Reference sites / materials?

[Mark_P]

My father passed away a while ago, and I recently had the opportunity to go by my parents' house and retrieve his old train sets.  

While I had a model train set as a kid (N gauge), my father got into model trains more after he retired, and used to spend a lot of his time rebuilding/restoring old Lionel O gauge engines.  I had originally wanted to get the N gauge set, but it seems to have gone missing since about 10 years ago or so (when I last saw him fooling with it), and all I could find was the O gauge stuff.  

I've got a bunch of engines, cars, and a ridiculous amount of straight track sections, as well as some other accessories.  I'm not quite sure what all I need to set this up so my sons can play with it - I know I'll need some curved sections just to make a big oval, as well as the section that the transformer attaches to, and some other things. Where I'm a bit lost is in knowing what sort of track I have, and what's compatible with it, so I can get the fill-in parts to get this working. 

So the question I've got is are there any reference sites where I can go look that stuff up?  I don't really want to bombard the community with a bunch of penny-ante questions if I can go look it up somewhere and not bug people about it.  

[Flintlock76]

Are there any hobby shops in your area?  A well-stocked hobby shop, at least one that caters to the model railroading hobby, should have reference works for sale of the "How To..." or "Beginner's Guide to..." genre. 

The Kalmbach Book Store (you can find it through their website) has softcover guides for beginners as well. 

TM Books and Video has "how-to" DVDS.

https://www.tmbv.com/

Having gone from O Gauge to N Gauge and back to O I can say that aside from the obvious size difference and the third rail there's not too much difference in the basic operations of both N and O.  Once you start building your layout the basics will all come back to you, kind of like an armed forces veteran who picks up a rifle he hasn't seen in decades and amazingly all he learned about it when he was in the service comes right back.

[pennytrains]

aboard!

We can answer your questions.  What would be most helpful is the numbers on the locomotives.  These are usually the model number and are most likely just below the cab windows.  For example, a 2035 is a 2-6-4 Pennsylvania style locomotive with magnetraction from 1951 while a 8031 is a Canadian National GP-7 from 1973.  (I have both of those locomotives a few feet from me ).

With an idea of what locomotives you have we can recommend what type of power requirements you're going to need.

Car numbers can be a bit different than locomotive model numbers.  For example you could see a number like 477618 on a red Pennsylvania caboose with black window frames.  The actual catalog number for this car is 2457, which appears nowhere on the caboose.

Hobby shops unfortunately are getting few and far between.  However you can buy tubular Lionel style track at Menards year round if there's a store near you.

Otherwise you'll need to order track, transformer and at least one lock-on to connect the transformer to the rails.  A lot of great ones advertise in CTT with Charles Ro, Trainworld and Nicholas Smith jumping into my mind as being the three biggies.

Don't hesitate to ask questions.  You can learn a lot from books but not everything .

[MidlandMike]

Mark_P

- I know I'll need some curved sections just to make a big oval, ...

An important consideration is curve diameter.  027 track is 27" diameter, and is only suitable for the smallest equipment.  Other sizes are 31", 36", 42", 45", 54", and 72", and others.  Not sure if minimum diameter is listed on box that equipment came in.  You might need to look in catalog for that info.  Much of the old equipment could handle 31", but some of the newer locos and passenger cars need a larger diameter.