thank you woody.....good explanaion!!! GREATLY APPRECIATED

fairly new at this hobby and i was at the hobby store today and one of the sales  guys mentioned a switch train......can someone please fill me in to what this  is?

Just a note as well.....i recently installed two switches as well for my son and had the same problem but when i put the power supply on the heel of the swotch it would still die!!! After a hour of trouble shooting i decided to wiggle the manual level to active the switch and if i moved it just a bit it worked fine.......had to take the switch apart a couple times to adjust the inner workings and now it works great both ways! Not sure if you encountered this problem ....just a heads up.

hahahahaha.....thank you for the advice......i have some bachmann e-z track 11.25 and i just ran that over my cork all the way around and none of the turns on the cork and tighter than the 11.25.........THANK YOU!!! aNOTHER QUESTION......i'm as green as can be at this.........can you go tighter than the 11.25 or is that as tight as one should go?

I guess i should have added i'm using flex track!!!

Need a little help.....just laying out my n scale track an my bench and i was wondering how you determine what the radius is on the turns and if it is enough? I am laying a layout on a 3x5 sheet of wood and i am doing the outer main which is a big oval and before i finalize it with cork and track i wanna verify the radius in the turns i laid out and make sure it will work with most or all trains.

its a diesel loco which came in the bachmann explorer set.....Sante Fe. i'll try to find more info

Pretty new at this hobby....my son was just playing with our set up and after he was done i noticed there was what looked like two small rubber bands on the board. From what i could see they came off of two of the drive wheels......are bands very importand and if they are can they be put back on?

I instaled two remote switches the other night.....had a few problems. The wiring seemed to be straight forward but one of my switches wasn't working properly, after a few consults i realized i had to have the piece of power track on the heel of the switch for all the track to work. Also one of the switches would not work if you used the electric button to change it , but if you moved the manual switch just a little bit it would work ok. Took it apart a dozen times or so moving the parts just a little bit each time and after a while it worked fine and been working fine every since.

Hey Tony d its funny that you mentioned Port Aux Basques......thats my home town.....lol....i do remember the trains we use to have years ago.....faintly...lol. I went and bought a n scale set and put it in the part of my basement that is not developed......bought the Bacmann explorer set .....i think it will be the sons set because i was a little dissappointed with the actual size when you take it out of the box and mostly hobby stores dont stock half as much n scale stuff as n scale.....i think i am going to get rid of my poker table for now and get something ho scale.

well i was up till 2 a.m. and i figured it out....it was a bad switch!!!!! if you ran the train and used the switch with the electronic button the train would die right on or near the switch, but if you just moved the switches manual lever just a tad the train would continue on moving. Only one of my switches were bad out of the package. I took it apart a dozen times or so gradually moving the parts in a certain direction every time and eventually it worked perfect with the electronic button!

Just adding some track to my N scale explorer set ......got a oval track and inside that its kinda a half circle.........i guess its a half a circle inside a circle.....anyway i installed two remote switches one on eitherside to go from thew small circle to the large circle but my train wont go around the track it will just die on one of the switches!!!!! According to the instructions it says i need another terminal track on the heel of one of the switches to make this work!!!! The terminal switch i have now is a curve ......if i install the straight terminal switch on the heel of the switch will i still have to use the curve one as well? My Dc control box only had one input for a Terminal track..............help!!!!!

Well i have a games room in my house but i dont want to take up with trains so i decided to put it in the back area that is not finished. Its about 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Just bought the Bachmann Explorer rtr set, seems like pretty good set....not sure how i would know the difference....lol.
I think i should be able to do a nice layout with that space.

Just a general question......was going to buy a HO set but realized i dont have the space for it......what size a sheet of wood would a person need to do a good layout in n scale?

lol.....i guess i am going with n scale now.....the wife informed me that i dont have the room now for a 4x8 layout...which i hate to admit .....after i measured i really dont have that much space to spare.....how big a table would make a good n scale layout?