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Well, after 60 some years of model railroading... I finally retired... have a heated and air conditioned garage and the time to get into this great hobby full time... the only drawback is lack of money... but I will nickle and dime it for a while... my scale is HO although I have a growing interest in On30... I have a bunch of old pictures that I may post on here later... got to get involved and read, read, read... I don't know a thing about DC or DCC... the last time I ran my railroad... was with a MRC "pulse power transformer" that just about burned the motors out of every engine I had... and the track was "blocked" electrically... I am gonna have to really get some information on the new stuff... we had no sound... especially the great stuff that is now available and most of what was on my layouts was scratch built... anyway, I am looking forward to jumping in this for real now... at age 66, I am basically starting over... about all I have is a couple of old steamers... including a nice brass 2 truck Shay and a few old rolling stock... maybe a little bobber caboose or two... and a few HO scale tractor trailers... I am a retired UPS/Overnite Transportation road driver... looking forward to this site helping me out.... gonna read, read and more read... talk later... I will probably be asking a lot of questions and reading even more....
Excellent! Glad to have you aboard. Do you hope to fill that garage with trains, or just use it in small portions?
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Well, I am not particularly interested in filling the garage... actually there is not that much room as I have a boat, two Harleys and a tool room and a bathroom, oh... and a pool table... so... I am building an addition for the boat... which moves the pool table to the boats former location...uh... you really didn't want all this, did you ... welll...
... to answer your first question... I will probably go after a 'short line', 'branch line'... either HO or On30 with only one or two main lines... I like mountains and trestles/bridges... a lot of scenery and only a few older trains and rolling stock... maybe only 3 or 4 old steam engines... Shays or Climaxes or small stuff that worked lumber or mining operations... that is what I have in mind... I am not into building an empire with cities, water fronts and all that stuff... I like watching a Shay slowly make its way around a bend in a mountain pass, pulling maybe 5 or 6 ore or lumber cars... watching the gears move and the whistle and the chug of the steam... I will attach a UTube video later that sort of shows what I am interested in...... but that should sum it up...
Just got back into model railroading which I did in my teens and in my 30's for my son. I am also overwhelmed by many of the changes. I am sticking with DC for now and have accumulated quite a bit of locos and rolling stock from Ebay, LHS and Christmas presents.
I am modeling Montana Rail Link and Great Northern in the Helena, MT area. We lived there for 20+ years before moving to Texas for retirement. For scenery I am including Last Chance Gulch and Sleeping Giant Mountain to anyone who is familiar with Helena, MT. Presently have a 5 x 10 layout with planned in expansion off of one end to go around the room once we get moved to our new house. I am just starting the scenery work and gluing the track down after running if for a couple of months to work out the bugs.
Look forward to learning more from you folks and sharing what I am doing.
Say Bill, we are about the same age and I'm somewhat the same as you in that I prefer back woods logging or small rural town as would have been found around the 1900's and the slower moving small trains. I'm straight DC myself which you also were even with the MRC power pack which shouldn't have burnt out any of the loco's motors but then again I have never used any MRC stuff as I bought Troller and have had to replace the Power Transistor a few time but it always seemed to work fine for me. Even using just DC Sound is still available as I have a friend that is DC also and his On30 sound equiped loco's still produce the most of the sounds but he really doesn't have any
control over them but they still seem to function properly.
Speaking about On30, while it is bigger to allow a better view of things it also requires more area due to the fact that it's a diminative O scale and all the distances need to be that much further apart depending on what your attempting to model.
It will be good to see what your doing.
Hi Gary, Glad to also know your also back in the hobby as it is a great hobby and we need to get more younger folks interested. I'm also an Eagle Scout from out in Central Calif. Scouting is a great experience and learning tool for sure! I grew up with the Steam loco's running in the San Ferando Valley out West of the main Los Angeles area with the many Pacific Fruit Grower Express cars servicing the Orange grove packing houses as well as other locations too I would imagine, and saw the transition to Diesel in the mid to late '50's I think it was. I like Bill have been involved with the hobby for about 60 years now too but like most got away from it for a while but now being retired I have more time to devote to it.
It's a great Forum your on, glad to have you. Oh, by all means stop by Flows railroad Dinner coffee shop at the bottom of the list of locations as many stop by and chat about all kinds of things.
Just read your replies to us and haven't got a chance to respond but I intend on commenting... gotta go watch a show with the wife.... anyway... I think I agree about On30... it looks great but all my thinking to date and in the past was in HO mindset and I think that is where I will stick... I am just in the planning stage but getting more excited each day... got a big A/C and heated garage with a bathroom and phone and an area at one end about 20'X20'... but it has a pool table in it now.... and a boat next to it... that needs to go outside... and the pool table to my sons'... we will see... be back in a bit, thanks for the comeback and I will put you guys on my friends list if that is ok with you... talk later...
