less but they all still run.
I have 13 powered locos and 12 of them run. My RailKing SW-9 won't come out of neutral and it is going to take some effort to get it running again, because I am going to convert it into a conventional unit.
Currently run 58% of our engines. My son and I just set up DCS this fall and run nothing but our command engines.
MTH GG-1 PS1 Upgrade to PS2 - Son
MTH M1 Steam - Daughter
MTH Big Boy - Son
MTH SD70M - Son
MTH NS Executive ABA - Dad (Me)
MTH 2-6-0 Loco Sound upgraded to PS2 - Community Property
Williams NW-2 upgraded to PS2 - Pop Pop
3 Conventional... Hoping to upgrade to command.
1 Broken Thomas
1 MTH GG-1 back to MTH under warranty repair. Santa's elves did not do a great job putting this one together, so hopefully MTH can fix 'er up.
Ron
hello guys an gals........
no shelf queens for me, i run my railking challenger 100 % of the time and it's only engine i have. I am waiting for the UPS to deliver my new MTH battery charger so i can charge up a new 3 volt battery for it.
the woman who loves toy trains
Tiffany
I run them all. I just change over from NYC to UP every couple of months. Most of the time multiple locomotive consist.
I have about 150 engines, 145 MTH and about 5 Lionel/Atlas. All of them run without any troubles since I bought any of them. As for what engines I run, well I have about 50 that I swap pretty often on the tracks. The other 90 or so are on display shelves and about half of them are easily reached, should I choose to put them on the tracks. I do have about 20 engines that I know are pretty hard to find, produced in low quanities and I feel are collectable and prefer not to run.
I have about 70 Locomotives and all can run but do not run my Post War or LTI mostly because I use MTH DCS sytem and just love running MTH locomotives on it. All my MTH can and will run at some point. Everything is on shelfs that can be easily removed and run. Expanding the layout and nothing is running now.
Recently I counted and was surprised to find that I have 28 locomotives, didn't think I had that many. I am currently building a new layout and only have a simple loop up now but when I had my old layout up and running I would run everything. No shelf queen's for me either.
Paul
Less than ten percent have ever been on the track. On the next layout I will do better.