insomniville
Well-Known Member
Hi, folks!
I'm relatively "new" to the hobby; I had some model trains as a kid (HO, N, and Lionel), but they didn't really click with me back then. Now, though, they haven't been willing to leave me alone for the past few months, so here we are. I'm officially embarking down the rabbit hole to see what I find down there.
I've been lurking for a month or so on this forum, and finally decided to open an account.
I'm more or less retired now, so I have plenty of time to dedicate to a hobby like this. I'm currently in the planning phases, and am looking forward to actually building a layout -- though it might be a while before I get there. Planning takes time.
While HO is tempting, it also strikes me as somewhat limiting in what you can fit in a given space, so I'm going for N scale. I occasionally waffle on that, but for now it still seems right. I like the idea of long mainline runs; my trains need somewhere to actually travel to!
For the moment, I just have a little Kato starter set (the Amtrak ALC-42 Charger & Superliner set) to experiment with, which kinda blew my mind. The quality has improved drastically in the last thirty years from what I had when I was a kid. I'm not planning on going with Unitrak for my layout, but... it's tempting.
I'm much more into diesel rather than steam, and while freight will have a sizable place on my hypothetical layout, I find passenger service (and especially commuter rail) to be more interesting to model. At the moment, at least. I'm a computer geek, and the idea of constructing a fully-automated metro train system is entertaining. (Do they have ones where you can use DCC to make the passenger car doors open? Hmmmm....)
But I digress...
I hope you all don't mind if I occasionally pick your brains for help! So far I'm doing okay on my own just with reading and googling, but I have a feeling that will rapidly change once I get into the thick of things. So. Many. Details!
And I think it's probably been forty years since I've even built a model...
Ah well. This should be fun! I'm looking forward to getting to know you all.
I'm relatively "new" to the hobby; I had some model trains as a kid (HO, N, and Lionel), but they didn't really click with me back then. Now, though, they haven't been willing to leave me alone for the past few months, so here we are. I'm officially embarking down the rabbit hole to see what I find down there.
I've been lurking for a month or so on this forum, and finally decided to open an account.
I'm more or less retired now, so I have plenty of time to dedicate to a hobby like this. I'm currently in the planning phases, and am looking forward to actually building a layout -- though it might be a while before I get there. Planning takes time.
While HO is tempting, it also strikes me as somewhat limiting in what you can fit in a given space, so I'm going for N scale. I occasionally waffle on that, but for now it still seems right. I like the idea of long mainline runs; my trains need somewhere to actually travel to!
For the moment, I just have a little Kato starter set (the Amtrak ALC-42 Charger & Superliner set) to experiment with, which kinda blew my mind. The quality has improved drastically in the last thirty years from what I had when I was a kid. I'm not planning on going with Unitrak for my layout, but... it's tempting.
I'm much more into diesel rather than steam, and while freight will have a sizable place on my hypothetical layout, I find passenger service (and especially commuter rail) to be more interesting to model. At the moment, at least. I'm a computer geek, and the idea of constructing a fully-automated metro train system is entertaining. (Do they have ones where you can use DCC to make the passenger car doors open? Hmmmm....)
But I digress...
I hope you all don't mind if I occasionally pick your brains for help! So far I'm doing okay on my own just with reading and googling, but I have a feeling that will rapidly change once I get into the thick of things. So. Many. Details!
And I think it's probably been forty years since I've even built a model...
Ah well. This should be fun! I'm looking forward to getting to know you all.
