Mike,

Then, welcome back to the hobby!

4'x8'  is the classic size for a small HO railroad.  I would say there are probably more published track plans for a 4x8 than all other sizes combined.  There are even plans for that size that are designed for future expansion.

It is a pretty safe hobby.  While it is possible to hurt yourself, it requires carelessness.  I burned a finger last week by picking up a silver wire holder my hot soldering iron had been resting on, mistaking it for a coil of solder!

Les 

Heck, Jeff,

You might even be able to get rail at cost.

Les

jb,

You are extremely fortunate to have a train-oriented hobby shop only four miles away!

You really should get to know this guy and give him your business.  The small amount more you'll spend there compared to buying on-line will be rewarded many times over in advice and guidance.  You might even be able to become involved with other model railroaders.  If there is a dedicated train hobby shop that close, it would indicate you are not alone in your hobby.

Les

Not trying to confuse you, but it is possible to wire up your turnouts so two can be thrown at the same time from the same control switch.  This would either require splicing some wires or using a terminal (barrier) strip.
You may want to do this if you have a crossover between two main lines  (a crossover is two turnouts, a left and a right, installed with their diverging tracks running into each other.

You would normally never encounter a situation where only half a crossover would be thrown.  In fact, the actual railroads have a rule about not throwing only half of a mainline crossover.

Les

jb,

You've gotten some good advice here so far.  You are smart in taking the time to think about this a bit before diving in.  There is a tendency in this hobby for newcomers to buy everything in sight with no rhyme or reason. By the time they find what they really like, they have a lot of money tied up in stuff that really doesn't help them achieve their goal.

This is just a hobby to have fun with.  But what makes it so special is it can have so many different skills learned and used in it, all depending on what you like to do.  You can build scenery, design track layouts,  build control systems, modify or construct your models, do research on the trains you want to model.  Really more things to do than I could list.

One of the nice things about this hobby is there is a great variety of equipment.  In a variety of scales, equipment is available for any historical time period from the very beginning to the current day.  You can also find equipment for all current large railroads, and railroads from earlier periods.

Try, before you buy anything, to decide what kind of railroad you might want to build.  Also consider what space is available to you.  Those two factors will help you decide what scale to model in.  The smaller the scale, the larger the operation you can model in a given space.

HO is a popular choice.  I'm sure that scale has the most equipment available.  But consider that N-scale is roughly half the size ratio.  This means that an HO railroad of a given size can be built in about 1/4 the space in N-scale (half the width x half the length.

Do you like watching trains?  Or studying their history?  Maybe you have a special time period in railroading.
A very popular time to model is called the "transition era".  This is the period when the railroads were converting from steam locomotives to Diesels.  The 1940's and 1950's, in the US and Canada.

If I were you, I'd visit a lot of internet sites and read a lot of magazines to get a good idea of what is out there.  A model railroad show would also be a good place to go.

Disclaimer:  I'm one of the guys who bought everything in sight.  Ten years later, I had a good idea of what I really wanted.  I sold ten years' collection of HO stuff and replaced it with N-scale.

Les

It might be fun to do, but I think most people would like to start with a decorated body shell, at least for Diesels.

But I doubt if any money would be saved if they were offered as kits.  And, it might cause problems with the warranty.  Why would Bachmann want to warranty their customers' work?

Les

I take it, the decals have been already applied?

The usual way to preserve applied decals is to overspray them with a clear coat finish.

If the decals are still on the decal sheet, you can try spraying them with a gloss clear enamel.  I've tried this but with little success.  If the decals are cracked on the sheet, they will usually fall apart anyway.

Something that might work would be to put the decal sheet in a copier, and make a color copy onto decal paper.  I think you need a special ink cartridge to do this, as regular color copier ink is water soluble.

Les

Bachmann makes a ten-foot extension cable for this purpose, but if you have a lot of switches, you may want to what I do.

Cut your three-wire (green) cable in two.  Separate the three wires for about three inches back from where you cut.

Strip the insulation from the last half-inch or so from each wire.  Be very careful doing this, as the wire strands inside are quite fine and delicate.

Plug your switch controller in as usual.  Now would be the time to mount it on your control panel.  There is no place to mount these with screws, so I mounted mine with double-sided mounting tape.

Extend your cable using individual wires.  You can solder the connections and protect them with shrink tubing, or use Radio Shack Barrier Strips or their equivalent.  You can get these in several sizes. On my railroad, I attached Radio Shack telephone-style forked wire terminals for each connection.  They will give a better connection than just curling the bare wires around the screws.   These barrier strips have holes for mounting to the benchwork of your railroad.

On the three-wire cable, the outer two wires control the direction the switch throws.  The center wire is a common return.  If the switch throws opposite the way you want it to (in relation to the controller position), unplug the three-wire flat plug and turn it over.

Les

My model railroad is in my man cave.

Les

Bachcen,

Congratulations!  And good for you for being brave enough to take that thing apart!

Those E60CP locos are rare birds these days.  I think the models have been out of production for quite a few years.  The full-sized ones have been retired from passenger service.

Out here in Western Nebraska, one would normally ever see one.  But one day, while waiting to get onto the UP main line with a freight, I saw one go through dead in a freight, headed west.  The paint was faded and the windows were covered with sheets of plywood.  I think it must have been going to be rebuilt for service on the Black Mesa and Lake Powell.

Wasn't it a rush when it ran after you fixed it?

Les

Before using BFS, consider that you will be reducing your loco's ability to draw electricity from the track with each wheel you apply it to.

Disclaimer:  I have never seen this product.  Cannot comment on its effectiveness.

Les

Can anyone here help NM-Jeff out?

I don't know how else to explain it.

Les

I think that has a lot to do with it.  I'm doing some experimenting.

Another problem I'm working on is the seemingly inexplicable derailing of some locos on switches.  Some units will run fine over switches, but only when traveling in one direction.  Others will derail when going forward, but not backing up.

Running the chassis through without the body shell on will quickly tell you if interference between the truck and the body is the problem.  But the most common cause is the leading edge of the front truck snagging on the switch.  A little careful filing will cure that.  Taper the front edge of the truck underframe, smooth sharp corners off the switch.

Sometimes, the front truck snags on the loco chassis.  File a little more clearance between the rear of the truck and the front of the fuel tank.  Make sure truck-mounted brake cylinders aren't snagging the bottom edge of the body shell.  Sometimes, on MT coupler converted locos, if the trip pin extends above the top of the coupler it can snag as the truck swivels.  Again, a file will cure it.

One of my locomotives has such long wheelbase trucks, and such a long snout, I thought it would be a nightmare to get through my switches.  Instead, it took them effortlessly.  It is a Life-Like DL-109.

Les

Ron,

You are confusing "scale" with "track gauge".

"Scale" is the relationship between the size of the models and the full-sized thing modeled.  "O-scale" models are 1/48 actual size.  "HO-scale" models are 1/87.5 actual size.  It has nothing to do with gauge.  There are no such things as "On30"scale models or "HOn3" scale models.

"HOn3" is a track gauge equaling 36" track spacing in HO scale.  An HOn3 model is an HO scale model of a full-size piece of equipment that runs on 36" gauge track.  That is narrow gauge, as the standard track gauge in this country is 4' 8 1/2".

"On30" is a track gauge equaling 30" (2 1/2') in O scale.  An On30 model is an O scale model of a full-size piece of equipment that runs on 30" gauge track.  That, of course, is also a narrow gauge ( but different than 3' gauge).

On30 and HOn3 only applies to the rail spacing.  All other models in O or HO are simply O (1/48) or HO (1/87.5) scale.  There is no such thing as a "narrow gauge" building, auto, or tree.

Since "scale" and "gauge" are separate concepts, consider that HO gauge track used with O-scale models works out to 2 1/2' gauge.  Thus "On30".  Similarly, N-gauge track used with HO-scale models works out to HOn30 (2 1/2' gauge again).

HOn30 is a tad narrower than HOn3.  There is model railroad equipment available for both gauges.  The economy here is N-gauge track can be used instead of the more expensive (or hand-laid) HOn3 track.  You just get an HOn30 track out of it.

In the real world, at least in the USA, 36" was the most commonly used narrow gauge track.  Thus, not only are HOn3 models available, but so are On3.  The next most common narrow gauge was 24".  30" was very rare.  On the other hand, models of either scale running on 30" gauge track can be used to represent both 2' and 3' narrow gauge prototypes.

Les

Yes, it occupies a finished room in my basement (my "man cave").  It is N-scale, and represents passenger train operations in Denver around 1960.

I have been a model railroader since 1968, and an N-scaler since 1978.  I am a retired locomotive engineer.

I'm glad you like my railroad.  Thanks for the compliment.

Les