Introducing myself...

[Roadtrp]

Hi!

I first came to this site a couple of days ago. My screen name, Roadtrp comes from a road trip my wife and I took from Minnesota to Los Angeles (Disneyland) and Las Vegas this past September. It reminded me of what I loved most about surface transportation; that what you see along the way often provides the best memories of a trip.

I had an extensive Lionel train layout when I was young that had been started by my father when he was in his teens. Sadly, the Lionel layout was sold when my dad died (relatively young) and my mother had to sell my childhood home.

I am now 51 years old and looking to get started in model trains again. Because of space concerns I have decided to go with N scale. Ive read enough here to know that Kato and Bachmann Spectrum seem to be the best.

Unfortunately, nothing makes my heart beat like a string of passenger cars behind a sleek F-9 locomotive. My family traveled extensively by train when I was young, and I just cant get away from the thrill of seeing a beautiful passenger consist.

So since I want to start out with the economy provided by a set, and the only manufacturer Ive found selling a passenger starter set is standard Bachmann, that is what I will be buying. My schedule is such that I probably won't be able to do much with it for the next few years except watch it go around in circles and dream about the future. It is a very modest start, but one that I am excited about.

This board seems like a great source of information, I am sure I will be here often in the future.

[rayhippard]

Roadtrp, Hi ! Interesting story as a lot of us got started with Lionel. I'm 62, live near Eau Claire, WI, and have been in HO for about 50 years. Best advice: start at least a part of your layout now as a small module that you can incorporate into larger one at a later date. This will let you try several areas of modeling ( track,roadbed,scenery,buildings,etc. ) and hone your skills for the "bigger" projects.
You may also want to reconsider scale as HO is about same price as N and sometimes less expensive. Check out Athearn's Genesis Santa Fe F units. Very nice.
I have 2 sets in Great Northern and the detail is better in some ways than my brass !
Hope this has been some small help. Welcome back to the greatest community of modelers around. P.S. Also check out a historical society for Santa Fe. I belong to Great Northern Railway Historical Society and you get a lot of information and help for very little money. Good luck, Ray

[Roadtrp]

Ray,

Thanks for the welcome and advice. I strongly considered HO scale since there seems to be a far wider variety of equipment available. I decided on N since my space is limited to a 4' x 8' layout, and I thought that might be pretty limiting for HO. How much space do you think is required for a moderate sized HO layout?

-Jerry

P.S. How do you talk your wife into giving you more than 4' x 8'?

[rayhippard]

Jerry, There are many great plans for HO 4x8 layouts. Some even feature small yards !
Check out last few issues of MR mag.. Also layout books. Do you subscribe ?
What railroad do you like or want to model ? F units can run very well on 18 inch curves that fit 4x8 size. P.S. My wife gave up the "space fight" many years ago but bribery works quite well at times. Waiting for your reply. Ray

[Roadtrp]

Ray,

I don't currently subscribe to any MR magazines. I've just decided to act on my love of railroading recently. As far as railroads I would like to model, I haven't thought about it a great deal, and don't even know if what I would like is realistic.

My number one love is the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha that my family used to take between Minneapolis and Chicago during the early 60's. I love how that train looked, and will always remember the wonder I felt when the conductor talked to me on one of my trips when I was about 12 years old and he told me the train was going a little over 90 miles per hour at the time.

I also loved watching the Burlington Northern freights that ran across the street from the first apartment I lived in on my own. It was the early 70's, and they were pulled by big green diesels -- I think they were probably one of the locomotives from the GP series.

So I guess I would most like to model the railroads I remember. The Milwaukee Road Hiawatha and Burlington Northern freights.

[Anonymous]

Roadtrip -

You can certainly find F units in N, so stay there so you can run longer trains on that 4 X 8! I switched HO to N in 1990 and don't regret it.

You didn't ask for advice, but I think the train set is false economy! Buy a Kato, Intermountain or MT F unit (not all are F 9's, but F-7's, F-3's and FT's) and some Kato passenger cars. They'll run better, and you'll enjoy it more, so the cost per hour of running will go down, and you'll avoid the cost of upgrading from Bachman at a later date.

Just my $0.02! Have fun and welcome back to model railroading....

[Hawks05]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rayhippard

Roadtrp, Hi ! Interesting story as a lot of us got started with Lionel. I'm 62, live near Eau Claire, WI, and have been in HO for about 50 years. Best advice: start at least a part of your layout now as a small module that you can incorporate into larger one at a later date. This will let you try several areas of modeling ( track,roadbed,scenery,buildings,etc. ) and hone your skills for the "bigger" projects.
You may also want to reconsider scale as HO is about same price as N and sometimes less expensive. Check out Athearn's Genesis Santa Fe F units. Very nice.
I have 2 sets in Great Northern and the detail is better in some ways than my brass !
Hope this has been some small help. Welcome back to the greatest community of modelers around. P.S. Also check out a historical society for Santa Fe. I belong to Great Northern Railway Historical Society and you get a lot of information and help for very little money. Good luck, Ray

wow not to far away from me. i'm about 50 miles west of Eau Claire. i try to get down to Model Train Classics every other weekend or at least try so i can pick up Model Railroader and Trains. that place doesn't have much for HO though. if they do its mainly passenger train stuff and i want to model freight.