Jim (and others) mentioned the 'slippery slide' from running locomotives to becoming a collector of locomotives. That sure happened to me when I first got back into HO modeling!
I eventually had lots of beautiful locomotives (steam and diesel of all sorts and all kinds of railroads, types, eras and mfgs.-mostly Spectrum, P2K, BLI and Atlas). Pretty soon I ran out of room to display them all. Then I started to realize that for me, 'running' was more fun than 'looking' ... ('to each his own') ... so I began to sell off most of those beautiful locomotives to concentrate on my layout and on ICRR late steam and early diesel modeling.
Modeling ICRR steam caused me to have to learn how (or at least to 'begin to learn how') to kit-bash. It was pretty scary the first time I cut into the boiler of a beautifully detailed new 2-10-2 HO model, which, as it came from the mfg, had virtually no resemblence to an ICRR 2-10-2 other than the drivers and boiler.
Now I have plenty of steam and diesel for my ICRR era (though most of the steam needs a lot more kit bashing and detailing). But that doesn't mean I couldn't be tempted to buy more locomotives :-).
Then the "I couldn't stop" bug bit me in a different way. Rather than continuing on Jim's slippery 'collector' slide, I 'bounced' over to the just as slippery 'caftsman resin and stryene rolling stock kits' slide. Ah! the fun of building something that looks as good and as detailed as nice brass (or at least, is supposed to look that good :-)
Kit 'building' is also a very steep and slippery slope ... I've got a growing stock of 'craftsman' resin and styene kits. I'm 'building' two or three at the same time. The other day I realized that I have far more 'kits' to build than 'room' to run or store them on my layout. But that's okay because 'I'm having fun' building and I'm little by little, adding to my model building skills (which aren't yet very well developed :-).
Jim, you said it best when you said, 'what a ride'!
lanny nicolet
I eventually had lots of beautiful locomotives (steam and diesel of all sorts and all kinds of railroads, types, eras and mfgs.-mostly Spectrum, P2K, BLI and Atlas). Pretty soon I ran out of room to display them all. Then I started to realize that for me, 'running' was more fun than 'looking' ... ('to each his own') ... so I began to sell off most of those beautiful locomotives to concentrate on my layout and on ICRR late steam and early diesel modeling.
Modeling ICRR steam caused me to have to learn how (or at least to 'begin to learn how') to kit-bash. It was pretty scary the first time I cut into the boiler of a beautifully detailed new 2-10-2 HO model, which, as it came from the mfg, had virtually no resemblence to an ICRR 2-10-2 other than the drivers and boiler.
Now I have plenty of steam and diesel for my ICRR era (though most of the steam needs a lot more kit bashing and detailing). But that doesn't mean I couldn't be tempted to buy more locomotives :-).
Then the "I couldn't stop" bug bit me in a different way. Rather than continuing on Jim's slippery 'collector' slide, I 'bounced' over to the just as slippery 'caftsman resin and stryene rolling stock kits' slide. Ah! the fun of building something that looks as good and as detailed as nice brass (or at least, is supposed to look that good :-)
Kit 'building' is also a very steep and slippery slope ... I've got a growing stock of 'craftsman' resin and styene kits. I'm 'building' two or three at the same time. The other day I realized that I have far more 'kits' to build than 'room' to run or store them on my layout. But that's okay because 'I'm having fun' building and I'm little by little, adding to my model building skills (which aren't yet very well developed :-).
Jim, you said it best when you said, 'what a ride'!
lanny nicolet