The Pros and the Cons…

I recently saw that Athearn is coming out with a new run of SD40-2s in Chessie paint. Granted, they won’t be out until next year at this time, but they’re still coming.

Now, there are a lot of pros to having a layout with one set railroad (or three… c’mon! I’m only human!) along with a set location and time. It becomes quite easy to know what you need to buy and what you don’t. It takes a lot of the temptation out of looking at new product announcements.

Sure, you can fudge some of your industries, and there’s always that “universal industry” concept that comes with interchange (though there are limits there, too, as I’ve found out with my Canton RR interchange), but by and large, once you’ve got those parameters set, it’s pretty easy. Especially when your layout is a specific, small subdivision.

“So what’s the problem?” you ask?

I love SD40-2s.

They are in my top 5 favorite locomotives of all time. So, while there are huge benefits to having built-in limitations on my buying needs because my path is set, the con is that I also lose some flexibility because my path is set. And when I see an announcement like the one from Athearn for some piece of equipment that I really love, I cringe a little.

Sure, I could buy a couple, but they simply don’t fit in my operating scheme. It’s a 1.5 mile long subdivision. There’s just no need for them. They don’t make sense.

As it is I have some fantasy scheme C40-8s. I don’t need anything else that doesn’t fit the bill. I guess I’ll just have to suck it up.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t drool a little…