Your Essentials

My essentials would be the equipment I regularly run.  No one or two items but rather a corral of favorite locos and cars.  I have been fortunate in selling off many pieces and look to sell off several more.

Additionally there are pieces I am keeping for other reasons.   They add atmosphere to my layout, there is nostalgic value in them or my path to acquiring them was rather memorable.

Of course there is the RR it's self.   It is the culmination of dozens of RR's I have built over the years, it has many unique right of ways with special track work over rather different bench work.   Scenery may get underway any year now but operating enjoyment is in full swing.

No downsizing planned. I'm going out with my cold hand on the throttle at notch 8. To accomplish this, I must stay healthy in body and mind. My son is a model railroader and he can worry about what to do. Mark

I guess it would be my Phoebe Snow consist, and a few freight cars, and the model Keyser Shops caboose made by Malcolm. I think, otherwise, I’ll hang onto everything, and let my family decide what to do with them.

Arnold,

I agree with your choice of the NYC Ten Wheeler as a "Must Keep" item.  I just picked up the same locomotive two weeks ago.  It is the perfect steam locomotive for a small layout with tight curves.  Plus, it has all the Legacy features!  I don't know if I would make it my first choice, but definitely in the top three.  I have to save a spot for my TMCC crane

Tom

No downsizing planned.  If for some reason I have to downsize before going out then the only items I'll hang on to until the end are old set #1

the tank car stocking stuffer my Grandmother gave me that same Christmas

...and enough track and a transformer to set up a large loop of track so I can run them.

Very interesting posts, so far Let's keep them coming. Among other reasons for doing so, it is uplifting for me to know that many of us have the option, when we downsize (which is understandably upsetting), to continue to enjoy our beloved hobby by retaining the trains we most treasure.

Here is another essential of mine. The Lionel 773 Hudson (1964 version) in the video below:

Awesome in size, smoothly navigates my tight curves without derailments, and marvelous mechanically. Although I'm not planning to thin my roster of Postwar steamers any time soon, I believe I could be happy without them as long as I have this 773. Arnold

My job is to build the RR, my heirs job is to figure out what to do with it when I'm gone.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

My job is to build the RR, my heirs job is to figure out what to do with it when I'm gone.

John  does that mean you have something in common with Commodore Vanderbuilt? LOL.

I wish I had a little of his money, that way my RR would be much more impressive!

That's a tough question Arnold! Most of my favorite trains have a "story" and I also have a preference for certain railroads and eras.

The MPC GG-1 in this photo would certainly qualify as an "essential". Here's why: like my Dad, the GG-1 is simply one of my all time favorite locomotives. Their powerful and sleek looks are simply timeless. They look as modern today as when they first went into service. Also, MPC defined the Lionel of my youth and to me their models, while crude compared to your "10 Wheeler", are very appealing with their buzzing E-units and muscle car type performance. Finally - the story: I saw this locomotive on a table at a Northern California train show. I stopped and looked at it at least a couple of times as I wandered the show. Frankly, I would not have bought it at the time. I liked it, but I was simply not in a buying mood - perhaps you know the feeling. However my supermodel wife could see that I liked it and persuading me to buy it - something I'll never forget. Honestly, the trains I like the best are the ones she approved, and she's never been wrong.

My essentials would include the following:

The Virginian FM, milk and log car from my first train set

The poultry car, my first adult O purchase

The Williams Mikado that my father got me right before he died

Intermountain Southern boxcars

Red Caboose and Atlas FGEX reefers

Malcolm’s Southern caboose

Easy choice for me, Arnold. It would be the first train set my parents gave me for the holidays in 1953--Lionel Berkshire 736 with operating log, coal, searchlight and Bucyrus crane cars. It was purchased from a hardware store on Devon Ave in Chicago. My daughter will keep that set and pass it onto her heirs if she ever gets married and has children.

These GG1s as this is the project that got me involved in consulting to 3rd Rail starting in 2009 and I'm doing as much work for the company as ever in 2021.  Not only do these locomotives represent my favorite locomotive, they also represented a unicorn of a find as no one had done a quality rendition of 4800 in any scale until this model came out.  I still have a lot of the PRR record drawings done during the research of this project.

This MTH Proto3 NY Central RS3 custom made for customers of one of our Forum sponsors, JR Junction Hobby Shop in Syracuse, NY, who donated 25% of sale proceeds to a local railroad historical society:

This locomotive also fits perfectly into the theme of my layout: The Put.

Wow Arnold!  Yet again another wonderfully thought provoking topic you have created.  Thanks for that!    You've accrued a variety of thoughtful answers so far too.  I've not thought much about downsizing because I still haven't completed my layout .. lol!   Of course a layout is never really complete  I do dream of the  the possibility of sharing the hobby in a more public place within my community, however, no concrete formalized action plan of how and when to do so.  

Although I need to put more thought into your question Arnold, I instantly know the one essential item that popped into my mind is the Lionel set I got for Christmas in 1957.  The set was from the 1956 Lionel cat.  That set is definitely a keeper!  The set included a 2065 Santa Fe style steam loco with a streamlined tender with Lionel Lines in white lettering on the side ... an automatic milk car, automatic log dump car, automatic Pacemaker boxcar, a Sunoco 3 dome tank car, and Lionel Lines porthole caboose without rear coupler.  That set has an abundacne of wonderful memories of my parents and the spirit of Christmas' past.   Although the 2065 pulled that 5 car train around the Christmas tree thousands of times on Christmas Day 1957 , she still looks great running on my current layout.

I'll put more thought into "essentials" and post later.  I've got to go out and mow the lawn right now.

Patrick, I've mentioned before something we have in common: my first locootive was also the Lionel 2065 Hudson, and like you, I also still have it and it runs just fine. Here it is:

Like yours, Patrick, mine also came with a set but a different one. My set was a 1954 or 1955 set know has the Greenball Express. It came with a coffin style tender, operating milk car and platform, yellow stock car, red gondola,  green operating log dump car and Lionel Lines Tuscan illuminated caboose with round portal windows.

The set had a small transformer (forget which one), a remote control  track, had great play value and, IMO, was, and still is, an ideal set for a young child (was 3 or 4 years old) supervised by an adult (my father). That 2065 Hudson was indestructible, 100% reliable, and charming with its puffs of smoke and whistle in the tender.

It got me hooked on Lionel trains for life.

Yet another essential of mine (guess I've got quite a few) is this MTH Proto 3 B6 steam switcher running on DCS:

Why? I have a switching layout and this engine running on DCS is the perfect switcher for me. It has front and back electrocouplers that operate flawlessly, it smokes great, it has heft with very good pulling power, it has excellent sounds and it looks great. Everything about it gets an A+.

Nostalgia drives a lot of my essential picks:

The Reading Company 2124 which my dad and I rode on the Reading Rambles including a tour to the Reading Shops around 1957.

The SS Brill R/C gas electric which we rode on the Wawa - Concordville excursion line.

A string of SS R/C  RDC cars which I used to view floating across the high grass of the Ocean City barrens of the 60's looking for my dad coming down for the weekend.

My green GG-1's which were the focus of our many Saturday photo shoots along the corridor.

Back in the late 60's I sold off all my PW trains to go into HO.  After getting back into 0 scale one of my first goals was to replace many of those early Lionel trains with current models.   Hence the NYC Hudson and a string of SS PRR  "Madison" cars.

Even picked up a Lionel 726 pulled early 50's wrecker train which I will not let go again.

When I set up at Timonium in '02 next to MTH they had their NYC Dreyfuss running all day Saturday and Sunday.  After all the problems I had with my brass steamers I just had to get one of those locomotives.  It still runs almost every day in my cave.

All keepers.

I would think that nostalgia drives a lot of the choices we view as essential.

For me, it would be my first set (my UP freight set from 93), my Grandfather's first set (1936 Commodore Vanderbilt freight set), his 58 fire car, and maybe one or two other prewar/postwar sets. While I really enjoy the modern stuff, it doesn't have the nostalgia that the older stuff has.

Leave to Arnold another thought provoking thread. Not to be cruel or blunt but downsizing will be the problem my daughters will have to sort out as I am hanging to everything until I visit that Roundhouse in the sky.  

As I reflect on this further, the decisions that need to be made if and when downsizing a collection are not easy.

Deciding not to downsize and retain everything is fine, provided the collector and his/her family are OK with it.

There are good reasons to retain it all. First, I believe model railroading is a very good activity for an old person. There are never ending problems and puzzles to solve as a model railroader, which helps keep the mind active and sharp. Secondly, in my opinion, model railroad, unlike sports, is not too physical. It occasionally involves crawling under the layout, and stretching to reach a derailed train car, but that physical activity is good for us. I sometimes refer to it as my model railroad yoga. LOL. Thirdly, most of the items in our collections have at least some significant value, which our heirs will benefit from if we decide to retain everything.

I agree with several of my Forum friends that items that generate nostalgia can be the most precious. Nostalgia would impact my decisions to retain certain items, such as my first locomotive (Lionel 2065 Hudson) and first train set (1954 Lionel Greenball Express freight set) as mentioned above.

I would also retain certain  modern items that run, smoke, sound, pull and look the best. I also love switching maneuvers, so I would also retain my locomotives with the best electrocouplers. I'm also enamoured with DCS and MTH Proto 2 and 3, so those items are also must haves for me. Arnold

PS: Now, I'm not sure I would ever want to downsize at all. LOL.

I'm keeping it all and let someone else worry about it !

Most of my down sizing consists of selling anything that is not absolutely dependable or too delicate to use.  No human or hobby aggravation allowed on my RR.

Why would I want to downsize, model RR is the least physical of all my hobbies , so its probably the last one ill be doing. I don't need the basement for anything else. I'm also have an eye out for one of those stairway escalators, If I find one cheap enough, Someone may need it other than myself.  

My reason for downsizing is due to the following:

• Not having space for the trains I have as I just moved them out of a 10x20 storage unit saving me $250.00 a month.  Storage is not cheap anywhere near where I currently live and basements are not common in Arizona.
• My interests have changed.  I purchased a lot of items that simply do not interest me anymore.  It's better to have them go to someone who will enjoy them now than have them take up space with no one enjoying them.
• My father is passing his collection on to me which is roughly the same amount of items I currently have although his are in S and HO so they take up less space.
• As my means have allowed, I am always adding higher quality models to replace lesser quality ones for the same types of trains.
• I buy at auction getting wonderful discounts on trains, but get stuck with pieces I never wanted to buy the one item in the lot I did want.  This leaves me with a sizeable collection of items I have no use for.
• I am still purchasing trains as models of trains I have always wanted, but weren't available when they come out.  Scale Amfleet cars is are the next ones to arrive soon!

Perhaps in that sense, I am not downsizing, but in a constant state of resizing?

If I sold everything else, I would keep the 1947 2025 locomotive and 6466wx tender. My grandfather owned these since new and I inherited them.  I have had the loco serviced and it runs as well as anything else on my rails!

I like that term resizing

Two trains--one Marx, one Lionel--are my essentials.  Both were given to me by my grandfather when I was a child.

After that, the answer depends upon where I am at a given moment in my interests.   I would be reluctant at any time to part with my small collection of other Marx items, and my small collection of Lionel and Flyer SG is at the moment near the top of my interest.  I have built a couple of MPC- and LTI-era trains to honor my grandfather and his connections to Shell Oil, and I would have to become very hard pressed indeed to part with those.

What I am most likely to part with is my digital era stuff.  As much as I like scale trains, I am absolutely disenchanted with anything that requires command control or computer boards to operate--mostly because they don't operate at all reliably.  My 60-year old Marx and my 90-year old SG are both far more reliable and satisfying than any of my TMCC or Legacy engines.  Heck, I'd hang on to my '70s vintage AHM O Scale longer than the CC stuff.

Geez, . . I'm always on the wrong side of the fence.

I'm 66, and upsizing since I only started this hobby a year ago.

And, . . . I've got no essentials.  I've bought mostly 2000-ish NIB or VG+ units, and I have no emotional attachments to any of it.      In fact, . . . I hate a couple of things I've bought!   :-)

Mannyrock

These are also in my collection of essentials:

Essentials.........more like what can I part with by overcoming separation anxiety associated with my scratchbuilt cars......sell one and just build 3 more,

Okay after considerable thought, the essential locomotives would be one locomotive from each of the 9 railroads I model with exception of the Pennsy & N&W with two each for those roads.  Also essential, a Shay lettered for West VA Paper and Pulp.

N&W Y6b mallet Railking by MTH.   This is the only articulated steam locomotive I own and is able to run on tight curves of my layout.

Canton Railroad SW 1500.  The Canton is one of the short lines I model so this locomotive is certainly essential.  Basically a switching railroad, the Canton, is the oldest railroad serving the City of Baltimore.  

  Pennsy scale GG1 both powered and dummy by Williams.  An iconic locomotive type synonymous with the Pennsylvania Railroad.  I saw these locomotives run, as a kid, on the Pennsy pulling both passenger and freight trains.   As an adult I saw them on the point of  Conrail and Amtrak trains.   Two of these locomotives pulled a 23 car excursion train of Maryland school students from Baltimore to NYC and back in  the spring of 1966.    I was one of those students and I enjoyed every mile of the round trip too!  

MA & PA SW 1 by MTH.   My very first cab ride was in a SW 1, although it was a B&O SW 1.  As the MA & PA is one of the short lines I model this locomotive is essential ... plus the cab ride memory is priceless!  

Western Maryland BL2 by MTH.  Although the WM has the ugliest livery ( IMHO as compared to other roads who purchased the BL2 from EMD ) for the BL2, I like the sleek exterior design of the this locomotive.  The prototype WM owned 2 and both worked in Hagerstown yard until sometime in the 1980s.  81 is in the B&O Museum in Baltimore and I've seen it many times.  WM 82 runs on a scenic railroad in West VA.

Aerotain by MTH.  I've loved the Aerotrain since I first laid eyes on an edition of the Wonderbook of Trains.  The book was in my elementary school library and the Aerotrain was on the cover.  I thought the LT1200 locomotive was the coolest locomotive ever!!   When MTH brought it out in O gauge I had to have it!  

Patapsco and Back Rivers  Baldwin VO 1000 by MTH.  I love the look of this locomotive and am grateful MTH produced this model.  The PB&R was owned by Bethlehem Steel Corp. and was the railroad that served the gigantic Bethlehem Steel Mill complex just outside Baltimore City.   This was a rare find on E bay.  

Baltimore and Annapolis SW 9 cow, calf, and caboose which is all that MTH produced in B&A livery.  The cow has been upgraded to PS3.  Although the prototype B&A did not own a calf, they did own a SW9 and caboose.  Every Hour on the Hour, a book by John Merriken tells the compete history of the Washington Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway Company which eventually came to be the Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad Company.  This MTH trio is a rare set, however rarity is not what makes it essential to me.  Essential ... to my layout theme of Maryland's Class One and Short Lines of the post WW Two era.  

Washington Terminal RS 1 with TMCC by Atlas O.  I used to see the prototype of this locomotive working  the Washington DC Union Station coach yard and it being serviced at the Ivy City Engine Terminal in the Amtrak era, circa mid 1970s.   It still wore the Washington Terminal paint at that time. Later Amtrak painted in their livery.   This model equipped with TMCC runs and sounds wonderful! The horn is close to prototypical.   I prefer the ATLAS  to the recent MTH WT RS 1 that was recently released by MTH.  I also bought the MTH model but the ATLAS is essential to me.    This ATLAS model was repainted in WT livery by a fellow forumite who posted it for sale here on the OGR Forum.  

B&O passenger equipped GP-9 by MTH.  GP-9 can do any kind of work that comes it's way.  As an 11 year old kid I got a cab ride in a B&O GP7 which is just 250 hp shy of a GP9.  The memory is vivid and I think of that cab ride every time  I run this locomotive on my railroad.

Scale N&W J class 611 with TMCC by Lionel.  I've loved this locomotive ever since the semi scale one came out in the Lionel catalogue in the late 1950s.   To finally own a scale sized one is something I never thought possible.  This model is the "Queen of my Fleet"!

Last but not least is the K line Shay.  Aside from the fact I bought this locomotive from OGR Editor in Chief Alan Miller, this locomotive is just fun to watch in action.  Equipped with TMCC the sound is great!  I only run this locomotive when I have quests over to see the layout as parts are rare to non existent... and of course a Shay has LOTS of moving parts.   A lovely locomotive with immense entertainment value and definite conversation piece.  

if i get any milwaukee road stuff i will keep it for ever as well as my rock island stuff

and of course my hotwheels set as that got me back into the hobby

@RickO posted:

I may add one or two, older TMCC models down the road, there are some real gems, especially in the sound dept.

@RickO, I am curious which you consider to be gems in the sound dept? I'm still searching for the perfect sound, to my ear.

George

What Trumptrain?  Your essentials consist of nine locomotives?

That's not essentials.  That's a Harem!  :-)

Humm.

Diesels would be my first scale locomotive a MTH NS GP35 or Lionel HH SRR GP30#2594.

Steam would be my first scale Lionel SRR Green Light Mountain, or Light Mikado SRR #4501 or Ten Wheeler SRR.

My favorite set is a present to myself this year a SP Vision Line GS4  #4457 set with just awesome cars.

    When (not if) I get rid of everything, the only thing I would really hang onto until I die will be the #2025 steamer that came with my first set.

    A few other things I would hang onto till the final sales would be my #783, my repaint of the #2383 B&O F3's, and my #2500 series aluminum passenger set.

    All else can go - and as a postwar accessory and operating car collector I'm sure one day there will be plenty of folks who'll want things that work rather than break down when you use it the first time. Conventional rules!

It just occurred to me that I have some "dream come true" essentials, one of which is my MTH Railking proto 2 Blue Comet set. Here is a short video showing it running through my little town:

Why is it a dream come true essential for me? Because after I first started collecting as an adult about 35 years ago, I always wanted a Blue Comet set. I always liked the blue livery and look of it.

About 2 months ago, I visited 1 of the 2 LHSs in my area, and I saw this used MTH set. I had to have it.

Another dream come true essential is the Lionel 773 Hudson, shown in my 2nd post on this thread. Same thing: I have always wanted one for a very long time and finally got one this year.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I always wanted a Blue Comet set.

Arnold,

Whenever anyone brings up the Blue Comet, all I can think about is Bobby Baccalieri getting whacked at the Trainworld store in Lynbrook.