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I prefer around-the-room because I'm always looking at scenery behind the tracks. I paint a backdrop, then build the benchwork to suit the track plan, anchor it to the wall studs, and then build the right-of-way on risers. It affords me what I like, and that is to watch trains run around me...

Any plaster will work, even wall patching compound if you have some lying around and you'd love to put it to use. Just make darned good'n sure there are no pinholes or gaps once it dries...which gypsum-based compounds are wont to do. One way to help to seal it if there are very tiny holes is...

It depends on your girth, or butt size if that helps. Most older male adults would be happy with about 28", give or take a coupla inches. Even so, you'll often back into the other side. I would advise using screws here and there into studs to keep the whole from budging. When you back into...

This is an unanswerable question as it stands. We don't know the room you have for a layout, what track configuration you're using, what your rolling stock is, what your minimum radius is for the most restrictive item in your rolling stock, what gauge loading you'll need (you can look that up)...

If there is a grade there, it is a typical gradual railway slope. Maybe 1.6%, but it's hard to tell since the video doesn't show much of the first loop's start..

I don't have any. That's my self-imposed penalty for crappy track-laying. It forces me to contend practically with poor trackage. I think most of us decide to have one inside any hidden trackage and staging. At the exits to a helix, for example, at the yard throat...

In order to ensure better contact with the rails, I would make both the locomotive and the tender considerably heavier. Tenders, particularly, need more weight. In order to accomplish this amazing feat of engineering, all we'd have to do is to use tungsten-carbide steel. It would add to the...

Modern decoders since about 2005 have all been 'dual mode' so that they could claim that they comply with NMRA specifications for DCC. As long as they are in factory default settings, or if the owner has ensured CV29 is in the correct setting (usually a value of 34), the decoder will switch its...

Playground sand is not very costly, and you can always use the other 90% of what comes in the store-bought 40 pound bag for leveling pavers or something else. It's what I use, screened to get the right size of ballast grains for my scale. Or, I have used local beach sand.

We can't/shouldn't answer this for you. This hobby, like all hobbies, is intensely emotional and personal, and is intended to help YOU to discover what you need from it and what your evolution in it is to be. Nothing we do in our hobby is cast in concrete; it can always be undone, done...

Honestly, every time I introduce a new locomotive to the layout, diesel or steam makes no difference, the newcomer finds a small section of my trackage that it doesn't like. I have to fiddle with that area, including taking up a whole length of flex one time and re-laying it and ballasting it...

We need to know what 'loses power' means. Do the engines just stall, does the system beep and cut off track power...what? I think it might be a faulty power supply or transformer.

The phase conflict is verbotten for all things electrical. It creates a short which allows full circuit amperage to course through the affected area with maximum resistance, meaning the area gets HOT!! Heat kills electrical components. This includes decoders. So, to protect itself, and your...

No, fuses that are not very old, say 15 years or so (depends on how high the amperage is typically through them. It might not trip them, but if it gets the filament warm/hot much of the time, it degrades the fuse) should be good for pretty much all the way up to their rated amperage. Voltage...

As sold, the EZ-Command lets you run many/most of the DCC decoder functions. What you cannot do with an EZ-Command is change any of the functions to custom settings. It has been nearly 18 years for me, but I think you can set addresses, run the bell and whistle, and maybe lighting, but you...

This is what I did: Different style of turntable, but the 'naturalizing' of the surroundings and of the structure would be much the same.

Yes, it was too close. The tracks worked really well there, but I had the sense to place at least this one sheet to see if it would work. Then....it did. Then, I scurried and hurried to place the next sheet, and the next... :p I eventually painted the fascia sheets a dark green, and it was...

The skirting that many put on the side of the benchwork can be of hardboard, Masonite, doorskin....that kind of wood or laminate, and the idea is to ensure the top edge is raised above the layout's surface materials, scenery, by about a full inch. So, you won't need much, just a 'catch-all'...

Ha ha!! Does that cat know it tastes like chicken?

The only reasons to see a substantial change in ballast size and/or colour would be when the old supply ran out, or the contract did and the rails had to find a new source from a different deposit, or if the ballast in place had to be taken up and replaced, but the previous conditions I listed...