I started building my first layout when I was a teenager and had some spoken guidance from my late, great uncle, who was a veteran model railroader.  The first and only time he saw my layout was when it was thrown in the dumpster at the family business.  You see, when I returned from college one day, I had been told by him that my father threw out my layout; my great uncle thought was well done.  When I walked into the basement room, there was my bench work with a ping-pong table on it.  Fast forward to present time, after my locos and rolling stock went into storage, as those thankfully survived, I find myself planning for a new modular layout while trying to rework my locos into running shape, using a true-track temporary setup until I can build bench work again.