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Trainboy, Many of skills that may initially appear difficult in model railroading, ultimately prove to be not that big a deal. Often there is one little "trick" and once you know that, you're in the club. For example, the secret to soldering is a "shiny" iron tip and lots of flux. Flux is what makes everything come together quickly. If you run into trouble, just post your problem in the forum and you'll probably be offered 10 different solutions to your dilemma. For me, the most intimidating challenge was a track plan. So what I did was look for "parts" of other published track plans that would fit my intentions and built these into my over all scheme of things. In the end, only about 20% of what I "borrowed" was used, the rest of the plan - 80% - was my own concept. Here are some quick thoughts on layout building: dcc - keeps your wiring simple, much easier to deal with than block wiring. Two big wires down the middle of your layout, with a set of feeders from the track to the big wires (power buses). How simple can that be. If you have reversing loops or a wye use an automatic reversing unit. hand turnouts - keeps the wiring simple along with dcc scenery - go with a system like Woodland Scenics; it might be more expensive than some methods but its all inclusive and you know people have had good results with it. Having said that - don't use the pellet system for water but their realistic water instead. I can't recommend the "Mountain Valley Scenery Kit" enough; if you purchase it you will get a 45 page manual on how to install it and you will have everything (including ballast). So if you make additional scenery purchases it will only be to supplement what you already have in the kit.
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