Model Railway Forum

Hi everybody,

Just joined the forum.
I'm returning to an old hobby after a long break.

Many years ago I had a rather ambitious N gauge layout (turns out it was a bit too ambitious for me at the time). I still got all the stuff and have decided to start again, but a little more cautiously this time. Even just sitting back and thinking through my ideas it occurs to me that there are questions that I will need answering. I hope I will find at least some of those answers here. Of course, I'll be happy to share any tips that I have too.

Looking forward to getting started!

Welcome to our forum Ninemil.

Welcome Ninemil. Excellent forum full of knowledge and humour.

Welcome aboard.
We look forward to reading and possibly seeing too your progress.

Do not hesitate to ask a question. There will always be someone come along and answer it for you (possible ten or more!)

Welcome to the forum. What era will you be modelling?

Welcome to the friendly helpful forum.

Welcome Ninemil - you have joined a great forum - lots of help, information and fun.

As has already been said, a big welcome to the friendly forum with lots of friendly information available.

Thank you for all your welcome messages!
I can already see that there is plenty of useful and interesting information to read and learn from on here.

To darkscot, your question about era is not an easy one. Let me explain.
Some thirty years ago I had an interest in old style German stock and built my first proper layout with these. It was enjoyable and a useful learning experience but I knew I could do better. Now I am starting again, and I intend to start small, learn more about modelling scenery and get up to speed with the electrical side of things again. It obviously makes sense to do this 'experimental/trial' stage without the expense of buying a lot of new locos, coaches etc. However, I would really like to tackle something more interesting based on some earlier British Rail stock and the old green livery is hard to beat to my eyes. When I grew up trains were green and that was it! So I guess I'm really talking era 5 but I am also tempted by those wonderful older coaches, the Chocolate and cream etc. It gives me a dilemma though, as there's obviously a lot of spending to do.

So I really have two projects in mind but I'm not going to let myself get carried away thinking about the second until I've accomplished the first!

I justify an eclectic mix from all eras by saying that it is a 'heritage' layout. That way I can go from the Rocket to the latest diesel HST or EuroStar. (A mainline runs near to the 'heritage' line )

If that isn't satisfying enough, 'it's my layout I'll do what I want' works too