Just Starting

[Anonymous]

I am just starting out in this hobby. I think I am getting a late start, but my 3 year old son actually got me into it. Or should I say got me off my butt to start building the model I have always wanted me to build. I made the "mistake of stopping by the local hobby store with him just to snoop around and now he has to go there at least once a week or he has withdrawls. thank God for him or I would probably still be sitting on the couch thinking to myself "I should build a model train" Anyways I am rambeling. The reason I started this is to ask all the veteran builders out there to give me any tips they think are worth sharing. Any help would be appreciated.

Traintroop

[Anonymous]

Hello Traintroop,

Books, and good ones, as the best overall tip I can offer. Check the Model Railroader homepage under the Model Railroader Store link for a plethora of handy, well-illustrated reference books covering everything from benchwork to wiring to scenery. Much of the hobby's accumulated knowledge is in these books, and they're just right for beginners.

Of course, there will be tricks you learn from other modelers, especially those you meet in person and on this forum.

So keep asking questions, keep in touch, and don't be afraid of making a mistake. Welcome to World's Greatest Hobby!

Paul Schmidt
Contributing Editor
Trains.com

[Anonymous]

paul is on the mark! buy all the books on basics. any hobby store will have them. then read for a while to get some basic knowledge, otherwise most of what people tell you on the forum will make no sense. GOOD LUCK!

[dwaneet]

search out your local hobby shops and also be on the lookout for any model railroading activities in your area like club meetings and shows. I recently was at a show that had about ten different layouts and seeing the different scales go throught their paces was exciting. One image that I will keep is seeing a N-track module layout that was running only four trains at once. Each train was made up of over 100 cars each! Most important is keep it simple and have fun

[Anonymous]

My advice is that whatever you decide do it NOW! It's very easy to procrasinate in this hobby. There is a time for reading books and there is a time for action. Start small and consider the first layout to be a practice layout to try different techniques (from the books) and learn skills so that in a year or two you can start on your dream layout to fit the space you have.

[dknelson]

Some easy advice:
In HO, brass track is cheaper but nickle silver is so much better that you should go with it exclusively.
Think about an era or railroad that interests you otherwise you end up buying a strange mix of stuff that looked good on the hobby shop shelf.
Spend some money on some decent tooks. X-acto makes some small sets of knives, files, saws etc. Be careful about leaving these where your son might find them.
Try to find others that you can talk to -- at the hobby shop, at a local club, at an NMRA Divisional or Regional level. With luck you will find a model railroad "buddy" -- I suspect for many of us, our best friends are our model train or railfan friends.
Don't be afraid to spend a little money for quality. There is still too much cheap junk out there.
Don't be afraid to redo and redo and rip out and redo again. If you think you can do it better the next time, do it better now and enjoy
Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

Have a plan for your railroad. Before you spend money, spend just a little time. Talk to some modelers at shows. There will be a show somewhere near you soon as many shows occur in the colder months. Look in the Model Railroad magazine for a listing by state. After you see what is possible, create your plan. Which railroad? Where? What year? Start small. The learning is fun. The starting over is fun. It is a lifetime hobby. Your railroad may never be finished...

[Anonymous]

There are certainly a lot of different approaches to establishing a model railroad. A railroad buddy is a good idea as long as he is near or supportive of your level of interest, skill and activity. The approach of planning first will most likely turn you into an arm chair enthusiast, not sure of when you have planned enough. I have done a few layouts since my child hood each of which started with a 4 X 8 foot sheet of plywood. All of them stalled after the track was nailed down and operations began. Each layout was dismantled due to lack of interest shortly thereafter. My current HO scale layout started as a point to point shelf layout, 2 X 15 foot that helped to resolve my misunderstandings of the art. Questions about type of track, turnouts, buildings, and backdrops were resolved before the layout grew to the 2.5 scale mile double track mainline it is now, complete with scenery, DCC, 14 industries, and a lower level, 6 track, 40 foot run through staging yard. The most helpful of this approach was it got me up and operating on a layout that didn't take up the middle of the room as a 4 X 8 table would. It afforded itself to landscaping, turnouts, grades and track laying. Wiring issues were experimented with and resolved. Expansion was easy in stages that were in line with the budget.
Attending train shows is very important to keep up with the hobby. Most shows have operating layouts which spark a surge of energy in most of us to advance our own layouts. Joining a local club, whether it is modular or fixed layout, will be very beneficial. If you are still in the beginner mode, a club will most likely swamp you with an overwhelming load of advice. Remember it is all with good intentions.
My current interest started when my son was old enough to become interested in trains. When he became high school age, trains weren't cool anymore, so I found a train buddy and got involved with the local clubs. I joined the NMRA as a requirement of one club, but then found it didn't really effect me personally other than take my money, so I had to quit from the club. I am now a member of the Prince William County Modular Railroad Club, http://www.pwmrc.org. and enjoy my level of activity at home as well as at the shows we operate at.

[Anonymous]

Well I don't consider myself a veteran even though I've been building my 'beginner layout' for about 4 years now, but I do have a few thoughts to share:

1. Decide for yourself what -you- want to get out of your layout. There are all sorts of opinions on what's important: faithfully modeling a prototype railroad, modeling an era, designing your layout for realistic operation, etc. The greatest part of this hobby is that you get to decide what's important on your layout. In my case, my main goal is 'photographic interest' in the sense that my layout is designed to have a number of separate areas that each present a pleasant (and hopefully convincing) scene. The term I've heard is "sense of place" That's what I'm going for. I want to create scenes you can look at and imagine them coming alive.

2. On a more practical note: if you are just starting and want your first layout to be relatively simple, use the table top approach instead of diving into stuff like open-grid benchwork, L-girder, etc. Just don't make the table larger than you can comfortably reach to the middle of (mine is about 5 ft by 8 ft. 2 1/2 feet doesn't sound like that much of a stretch but think about the kind of detail work you might need to do in there when it's time to add scenery. I sometimes wish I settled for 4x8)

3. Don't put any grades (changes in altitude) in your track plan. I did and I'm sure it added a lot of complexity to my layout, but there were certain 'scenes' I just had to have and they required the track to climb hills. It would be much easier to keep all the track on the same level. Also, when creating grades it's really easy to make them much-much steeper than they would ever be in real life, and even those little models might have trouble climing them.

4. To allow for variations in terrain, put all that flat track on 1 or 2 inches of foam so you can carve areas that dip below the track level. I think nearly all the recent beginner layouts shown in MR use this technique.

5. Don't overdo the track. Make something you find interesting but leave lots of room for scenery. They call it a 'spaghetti bowl' look when there's just way too much track for the space.

6. Just get started! It's way to easy to think and think about what you're going to do someday. Don't worry about being too neat and perfect (except perhaps in the tracklaying step when you want to make sure there's nothing to make your trains derail or stall). The amazing thing about a lot of the techniques described in MR and elsewhere, is that they're "self correcting" in the sense that they'll probably look good no matter how you do them. Nature is hardly ever neat and tidy: this works to your advantage when you're trying to model the real world.

7. Have fun!

Stan

[Anonymous]

Stan,
You have very good advice for all beginners and you said that your layout is 5x8, I would like my next layout to be the same size and I have a trackplan in mind but I was wondering if I could see some pictures of your layout or even a track plan.
Sincerly,
James.
BTW you can email me at [e-mail]