Warning: A little rant ahead.
For Canadian model railroaders, this is a truly golden age. There has never been such a variety of Canadian model train equipment available, either new or used via eBay or Kijiji or Craigslist or whatever. Looking for a CP “Minibox” boxcar? No problem. You want a high quality GMD1, previously only available in a cruddy brass version? Sure! Want a complete, museum quality, 1970s-era Canadian Pacific Canadian? You can buy it! Items that were once rare or non-existent are now available or will be available soon.
Life is good.
But prepare to pay dearly for this. It really is a golden age… as in it costs a significant fraction of an ounce of gold to buy a locomotive these days. That GMD1 will cost you $325… Also be prepared to wait, as you have to pre-order them, and wait up to, and sometimes over, a year before you can actually have the model that was announced.
In the excellent Canadian Railway Modellers Facebook group, people occasionally post photos of their locomotive, passenger car or caboose fleets. I’m usually stunned by the sheer size of the fleet. My mind immediately goes to multiplying the number of locomotives by the price/locomotive and coming up with thousands and thousands of dollars.
Maybe I’m just cheap frugal.
I wish there was a way to buy a good running locomotive, that looks reasonably like the prototype, for less than $100.
There is a way. Two ways, in fact
One – buy a Walthers GP9 or F40PH, or a Bachmann GP38-2 or SD40-2. They are selling for around $70-$85 right now, new – if you can find them.
Two – buy used, at a train show or on eBay. You can get some decent deals at train shows, especially if you go early. eBay is pretty good but you’ll pay dearly for shipping.
Of course, if you want DCC, then you have to add at least $20 for a decoder, or well over $100 if you want sound. I can’t grouse too much at that cost as you have to think about what you’re getting – a tiny little computer in your loco giving you great sound. I have only one sound-equipped locomotive, my dear CN 3665 which was also my most expensive locomotive.
I guess I’ll stick to the model train shows and look for the good deals. At the last Winnipeg train show I was at, I scored a beautiful Bowser C630m for just over $100. A $20 plug-in decoder was all I added so it could join my meagre fleet of locomotives (shown below).
Thanks for reading my little rant. I’d appreciate any suggestions you might have about how to acquire decent locomotives at a reasonable price.
I too am really impressed at how much model railroading can cost if you have the money to spend. It caught me off guard when I resurrected my childhood’s Lionel train.
For right now, I live vicariously through the purchases of a guy on a model railroad forum. He easily spends $300/week on new engines or cars, and provides magazine-quality writeups on his thoughts.
Tom
I hope this guy gets some form of compensation for his reviews.. It’s hard to sustain that kind of purchasing!
Hi Tom, I hope this guy on the forum gets some income from his writeups! It’s hard on the credit card to sustain $300/week spending on model trains.
I wish we had kept the Lionel trains that my dad had when I was a child. It wasn’t a whole lot but I do miss it.
Hey Steve, a very excellent and timely post. I am currently starting to get back into the model railroad scene. Wow,,what an eye opener in more ways than one. I had a HO Hornby Triang train set back in the mid 60’s. Now as I prepare to reacquaint myself with the HO scale, we have DCC and as you mentioned just about any variety of locomotives, rolling stock, structures.
And, yes, the prices…I am a huge fan of the older diesel stuff,,,CNR..GMD’s, the old style switchers, SW1200, SW1500, etc. I now have 2 Rapido DCC, sound equipped loco’s..and I think they were north of $300 a piece.However that said…the sound is truly amazing, it just knocks my socks off each time I hear the motors wind up.
I don’t know where you can find $100 loco’s, not if you want DCC, sound equipped.
I am just starting out fresh again, so all my purchases will be DCC, and preferably sound equipped as well.
Nothing set up yet, probably do a little shelf layout deal, until I figure out a L girder type layout.. Lance Mindheim is the master of the shelf layout.
Hi Glen, glad to hear you’re getting back into model trains. I hope to see them on your blog someday!
At present it’s impossible to get DCC and sound in a $100 loco, as the decoder and speaker costs at least that much. I’m not complaining too much about the cost of decoders – they’re reasonably priced for what they are, miniature computers.
You’re in the great period of layouts – designing! I love this phase. Everything is possible and it’s fun to try to fit layouts into available space.