What Things Have You Bought or Used & Later Regretted It?

A Lionel modern General.......junk. I almost never run it.

-Roger

Lionel ABBA NYC. Way too much $$.

A brand new MTH DCS diesel loco with PS3, which doesn't work. I wish I would have stuck to what I already had, a couple of Williams conventional locos along with a LionChief Plus Mikado. I should have known better, knowing the problems with DCS from a large display layout I oversee During the Holidays, and also all the headaches the LHS has had with DOA DCS product, but I wanted something with vibrant sound capabilities.

Bill in FtL

3 Weaver 50ft tank cars in AGP livery.  The markings were for a 60ft tank car and I can't sell them for half the price I bought them.

Yikes!

All of the freight rolling stock. I bet you would have never guessed, Art. 

I got a GP7 from an eBay seller that has a ton of items available. I should've known that it wouldn't be as nice as advertised when you couldn't zoom the pictures he had posted, and there was no discussion of any issues at all even though it was used. It arrived and was junk, the lighting in the small pics made it look pretty good, but the paint was quite bad, and there was significant rust under the shell. Luckily Paypal sided with me when I sent them photos and the item's description and I got a refund, even though the seller told me tough luck. I only buy when the photos are detailed and descriptions match now.

A good question that got me thinking. My answer, fortunately, is 'nothing.'  I've collected engines, rolling stock and other things for various layout themes over the years but always unload the older items to provide for ones that fit a new theme. . .

Wait, I thought of something: Lionel's 'James the Red Engine' from their Thomas line. I always loathed the poor fellow for how lousy his wheels looked next to his fellow engines.

I have had more than my share of troubles with very costly locomotives. I still have one sitting in front of me awaiting my first big adventure with installing new electronics.

How that will turn out remains to be seen.

Do I regret buying them? Not really. I just wish they had worked "out-of-the-box." They are all cosmetically beautiful and I hope, eventually, all will run well. But it's turning into  "cost no object" sort of project.

These two cars I rather regret buying though. Not entirely sure what I was thinking when I bought 'em?

The crane really isn't too far from prototypical. Not at all sure about the work caboose. But, these cars just don't appeal to me much. The crane is rather toyish looking. I hope to tone it down with some weathering.

Anything HO. No offense to HO modelers, but I have a bunch of O, S and G gauge equipment already and need to focus. I should have never ventured into HO gauge. 

First generation Weaver RS3. Overheats running by itself. Wheels slip trying to pull 3 cars. Looks good but any of my post war stuff will run circles around it.

Pete

A very good question.

Thinking about what I have, I can honestly say...no regrets or buyers remorse here.

All the MPC engines and rolling stock I bought when I first got back into the hobby 15-20 years ago. At the time that was what you could get; now it's hard to get rid of at any price. I've dumped most of it, but there are still a couple of sets and some rolling stock left. 

Now that I have eliminated my intermodal yard I will have a large number of containers left over and an intermodal crane.  Fortunately, the crane has already been spoken for and the containers are easily used in a lot of locations.  I see them stacked up in lots along the tracks in Chicago and not just in intermodal yards.  That gives me a great idea for an empty lot along the tracks.

Art

I have an Williams ABBA set yellow bonnet new in box when I got it nice looking runs for poop. I did do a ERR upgrade to it but still didn't help the ABBA setup is heavy and underpowered. oh well still looks good though.

An MTH Budd Car set w/ PS1 whose battery died and killed the programming. No way to get the reset chip now. 

There have been some used TMCC engines that I picked up on eBay that have been real dogs.

Art, I love my articulated auto racks they cause no problems. I also love my Atlas flat cars and the Lionel auto racks and 86' box cars even though there are a few spots on the layout with clearance issues. My solution is to just not have two trains with long cars not pass on those curves. It is a manageable situation.

Try lubing the gearboxes. WBB engines come with minimal grease compared to the older Williams. I ran an ABA (one 2 motored A unit) and seven 15" aluminum cars for hours without a problem. I have since powered a second A unit and pull 11 cars.

Pete

The CSX engine from the Motor City set. Nothing wrong with it, it does everything it's suppose to do. I just don't care for it and have not been able to sell it locally. No I'm not gonna ship it.

Elliot - You make a good point.  I too love the looks of them too, but I seem to remember having an issue with the flats not running right on some part of the layout.  A friend brought over a whole train of the auto carriers and they looked and ran sweet.  The articulated ran even better than the MTH singles that I had.  I sold all of those due to the truck placements and haven't looked back.  I think that have since improved them, but I just haven't gotten the bug.  Yours will look awesome at your auto plant.

Art

Where to begin, a pair of #6 2 rail turnouts that will never be used.  A mrc transformer with sound that creates no sound, a pair of 027 cattle cars that seem to only shake cattle, nothing moves, a MTH 0-4-0 docksider, a DC lionel switcher purchased before K-line came out with their little plymouth, several lionel conventional locos from the 90's that just do not fit with the plan any more.  Live and learn.

the only train item I regretted was the WBB N&W J I got a few years ago. Beautiful engine. The Seuth smoke unit either slobbered all over the boiler, or put out less than a Postwar unit.Even with the traction tires, it always had wheel slip, the only engine I had that problem with. Sold it last year with no regrets.Should have went after an MPC J.

I have always enjoyed operating Milk Cars.  I have one from Lionel and one from MTH that work well.  A few years ago I thought it would be fun to have one from K-line that uses the Operating Loading Depot that loads the milk cans into the car.  The operating loading depot has never worked very well in getting the milk cans into the car; therefore, I have only used it on my Christmas layout one time.  Even when I had it on my layout, I hardly used it.  Too much of a hassle!  Now I can understand why the dealer has many of these still left on his shelf.  That should have been hint to me at the time I purchased it not to buy it since they were produced 10 years ago! 

On the other hand, yesterday I repurchased engine that I bought 2 years ago and returned for a refund because of it having many problems and at the time I was tired of sending back brand new engines to be repaired.  I really like the paint scheme on the engine so I am taking a risk on repurchasing it.  This time I bought this one from a different dealer.  Hopefully, this one will be problem free and I hope I don’t have any regrets in repurchasing it! 

Any post war or modern operating accessory. They rarely worked especially with visitors. 

Sold them them all and now my blood pressure is back to normal. 

A Lionel LIRR RS-3 which has all plastic gears,couplers and frame. It also "rocks from side to side going down the track.

An MTH R17 subway with a 5 volt board. It was purchased on Ebay and was supposed to be new old stock. It lasted a little over a year and the board blew out. I converted it using a bridge rectifier so it has forward only operation with no sound, but has all lights working. A similar story with an MTH LOV subway. 

My plan is to handle any future engines that have boards that die in the same manner as above.

Here's another one - my Golden Gate Depot heavyweight passenger cars. They are beautiful - but they are too fragile to take to the toy train museum for operating sessions, and too big for my smallish home layout. So they sit in the boxes under the layout. They are so nice that I haven't quite gotten to where I am willing to sell them - but I'd be better off if I hadn't bought them in the first place. 

Over the years I thought I bought for a purpose. Looking back I have bought  a few things that may have been fantasy but I liked them anyway. The only thing I regret buying was the Atlas turntable. Nothing wrong with it per say but it did not work into my layout with the given space I had for it and the roundhouse. Other then That I have been 100% happy with all my purchases.................Paul

another one is my chessie steam special since going to tmcc and dcs it just sits on the shelf I wanted this engine for so long that didn't even think about buying it then found the passenger cars then found all the extra cars. now have the complete set but it sits I have thought about taking it to Legacy station to have it overhauled with err and railsounds. but it is still ac motored and I have not been a big fan of ac motors. so I thought about a company that it's name excapes me now but they can do the conversion to a dc motor (timpkin or something) but by the time I do all of that the engine would cost as much as my challenger did with all the upgrades I have done to it .

Well, I like some things more than others.  But fortunately, I can't think of anything I actually regret buying.  Maybe because I'm very cautious about spending large amounts, and I always research and think things over carefully before buying.

A MTH Premier PS-2 Rock Island E8's ABA set. I got caught up in their beauty. What a great looking set. I have mostly East Coast  Roads and never got around to buying the cars to go with them. I need to get motived and list them on the For Sale Board.

I was expecting that to be Scott Smith's response.

More and more keep coming to me.  When I was young, dad and I were just buying whatever.  Mostly cheaper quality stuff since I was limited to 4'x8', but when we found k-line we were happy with the balance of price and quality.

I wanted a passenger train, so my we got an MPC Lionel Amtrak Lakeshore Limited set from a friend of a friend for $200 which included about 10 extra cars.  Now, I really don't like the look of the 0-27 cars, I have some 15" postwar and postwar style aluminum and Madison cars I'm very happy with.  That's what I always wanted anyway.  Over the years we sold the extra cars. will eventually sell the remaining set.

Lionel MPC Sandy Andy coal tower.  never worked, the door always got stuck open and spilled the entire contents onto the layout.

random items I've already sold like a k-line union pacific mp-15 and matching caboose, k-line Iraqi freedom missle launcher car (I had the green set, so don't know why I wanted the tan car.), Lionel LASER set, repro lionel poswar missle launcher (the one with the four small missles, I never use the launcher, but it came with the expoding boxcar, so i'll keep the set.

Sort of regretting the WBB Canadian Pacific F3 AA and 4 car set I got off a forum member about 6 months ago.  Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful set, runs like a champ, and the price was right, but I probably should have put the money towards a PRR set to go with the majority roadname in my collection.  Have thought of possibly using this on an around-the-ceiling loop when I rebuild the layout.

Anyway, the trains are all in storage anyway, except for a small carpet central.  So when I build my layout i'll probably sell off the above mentioned items.  But I want to put some of the money towards replacing my father's trains.  He sold them when I was getting into the hobby so we could buy more trains.  It was a cheap lionel set from the mid 60s and the loco never worked, but he always told me how many hours he spent playing with them, so I think it'll be a nice surprise for him.

NO regrets but second thoughts. I recently purchased a 6 car williams Budd Pax set. Cars look great except for the window configuration. Three cars says Sleeper car yet the cars are labeled and decorated as coach.

Non-conventional locos - of which two were Proto 1 and two were TMCC. Williams BL-2 and their Cincinnatian set. Also Lionel accessories from the 1990's early 2000's such as Gabe the Lamp Lighter, airplane that orbits the radio station, transfer table, reissue 397 coal loader, operating windmill, etc. All of these I sold on eBay to get rid of them.

Southwest:

I have 9 GGD heavyweights. They are the pride and joy of my evolving set up. But, yes, I don't have enough room for them! They are on curves too much. But they are just so darned nice! I run them anyway! ALL THE TIME!!! I did pass on a 12 car GGD A-B-A "The Canadian" set up. I rationalized that I just didn't have the room to do such a train justice. Like keeping a mastiff in a walk-up bachelor apt! Oh . . . and the $$$$$! OUCH!!!!

Nothing has changed. I still don't have the room. The dollars amount is still ! But the set is gone! They aren't making anymore . . . and I DO have regrets in not getting it when I had the chance!

"It's only money!"

Thankfully, only small stuff:

• Atlas HO water tower that I was going to make a (cheap) NG water tower with a few O scale parts. I later secured my own scratchbuilt water tower and am working on another right now instead
• Atlas HO turntable to use as a base for a scratchbuilt turntable that never came to pass as I used the PECO one instead
• O scale Bachmann truss bridge. I don't have anything to cross on the layout and I now realize how poorly detailed that bridge is

Never used either and now I know I'll probably have to give them away as none are worth anything.