Newbie, Thought I'd say hi.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I have been reading this forum for a few months. I just thought I’d join in and say hi. I have learned more about model railroads from this forum than I ever thought possible. When I was little, my brother and I used to go to my uncles house to play with his trains. He had a spare bedroom covered with trains going every which way. It was the first thing we wanted to do when got there. He had what I learned to call a plywood empire. He had no interest in scenery, just operations. One year for Christmas, he came to my mothers house with box after box of ho trains, track, buildings, you name it. We set up a small layout, but couldn’t use most of it. We ended up trashing most of the buildings using them with our matchbox cars. A couple of years later we moved and we never used the trains again. Fast forward twenty years and I’m finding myself playing with trains again. My mother sold her house last year and we had to devide the spoils. My brother ended up with a 1968 Corvette, I got the trains! Through reading here, most of my stuff is severely out of date. MRC power, brass track, Atlas snap switches, Athearn engines, etc. The differnce for me is, I have no interest in operations. I’m more of a scenery guy. I also only had room for a 4x8 table. Not much operational value there. Sorry for my long post. I just thought I would tell a little about myself and say hi!

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[#welcome] Have you thought about N scale ? Check Dave Valmer he had a thread running I think it was called the “N Group”? He has some great stuff,including an awsome web site.

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[#welcome] to the forum.

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[#welcome] I hope you stay a while, and thay you can get into the hobby in a big way.

Note that some fellas will tell you that you can “fix” any locomotive as long as you are willing to put the time and energy into it… and if you have the savvy. Still, if you have Code 100 track and don’t mind running in DC, you can still have loads of fun.

I wish you success.

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Thanks for the welcome. If I had to start from scratch, I think that I’d go n scale. This is suppose to be my “free” hobby since I already had three engines, and like forty pieces of rolling stock. Not to mention the boxes of sectional track and flex track. I hadn’t joined the group because I’m alittle embarassed. When I first found this forum, I saw spacemouse’s old layout. It had the most interesting continues running that I’ve seen. I just feel bad that I copied his layout. It’s been an interesting puzzle to figure out. I had to try to use existing track, somebody elses layout, and yet, try to do my own thing.

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I’ve never posted pictures on the internet so please bear with me.

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[#welcome]

very nice and welcome. glad your takeing part =] i wish u the best of luck!!

-jake

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I think spacemouse would be flattered to have you use his trackplan. Hopefully he pipes in and lets us know what he thinks of it.

-Smoke

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Welcome aboard. The trees look great.

Hang on to that old rolling stock. If you haven’t done so already, you can upgrade them fairly easily.

I assembled about 2 dozen Athearn and Roundhouse kits 30 years ago and then put them away. When I rekindled my interest almost 2 years ago, I added weight, metal wheelsets and Kadee couplers to them and they work great. Instant rolling stock inventory! Good luck.

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I kind of had an issue with the rolling stock. Most of the boxcars are railbox cars. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just can’t decide what era to run. I have a Chicago NorthWestern F/7 I think. I also have a more modern deisel that I havn’t identified yet. Come to think of it, could you guys help me figure out what it is? I really threw a monkey wrench into it when I bought a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0!

I also have a handfull of gondolas and tankers. Thanks again for the welcome and the info.

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Welcome aboard. Nice layout and really nice scenery. Hope you enjoy your stay.

Tom[:D]

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Thanks for the compliments, I’ve been working on the hill more than anything. I added more trees since then. I havn’t really done anyhting to the other side because I would like to have a small town. The only problem is, if I add a town I loose what little operations I could have in the future. I’s also have to buy all new buildings. I told my wife that it would take more time to build a town than industry. She said “you mean it will cost more money?” I quickly changed the subject!