I agree 100%.
Mike
I have a rather unusual approach to playing with trains. I buy stuff at TTOS swap meets, and I usually buy the stuff no one else wants. Things like the cheap postwar cars. I try to buy them for $4 or less, and I don’t look for anything collectible as I want to play with the trains, not just look at them. I have a few pieces that are too good to run, but not many, and I am getting close to putting everything I own on the track.
I have never built a permenant layout in 59 years of playing with trains. I put the track on the floor. Right now, I have Fastrack covering the floor in the living room. I have O-31 in two bedrooms upstairs. (I am not married, so I don’t have anyone to help me pick the track up. It has been down for almost a year now.) I like to make complex layouts using a lot of switches. The O-31 layout has 39 022 switches. (BTW, I paid less than $4 each for most of them. I had to rebuild and restore all of them to operation, but that is another story.) I wire the switches to fixed voltage for reliable operation. Then I wire the switches together in pairs so that when the train operates one of the switches, another switch also operates making the train take a different route.
My point is this. I just like to watch the train run and operate all the switches. I have to keep reminding myself, this is a toy train, not a model railroad. I don’t enjoy building scenery, and it would also get in the way of my very complex layout. I can admire someone who has built a model railroad, and it is very interesting to watch several operators running several trains using the new technology, but right now, it is not what I want to do. I think that is the point of this discussion. Not everyone wants to do the same thing, and there is no “right” way to play with trains.
God Bless you all.
Merry Christmas
Bruce