Newbie

Hi All,
I have come back to model railways after 40 years, and look forward to building my first layout since retirement, so any basic tips for a newbie would be great. many Thanks.

[user=2306]Widgeon1[/user] wrote:

Hi All,
I have come back to model railways after 40 years, and look forward to building my first layout since retirement, so any basic tips for a newbie would be great. many Thanks.

Welcome aboard.

My suggestion, do a lot of reading, on here and other web sites to get a feel for what's changed (virtually everything) and, based on what you see, what you'd like to achieve

Next draw up a list of the topics / themes which interest you. Steam v Diesel v Electric, modern v old, GWR or "the others" (sorry I'm slightly biased!) location etc etc. the list goes on.

Again showing my bias as a fellow returnee nearly 9 years ago, I reckon that DCC is the way to go for a newcomer. In it's simplest form it's very simple indeed to implement and any complexity which you choose to add later is at your discretion. 

Then ask lots of questions and eventually put up some draft plans for others' input. I know some might view that as a sign of inadequacy or weakness but TBH there's so much "know how" which people will freely share it's silly not to benefit from that resource. Mistakes and rethinks can be costly in time and money.

Hope this helps a bit.

 Colin

Hi Colin,
It has been a bit baffling after 40 years :shock: I have chosen to go down the DCC route.

Thank you for you sound advice :doublethumb

Regards,

Miles

:hi Miles, welcome to the club.


Ed

Thanks Ed   :)

[user=2306]Widgeon1[/user] wrote:

Hi Colin,
It has been a bit baffling after 40 years :shock: I have chosen to go down the DCC route.

Thank you for you sound advice :doublethumb

Regards,

Miles

Miles,


I've some resources I can share with you. If you can find your personal Message box on here, I'll send you my email address etc. to follow up, if you wish.


Colin

Welcome to the club Miles.    :Welcome

Hi Miles

Welcome to YMR. I hope you have as much fun on here as I have over the past 15 years.

Colin has provided you with an excellent summary of the decisions you will need to make.

I absolutely agree DCC is the way to go if you are starting afresh.

To avoid making the same mistakes I did 30 years ago (when I started from a zero knowledge base and YMR didnt exist) here are some recommendations.

1 Buy electrofrog points rather than insulfrog

2 Having done so, use an ultrareliable switch mechanism to change frog polarity - do not rely on the switch blade to do this

3 Stall motors like Tortoise or Cobalt are superior to solenoid motors although I see you have started a thread about Peco switches - does this mean you are now committed to twin solenoid point motors?

If you are not already committed to any of the above I am happy to provide supporting argument to justify these rather bold statements. I just do not want to waste your time if you already have stacks of insulfrog points :sad:

Again welcome to YMR

Best wishes

I agree with all of the above and as you've all ready chosen DCC I'd go along with Johns recommendation for Tortoise switch motors. These are gentler on your points (I use Peco code 75 track and points) and have the added benefits that they have two change over switches  for powering the point frog and any other thing you come up with; signals for example.

I don't know much about the Cobalt motors except to say I bought some in the their early days and because of reliability issues, ended up using Tortoise. Those being in use for about twenty years now.

Welcome Miles.
I re-started up a few years ago after a too longer break. In my early years, I was using DC analogue. On restarting, I took the plunge and went straight into DCC. I was even converting old DC loco's to run on DCC. It is not difficult to get to grips with DCC but can be a little pricey if going over to sound on all loco's which I have done.
Electro frog points are definitely the way to go and the slow action tortoise type point motors are the way to go too. I thought I could get away with solenoid motors but I found they were to unreliable with the switching contacts for the frogs.
It doesn't matter what era you may be modelling, it will all still work fine.
Plans, you will need a good reliable layout and this can be accomplished in advance by a good planning. I use Anyrail. They have a good track library and you can design your desired layout well in advance. This is good as you can put in your actual available space and design/change accordingly. It is even more helpful when considering that many modern loco's and rolling stock are built with a recommendation of a minimum curve of radius 2.
The guys on here are very knowledgeable and no question (of which you may have many) is the wrong question.
Seek advice and you will be rewarded.
Just as a matter of interest, what era and scale are you thinking of?
Every little helps, as they say.