I am both a minimalist and a model trains enthusiast. The two are sometimes at odds. Model trains are not an interest that embraces minimalism. Sure, I can have one set of locomotives and cars that I run, but much like eating the same thing every day it gets boring fast.
My minimalism theory is pretty much Marie Kondo’s sparks joy approach. When my dad died in 2011, his train collection merged with mine. This was a little untenable. When I rejoined my train club, I did a purge of both collections. Cars that required to much work to repair were thrown away.
To further make things challenging, earlier this year I switched eras I modeled. My dad and I both modeled the Erie Lackawanna railroad which merged with Conrail in 1976. I couldn’t run any of the modern intermodal trains, or the newer wide cab locomotives. So, I switched to modeling the Union Pacific railroad. I didn’t get rid of my Erie Lackawanna-era stuff since it sparks joy to run it.
However, a lot of the older stuff I have isn’t appropriate for the modern era. In the 70s, 40-foot box cars were often used. Most of the 40’ cars were retired around the turn of the century. This necessitated buying some modern rolling stock. I am intentional with it, though. I have a list of items I look for at a good price: 89’ flat cars, 50-60’ box cars; center beam flat cars; and modern tank cars.
I do hyper-organize my collection. I bought a bunch of clear plastic bins and each bin contains a train, sans caboose and locomotives. They are labeled, so when I head to the club I can just grab the bin with the train I want to run. Every now and then I may move cars from one bin to another, but my overall goal isn’t to load up one train with my favorite cars. Instead, each bin has a collection of cars I enjoy. It is also fun coming up with a story for the train. What is it carrying? Where is coming from?
The bins are also labeled with the name of the train. Not a fancy name like The Lake Shore Limited1, but something like Intermodal, or EL Freight, mostly covered hoppers. When I go up to the club, I just scan the labels for what I am in the mood to run.
The one change I did make to my philosophy is to not toss cars beyond repair. I find I need test subjects for weathering techniques so I keep a bin of bad order cars to experiment on.
- Although, if I did model that train, the bin would be labeled as such. ↩
Mark Crump 