Quote from: Bob G on January 08, 2026, 09:41:04 AMI claim the fifth amendment... Oh and did you know N gauge storage takes up 1/8th the volume of OO? So you can have 8 times as many trains in N as you can in OO for the same storage space.

 

So N is vastly more expensive than OO if storage space is the limitation on loco numbers. If layout area is the limitation, then N is only 4 times more expensive than OO.

My locos are models from 3 continents (UK, North America, and Australia) across several time eras covering steam and diesels, but I only have about 55 locos in total  . I thought that I had a lot, but am really put to shame by quite a few others on this forum. But since starting in N scale in about 1978, I admit to having had in my hands another 25 or so locos that I have since sold on for various reasons.

Webbo   

Quote from: Roy L S on January 08, 2026, 11:47:23 PMand my kit-built 60532 "Blue Peter" (a resin kit but I can't remember by who),

Roy:

I think the resin kit for your Class A2 Blue Peter model was probably manufactured by a company called Fifty-Six and a Half Inch Model Railways (long since out of business). 

I bought the same resin kit (but from a different supplier) but never got it past the primer stage before GF came out with their A1 and A2 models.

Ian

all I will admit to is:
more than I need, but less than I want.

The simple honest truth is I don't know, but I have been modelling in N for a long time so it is a substantial number.

Most are now DCC (many sound fitted), but I have kept some of the more treasured analogue models such as my kit built Langley B1 61018 "Gnu" which runs on a Bachmann/Farish A3 chassis, and my kit-built 60532 "Blue Peter" (a resin kit but I can't remember by who), two Peco jubilees repainted into BR livery by the late and sadly missed Fred Hempsall (who also built me a Foxhunter A1 "Flamboyant" which I still have). there is also my first V2 converted (butchered) from a Farish A3 with scratch-built tender on their LMS chassis. I also have a few very early Farish locos like the original 94xx and Holden Tank. Oh, and maybe 8 Union Mills locos, only one of which has had the DCC treatment (a J38).

It must be some kind of illness I think! 

Roy

Just the 189 for me.
And the 44 DMU/EMUs
Which don't include the 13 HSTs

It is an affliction! At least they're colourful!

That really is a class 66 compulsion!!

More than some, but not as many as others!

I started in 2009, try to stick fairly rigidly to WCML post-2010 models, I think I've only got a handful that don't fit. Total of about 150, but it's a long time since I counted, and I do sell stuff on quite regularly. Think I've now hit fifty class 66s with the release of the Revolution ones!

Quote from: Newportnobby on January 08, 2026, 12:50:57 PMSo fess up - numbers please

OK. When I was an OO kid modeller in the 1960s I got 1 train a year. I had five when I changed to N in 1970.

We were not well off when I was at secondary school or even at Uni, and so I had maybe 10 N gauge by the age of 25. With my first job I had cash to spare. By the age of 40 I think I had around 50 locos. Then Farish sold out to Bachmann and there was a shortage, especially of green diesels!

Salaries went up, as did the desire to possess something even if it didn't fit in with what I was modelling at the time. I think that this qualifies as an addiction. I now had the ability to own something that in the past I could not have afforded. So I bought it. But I have also been selling things acquired like that too, because I can always look back and say "Yes I had one of those once". The Blue Pullman (Midland Pullman) is a classic example of that.

So in fact my stock is not as excessive as some. Well that's what I tell myself, anyway. It is themed by era, and I've narrowed the eras down to exclude most of the 1980s and 1990s now. The focus is on 1955-1968 and 1968-1980 now. And that's because of the availability of stock that fits my preferred regions (S and W) and eras (4-7).

And as I said before, of those 50 odd locos I had pre-2005, I only have my first N gauge loco, a Peco Jubilee, for posterity. Everything else has been bought post 2005 (but this also includes older models, like the Peco Adams B4 tank, for example).

Ah. That was cathartic.
Bob

The Ferryhill locomotive roster has the following:

 - 25 steam locos
 - 33 diesel locos
 - 6 electric locos
 - 5 DMUs/EMUs
 - 69 locos total

In addition, I have the Dapol LNER J72 0-6-0T on pre-order

I bought my first N gauge loco in 1967, so I have only been averaging just over one new loco per year over that period.

Ian