After all these years

[LotoQuestions]

After fading away from Model Railroading in my early 20's and keeping a passing interest going over the last 40 years I find myself returning.
Retired now so have a bit of time (never enough) and a bit of money (never enough )

I am reducing and dropping the commitment to other hobbies such as computers ( old Amiga ) and programming/ network/ web (vocation as well). Trying to get rid of a lifetime of accumulated stuff so I can concentrate my energies.

In my 20's and prior Model Railroader was full of scratchbuilding articles and I followed suit - double slip, bridges etc and the item that caused me to vow never to build a layout untill the control issue was resolved. Working on a an engine house and diesel support area I realized how useless block control was for something like that ................ What I wanted was DCC ........ just it didn't exist yet.

Living in Canada(Burnaby BC) and with Parkinsons I am amazed at the variety and quality of stuff available from the LHS and EBAY and taking full advantage of both. Loto questions coming up.............

thanks ,,, ken

 

[UP2CSX]

Ken, welcome aboard here and welcome back to the hobby. My story is much like yours, dropped out of the hobby in my mid 20's when job, marriage, and kids took higher priority. I'm 63 now and been retired since 2004. I started building my first layout after that long hiatus and was also amazed at how much had changed in the hobby. Unfortunately, I didn't know anything about sites like this but thought I knew about layout building anyway, since I had built a bunch before. Wrong! I made lots of mistakes with my current layout that I wouldn't have made if I had posted a trackplan here and had people tell me about the problem areas they saw. The best advice I can give you is to not spend a dime on anything until you have a trackplan that most of the guys here don't see any major problems with. You'll be a lot happier in the long run.