Southern Pacific Switching Layout

[Tom]

As a teenager, I was pretty against N Scale and had dismissed it as "toys", rather than serious railroad modeling.

A friend of mine had a large N Scale garage layout of Donner Pass on the SP, and ran a 40+ car train of Micro Trains flatcars up a 3% grade helix IN REVERSE at FULL THROTTLE. WITH midtrain helpers no less. Not ONE derailment or stutter.

SOLD! Though I'll always be an HO scale modeler, that changed my opinion on N scale.

The point is, don't build ANYTHING just for the sake of building SOMETHING is about the best advice I feel I can give. If your heart is not really into the layout you're building, you'll just abandon it. Been there, done that, and have seen it too many times too. Don't build until you have decided upon what you want. Changes as you go along are fine, heck, I NEVER follow a track plan to the letter. But if you are building "just to get something built" you're throwing away money and will wind up bored, frustrated and disappointed in the end.

And bullet proof track work is a MUST. If you are constantly having problems with your track, from the get go you're also VERY likely to abandon it as well. So... Pick a theme, design, era and railroad, make sure you use GOOD track (don't cheat yourself or your railroad by cheaping out and using junk) wait if you need to to get decent track, get it running VERY reliably, then go from there. Era's, locations, etc. can be changed later, no problem, but once you get the wood and foam cut, benchwork built and track laid, you're off to the races and there's usually no turning back.

Just a little friendly advice from a long time modeler who's started several layouts but only finished a few.