i'll start of first by saying i'm a green horn, rookie, newbie yatta yatta and have never built a layout yet. this has kind of made me lean towards sectional track as all i have to do is put the sections together, i don't have to quarden off portions of my layout and figure out center lines and mark off curves and spike track and all. my first layout will end up being a rather small coffee table, unmodified a 44 x 20 inch area but it's an older table and only held together with brackets and screws, so i can fairly easily modify it to fit the table top of 48 x 24 inches. my isn't too much, some sort of loop or overlaping figure 8, and the most i'll run is my Bachmann C.P. Jupiter 4-4-0, a small Bachmann passenger car (around the same length of Bachmanns 50 foot box car), and a caboose. some scenery, a small town area, houses, and a small depot will round out the list. i'm in a bit of a quarry as it's a small area and any curves less than 9.5 inch radius puts the track almost to the edges. the edge/end plates do have a decorate 1 inch cutout which can be used to give track clearance, but if it's too much i know the cat will be playing with train at the same time i am. i was looking at Kato UniTrack and Peco. Peco has track with 9 in curve radii, but the UniTrack comes with a bed. does anyone have good/bad expierences with these track? is there someone out there that i'm missing that makes good track? i have the '08 Walthers catalogue so i might be limited in selection.
p.s. i also planned on using Bachman control. it's a little more than say Railmaster (or was it Powermaster) 1300 i liked, but the actual control is palm sized, and doesn't look too bad. again, thanks for any help and suggestions in advance. eventually i'll be building a 2 x 8 foot shelf layout that's for the most part point-to-point, but i wanted to start with something simpler first.
Two weeks ago after the local NMRA divisional meet here in Milwaukee we went on layout tours in South Milwaukee WI. A lovely Lionel layout that has been featured in Classic Toy Trains was lots of fun.
A really nice and quite large N scale layout came next, and the interesting thing is that this entire large layout, fully scenic'ed with buildings and backdrops etc is done entirely in Kato UniTrack. Operation was flawless. Interestingly, the guy said that about every three years he removes everything, designs a new track plan, and essentially re-does the layout, reusing the UniTrack or buying new pieces for what he needs. I assume he reuses the benchwork too
Although there is a certain geometrical regularity with any sectional track, the guy used roads and structures and scenery to really break up that monotony. I was impressed. This guy was actually a pretty advanced modeler but UniTrack worked for him. So if you can afford it, I'd say it is a good option.
Dave Nelson
i just preffered sectional cause like i said, i'm a beginner. plus after i got enough cars i bought a piece of Atlas code 80 flex track to spike to a scrap 1 x 4 so i could display my cars and i didn't neccesarily do a such a straight job (yes i marked off a perfectly straight refference line). the wood was a little stiffer, but i wouldn't call it hard wood. sure wasn't any oak. that dissapoints me about the loco though. i got it at a good price, around 15 bucks less than what Bachmanns MSRP was. i'll admit, i bought it cause it was pretty. since yesterday though, after i checked the mail and dug into the new MR issue, i started leaning back towards using that spare room. unless of course we get kicked out for not paying first, dumb work still hasn't had me work more than once since christmas, evidentally they don't realize that's called a layoff and tends to make people mad when they do it to them. pretty soon i'll have to quite my pool league because i won't have the money to be in it. so basically i'm planning for poops and giggles. but i still run into 2 problems. one, my list of engines i want so far includes the one i have, a GP30, an RS-2/3, FM H10/44 switcher, Baldwin VO-1000, an NW3, and an Alco S-6 (i got to ride in one once and well...you know). i really want to run DC, but constantly switching around engines so i can run what i feel like might get tiring after a while. the second is space. the designers of our apartement kind of squished the back bedroom in. more or less it's 11 x 9 ft, but where the door is it kicks into the about a foot so they had room in the hall to put the door for the bedroom we use. on the foward wall is a 6 foot wide window, and on the back wall next to the door is a closet. i somewhat lucked out as the the closet will either be used for some storage or not used at all so the layout won't have to negate the closet and can just shoot right in front of it, although i don't know i'd go with that big of a layout.