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Q1: What is the best track to use? A1: As far a what brand, they all are good. Each brand has its own small differences. I would suggest you get a small sample of the different brands of the same scale and gauge track to compare. This is what I recently did to decide what brand to purchase for my newly rebuilt railway. I wanted code 83 nickel-silver rail, so I got a sample of flextrack and a turnout from Atlas, Walthers/Shinohara, and Micro Engineering. I then selected the brand that looked the best to me since I was interested in appearance as well as functionality.. Q2: Can I use different brands of track or no? A2: Yes, you can. On my railway, I will be mixing Micro Engineering flextrack and turnouts with Walthers/Shinohara components that ME doesn't make. I could do this just as easily with Atlas track components if I wanted to. Q3: Can i use different brands of cars and locomotives? A3: Yes. Any manufacturer's HO car or locomotive will run on any manufacturer's HO scale track. If all the cars and locomotives have the same kind of couplers they will all work together (you can change the couplers if they don't match). The same holds true for the other scales such as N, O and so forth. Q4: If you CAN use different brands together (track/cars/loco's) is it or isnt it a good idea? A4: No one manufacturer can produce all of the different varieties of locomotives and cars. Many manufacturers produce cars and locos that the others manufacturers are not making. Therefor modelers benefit with a large selection of products to choose from. This also promotes healthy competition among manufacturers. We modelers all want cheap equipment, but we also want it to be of good quality and good looking as well. There's nothing wrong with mixing brands together. In fact I'd recommend it. Q5: Kadee #5 Couplers > To me looks like 010010001100 aka: What the hell is it? A5: Kadee is a manufacturer of knuckle couplers for several different scales. In fact Kadee was the first to come up with a good looking HO scale knuckle coupler that actually worked like real couplers. Kadee had a patent on this design which kept other manufacturers from producing look-a-likes. Modelers really liked this coupler, and it became the standard coupler used by the more serious modelers. There were other coupler such as the X2F, aka. NMRA, aka hook-horn which up until recently was the predominant coupler included with HO scale equipment. Modelers would have to change the couplers on all their cars and locos to use the Kadee couplers. Within the past few years, Kadee's patent must have run out, and other manufacturers jumped in and produced their own version of the Kadee coupler to varing degrees of success as you may have read in other posts. Kadee produces several varieties of their coupler in order to alloe their coupler to be used on different manufacturer's equipment. The different vareties differ in the shape of the coupler shank, and the material the coupler is made of. To distinguish between these varieties, Kadee gave them a number. The Kadee #5 coupler is the most commonly used coupler as it fits into most all of the cars made. It it metal with a centered shank. The 20 series couplers are plastic and are intended to be used wherever an insulated coupler is needed, such as on some locomotives to prevent electrical shorts through the couplers if two locos were coupled back to back, and both used the frame as part of the electrical circuit. Check out Kadee's website www.kadee.com for more on their different couplers. Q6: How do you make track work at different inclines (i.e. hills) im wanting to setup a multi level track layout (for my underground coal mine) A6: There are a number of different ways to introduce vertical elevation to a model railroad. I suggest you read some of the Beginner's guide books, as well as other model railroad publications. This subject will take too long for me to answer here. Q7: What is the maximum degree of incline an HO scale locomotive can handle with say 2-6 cars A7: Depends upon the locomotive, and how much effort it takes to pull the cars. Heavier locomotives with more wheels can generally outpull lighter locomotives with fewer wheels. It is a balance between weight on "drivers" and amount of adhesion a locomotive can get that determines how much a locomotive can pull. There are other factors as well. Generally for my models, I would try to keep the grade/incline as close to flat as possible and still achieve the height you want. I would recommend 2% grade as max. Logging railroads might go steeper to 4%. (rise / run = grade% Use same unit of measure for both the rise/fall and the run) Q8: What is the maximum number of cars an HO locomotive can pull? And w/ that number of cars on it what is the maximum incline it can handle? A8: Again it depends upon the specific locomotive. I refer you back to the previous answer. I will also add that to pull more cars than a single locomotive could pull, railroads would add more locomotives to a train. Q9: Where can i buy bulk amounts of track say 10-25 feet? A9: Your local hobby shop can get as much track for you, as you may need. Q10: Any books that i can go get from a library or Barnes and Noble that you guys recommend Id love to know about. A10: There are many, many books on how to build a model railroad. You will generally find these at your local hobby shop or your library instead of at a Barnes & Noble or Borders book store. If I remember correctly, model railroad books would be classified under dewy decimal number 625 at the library. I also recommend you check out past issues of Model Railroader magazine from the library, or purchase current issues from the hobby shop. There are other good model railroad perodicals such as Railroad Model Craftsman that you can read as well, but MR often has articles for beginners just getting into the hobby. Also check out the books published by Kalmbach at www.kalmbach.com Also see www.worldsgreatesthobby.com and www.nmra.org I hope I answered your questions. There is a lot to learn, much more than I can easily put into this post. And no one knows it all. I recommend you read up on the subject, and keep reading this forum. There is a lot of good information here. Dale B.
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