Hi, Railroad Friends! I am a complete newbie to model railroading (more about that in my profile/bio), but am pretty intrigued after a recent visit to our local (and very impressive) San Diego Model Railroad Museum. The layouts there are amazing, but also a little discouraging, in a "I'll never be able to do anything like that" kind of way.
I am an armchair modeler only so far, with a bunch of ideas and questions bouncing around in my head.. I've been binge watching YouTube videos, sketching out ideas, looking at product websites, and of course listening to Model Railroad Talk. I just finished listening to all the episodes (some twice), mostly while I've been cleaning out my garage over the past five days. I'm really grateful to Gary (and a few others online, too) for making model railroading seem accessible at whatever level one might be able to manage. I have learned so much about the hobby. It's just been fascinating. And of course every new bit of information brings up a dozen questions.
Also, I have ADHD, and just can't handle boredom, so there's no way I'd have gotten through 5 (going on 6) days of decluttering and organizing without something really interesting and engaging to listen to and think about. So, thanks, Gary, for helping me get the garage dealt with! (Also, I'm still holding out hope that I might stumble onto an old N scale starter set I ran around a Christmas tree years ago - for the cats to play with. Horrors! I may have given it away, though.)
Right now I have no space, no time, and no budget for model building, but I can learn, research, connect with people, imagine, and plan. I visited the local model railroad store (Reed's Hobbies, La Mesa, CA) for the first time. I'd been aware of it for decades, but never stopped in before. And I've got a couple of new bins in the garage now for accumulating random containers (like, for different colors of soil) and particularly nice pieces of heavy cardstock, little boxes, etc. :-)
I am enchanted with T scale (a whole layout on a hat!), and have loved the idea of Z scale forever (coffee table!), but I think N is where I'll end up. There's more support for it out there, and it's not too tiny. I have a handful of layout concepts, but I'm thinking I might start with a little DCC Kato Pocket Line tram/train (one to three cars) in rural/coastal Japan, on an 11" deep x 30" wide bookshelf. That might be doable - small, inexpensive, relatively quick, and I'd learn a lot from creating it. I'll post some sketches another time (after the garage is done) and see if y'all have any suggestions or feedback.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to see what everyone here is up to, and learning all I can. Happy training!
Linda