# Anyone else ever do this?



## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Have you ever lost some of your trains? Please let me set the scenario for you before you answer.

Way back in the early 1990's I was working at Niagara Hobby & Craft in Cheektowaga Ny near the Buffalo Airport. I was the RC car guy but we sold everyhting so I got to know more and more about trains. From Z thru G back then. We sold it all. We had an operating display track HO & N on one 4x8 sheet, O-27 and O on another and then a somewhat larger G scale layout with an LGB Staniz running on it. One Christmas the owner loaned out several LGB starter sets to local banks and after Christmas sold them as used. I put a little gray/blue passenger set on layaway and paid it off at some point. Thus my start in G-scale trains. This was when OR and GR were also new and published six times a year on opposing months. There was not much selection in G-scale trains but the future was bright & I was niave. I was newly married and living in an apartment south of Buffalo and driving 30 miles south to work full time and then 50 milesnorht to work at the hobby shop and then 20 miles south to assemble RC cars until teh wee hours of the morning to support my new hobby of G scale trains. I was young a innocent back then. Newly married with no kids and three jobs. We moved from there and all the trians I had fit into two or three boxes at that point. From there we moved south to Pennsylvania where I drove 30 miles north into NY to work and then home again. I worked at the hobby shop twice a year over long weekends to keep my discount. I continued to accumulate trains at a good pace as while I was still wroking three jobs (sort of ) I was making more in overtime at the main job. In all this time of neglecting my marriage that too came to an end. While I got the keep the trains she got the house which meant I had to move everything into storage. At this point with the huge coillection of track and all the trains I'd bought, it was three pickup truck loads just in trains. Sometime in here I'd purchased a computer program to help inventory all my trains which did not include the track but my only computer access was at work so it was limited. From there I started dating again and eventually moved in with this lady and moved all the trains into the basement at her apartment back in NY state. From there we got married and moved into a new place putting the trians into storage in a garage this time. Still buying more and more trains as time and money allowed. We now had two children and an offer to buy a house and move to a larger piece of property was alurring. So once again we packed up everything and moved. A sizable amount now with all our stuff and all the kids stuff and all the trains. I still have at least one pickup load of stuff (trains and other) in storage in a garage that was broken into by "relatives" several years ago. 

That brings us to today. I will be helping to decorate and banquet hall next week and was going to use some of my trian cars. So a mnath or so I started diggin them out of the nooks and crannies of my workshop and garage on our property and while I found most of them it seems that there is a full case of older Bachman coal hoppers missing? I distinctly remember buying a case of 4 or 6 from Trainworld when I as living in Pennsylvania. I cannot find those cars now. No where no how. I had bought two USAT hoppers at a train show in Connecticut at one point and could not find them. I finally tore into one of 4 boxes I thought were something else last night and found them. I am truly hoping that I left this case in the storage garage and that they didn't get pilfered by the kids. 

I truly hate misplacing items. Most of my trains have only been out of the box to make sure they were Ok and never even run! Some have been run around the Christmas tree or taken to Cub Scout meetings and run when I did my live steam display for them. So many of my trains I've not "seen" in many moves! As things settle down at home this summer one of my projects is to completly inventory what I've got and where it is. I do have a print out of that long lost inventory someplace and even have the program on floppy still. Those files have been transffered to Thumbdrive before the last set of upgrades obsoleted a floppy drive from any of my current computers. I am however not sure that this program would run on XP or Win7 as it was orginally running on early Windows! Time to set up something new to inventory. back then I only had computer access at work now I've got a computer at home. 

So anyone else misplace their trains?

Chas


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Haven't yet, but it wouldn't surprise me any the way we mix trains together at shows. 

Was at the Gateway Winter meet a few years ago. Things were getting put away, and I was pretty tired, kindof wandering around asleep. I noticed a charger laying on a chair. "Hmm. Somebody uses the same kind of charger as me. They even put my name on it." 

"Wait a minute, knuckehead, why would somebody put your name on their charger? Think about it!"


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

No, not trains but I _am_ missing a whole bunch of issues of GR from back in the late 90's that just somehow "disappeared!"


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

No missing trains yet. I am missing a VHS tape of train videos I shot in the early and mid 90s.


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## tjburger (Jan 2, 2008)

Missing $$$$,..........no wait I have trains. whew!


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## W3NZL (Jan 2, 2008)

When I got out of the service in 1956, I went to get my trains which were stored at my mothers house, only 
to find that they were all gone !!! When I asked mom about the trains, she said she gave then all away to 
the kids in the neighborhood, said I was too old to be playing with trains anymore... An I had a pretty nice 
collection of Lionel trains that I had put together in the 40s an early 50s... Oh well, time to check out this 
HO scale that everybody is getting into... Sure wish I had some of those Lionels now...
Paul R..


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## Spule 4 (Jan 2, 2008)

I have a couple HO NC&StL and PRR models I have done for the road's respective historical society conventions. I know they are here "somewhere". 

For me the fun is digging and saying "wow, I own one of those?". Especially the case in my collection of HO Pola European outline building kits. I buy them and put them in the attic. 

Maybe time to watch "Horders"? Dunno.....


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Ok so the wife works for a local Indian run casino and as such needs to be "licensed" to work there. As she started at the bottom and has worked her way up the ladder, the licensing process has gotten more "in depth" to the point where we need to list assets and thus an inventory of my trains. The last time I simply estimated. Now that I've been going thru the garage and sorting things out and unpacking form the main boxes they were cased up in I'm finding more cars I'd forgotten I'd bought and still cannot find the hoppers I know I bought. Her licensing process is done for another two years so I've got some more time to accurately represent the collection next time. Should give the insurance agent a coronary too! LOL! 

Chas


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## Del Tapparo (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By wchasr on 19 Jul 2010 12:39 PM 
Ok so the wife works for a local Indian run casino and as such needs to be "licensed" to work there. As she started at the bottom and has worked her way up the ladder, the licensing process has gotten more "in depth" to the point where we need to list assets and thus an inventory of my trains. The last time I simply estimated. Now that I've been going thru the garage and sorting things out and unpacking form the main boxes they were cased up in I'm finding more cars I'd forgotten I'd bought and still cannot find the hoppers I know I bought. Her licensing process is done for another two years so I've got some more time to accurately represent the collection next time. Should give the insurance agent a coronary too! LOL! 

Chas 

Why in the world would an employer need to know what your assets are?? Are they insuring you? Or just making decisions based on your net worth?


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## paintjockey (Jan 3, 2008)

Casino's want to know your background, financial status and what you own so they know if you are a threat or risk to them. People with bad credit, huge debt, that don't own anything but a car, rent a new place every other month have a record are not good options for a casino. My wife worked for a bank in loans and it was the same way.


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## blueregal (Jan 3, 2008)

Yep, I've lost track of almost everything a time or two!! Having said that I usually find what I WAS looking for when I'm looking for something else some time later!!! Go figure!! Always works out that way! Murphy's Law i guess! Why this week I found three+ things I looked for last year!! Hah LOL Regal


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## Dave F (Jan 2, 2008)

I seem to be missing large chunks of time. At first I thought I was a victim of alien abductions... but then I remembered I'm a garden railroader..


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## joe rusz (Jan 3, 2008)

I haven't lost a whole train, but a while back I thought I lost an AMS flatcar, which I bought from Jonathan Bliese to use as a base for a sidedoor caboose I hope to build. It was driving me crazy, wondering, did I buy it, or didn't I, when I suddenly remembered that for some strange reason I placed it on a shelf behind my Porsche model cars (another story). I guess I couldn't find a place to store it (my wife is always picking up after me), so rather than risk having her misplace it, I did it myself. It's still there, but at least I know it.


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## Andre Anderson (Jan 3, 2008)

Yup, I lost a whole box and I thought that I had looked in every box but one that I JUST KNEW WAS TOO SMALL TO HOLD THE TRAINS THAT i WAS MISSING SO WHY LOOK IN IT!, ya right. I was looking for something else and finally opened that box and there they were.

Andre


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

In this case I KNOW I bought these cars. I rememeber the case got wet or at least damp and the boxes on the Bachman PRR Hoppers were damaged beyond saving. I remember re-packing them. I DO NOT remember how many there were though? I had gotten them when TW had a clearance on them for under $20 each. I'm sure I got at least 6 and thought it was two cases to make a dozen? Can't find any of them now. Darn it. I'm not thru ALL the boxes yet though. I did find yet again two more cars I did not remember I had last night. I'm trying to seperate all the cars still in boxes to the garage and the ones not in boxes or that need work into the workshop in the basement. Lots of back and forth and sadly the workshop is in the basement as far away from the garage as possible on our lot. LOL! Still if they are not in the garage in the remaining few boxes I'm out of luck and they are gone. 

Chas


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## Nicholas Savatgy (Dec 17, 2008)

Posted By wchasr on 28 Apr 2010 07:21 AM 
Have you ever lost some of your trains? Please let me set the scenario for you before you answer.

Way back in the early 1990's I was working at Niagara Hobby & Craft in Cheektowaga Ny near the Buffalo Airport. I was the RC car guy but we sold everyhting so I got to know more and more about trains. From Z thru G back then. We sold it all. We had an operating display track HO & N on one 4x8 sheet, O-27 and O on another and then a somewhat larger G scale layout with an LGB Staniz running on it. One Christmas the owner loaned out several LGB starter sets to local banks and after Christmas sold them as used. I put a little gray/blue passenger set on layaway and paid it off at some point. Thus my start in G-scale trains. This was when OR and GR were also new and published six times a year on opposing months. There was not much selection in G-scale trains but the future was bright & I was niave. I was newly married and living in an apartment south of Buffalo and driving 30 miles south to work full time and then 50 milesnorht to work at the hobby shop and then 20 miles south to assemble RC cars until teh wee hours of the morning to support my new hobby of G scale trains. I was young a innocent back then. Newly married with no kids and three jobs. We moved from there and all the trians I had fit into two or three boxes at that point. From there we moved south to Pennsylvania where I drove 30 miles north into NY to work and then home again. I worked at the hobby shop twice a year over long weekends to keep my discount. I continued to accumulate trains at a good pace as while I was still wroking three jobs (sort of ) I was making more in overtime at the main job. In all this time of neglecting my marriage that too came to an end. While I got the keep the trains she got the house which meant I had to move everything into storage. At this point with the huge coillection of track and all the trains I'd bought, it was three pickup truck loads just in trains. Sometime in here I'd purchased a computer program to help inventory all my trains which did not include the track but my only computer access was at work so it was limited. From there I started dating again and eventually moved in with this lady and moved all the trains into the basement at her apartment back in NY state. From there we got married and moved into a new place putting the trians into storage in a garage this time. Still buying more and more trains as time and money allowed. We now had two children and an offer to buy a house and move to a larger piece of property was alurring. So once again we packed up everything and moved. A sizable amount now with all our stuff and all the kids stuff and all the trains. I still have at least one pickup load of stuff (trains and other) in storage in a garage that was broken into by "relatives" several years ago. 

That brings us to today. I will be helping to decorate and banquet hall next week and was going to use some of my trian cars. So a mnath or so I started diggin them out of the nooks and crannies of my workshop and garage on our property and while I found most of them it seems that there is a full case of older Bachman coal hoppers missing? I distinctly remember buying a case of 4 or 6 from Trainworld when I as living in Pennsylvania. I cannot find those cars now. No where no how. I had bought two USAT hoppers at a train show in Connecticut at one point and could not find them. I finally tore into one of 4 boxes I thought were something else last night and found them. I am truly hoping that I left this case in the storage garage and that they didn't get pilfered by the kids. 

I truly hate misplacing items. Most of my trains have only been out of the box to make sure they were Ok and never even run! Some have been run around the Christmas tree or taken to Cub Scout meetings and run when I did my live steam display for them. So many of my trains I've not "seen" in many moves! As things settle down at home this summer one of my projects is to completly inventory what I've got and where it is. I do have a print out of that long lost inventory someplace and even have the program on floppy still. Those files have been transffered to Thumbdrive before the last set of upgrades obsoleted a floppy drive from any of my current computers. I am however not sure that this program would run on XP or Win7 as it was orginally running on early Windows! Time to set up something new to inventory. back then I only had computer access at work now I've got a computer at home. 

So anyone else misplace their trains?

Chas


I do it all the time Chas, All the time HE HE HE


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