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Guys, This was my response in the original post. Thought I'd repost it here. Funny you should ask. I have built two layouts and am in the beginning stages of a third. Here is an article I wrote about the last one but never did anything with. The layout discussed here was a Marklin layout. Sorry that it is so long. Ten things I did wrong and would fix on the next layout 1. Not making a clean electrical connection to every track piece. This error caused me more grief than any other mistake (except spraying the power studs). When the track is new and laying on the cork, it usually functions perfectly. However, after painting, ballasting and gluing of the ballast the track often loses electrical contact Glue seeps in between the press on track connectors and interrupts the electrical flow between pieces. My advice: solder leads to every piece of track. This will take longer in the beginning but not half as long as I have spent trying to make up for not doing it. 2. Spraying the studs. Nothing I did was as bad as this mistake. It dogged the railroad the entire time and was a huge error. When applying glue to the ballast , I soaked the heck out of everything. I sprayed and sprayed matt medium to make sure that things stayed put. The layout looked great but nothing would run at all. For two rail track all one has to do is brite boy the rails and your off and running. Marklin track has studs. Lots of them . They must be individually scraped. There are still dead spots that I have never been able to fix from that fatal spraying. Advice: spray the track sparingly, wipe with a wet cloth to remove the glue. Use a dropper when possible, between the rails (this strategy worked fine on other sections of track) 4. steep grades. Ok, everyone does this at least once and I am sure that those of you bent on doing the steep grade thing are not going to be swayed by seeing the warning in print again. The reasons for having 5 or 6 percent grades are that one can climb (in a short run) high enough to cross over the other track and it is possible to have two levels of track in a small space. For two rail systems, most locos will not pull trains up these grades with out traction tires. Marklin gear has the tires and has no problems in this area. The more insidious problem with steep grades is how they look. One cannot put buildings next to them lest they look out of plumb. Trains look unrealistic climbing them as well. Advice: consider hiding steep grades or using a helix if you must climb. 5. hidden track work that I couldn’t reach. Another one that every one does at least once. There was only a little bit of this on the current layout and it happened to be where a large proportion of my derailments happened as well as a switch failure. Advice: make sure you can reach it!! 6. no switching plan before starting, lack of run-arounds. I had little idea why one needed run-arounds until I tried switching some facing point moves. Without the run around you are in trouble big time. Sure they take up space and appear to be extra track work but they are necessary. Advice: try switching your track plan on paper with cutouts for the cars and the locos before you build. Consult other more experienced train guys for help in this area. 7. Yard lead in a tunnel, down hill, s curved and crossing two power districts. This one is about as dumb as it gets but you would be surprised to hear how many guys tell me that they did the same thing on their layouts. Leads are necessary to switch the yard and they must be in plain sight. Any grades here are undesirable as are s curves. Power blocks must be broken in spots that will not require shuttling back and forth between throttles. Advice: plan the yard throat and leads carefully. 8. Not finishing the train room, atmospheric conditions in the garage. This one falls into the “well duh,” category. I was in such a hurry to build my railroad that I didn’t care about the huge gaps in the garage door that let in lots of moist air every night. Nor did I care about the rafters that dropped crud down on the layout. Later when track started corroding and rusting, I began to care about the gaps in the door. It was then too late to fix the problem. As for the ceiling: You haven’t lived until you have tried to hang drywall and finish a ceiling above a nearly completed layout without damaging it. Advice: Consider that the layout will turn out great and that you want to do it right the first time. Fini***he space as well as you can before construction begins. 9. Track on ¼” ply wood. Another rather obvious one. It can be very annoying to spend $50.00 on a sheet of plywood for sub-road bed and then throw half of it away as waste because the track cutouts left you with odd shaped pieces. I saved a few bucks and used ¼ inch plywood. I was later rewarded for my thriftiness with warping track and humps, dips and runaway cars on “level track”. Advice: Use the stiffest, thickest plywood you can as sub-roadbed. I like master modeler Tony Koester’s response as to why he uses ¾ plywood for his sub-roadbed “Because they don’t make 1” plywood!!” 10. Severe curves. This one slipped by me. I spent a large amount of time plotting elegant flex track curves for the visible sections of the track on my layout. Some how I rationalized using one section of a 15” radius curve on my main line to make a slight bend along the front of the layout. The bend as it turns out is actually quite severe and it will derail a train running at speed. I later (years later) realized that I had let this one slip in unnoticed by me even though I had stared at it every time I was been working on the layout. Advice: check and recheck those curve radii. Have an experienced train guy check as well. I am now in the process of making a whole bunch of new mistakes... Have fun,
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