Model Railroading > advice on getting started

I\'m thinking of starting a layout soon and since I havent had a model train since i was 13 or so I\'m looing for advice on how to get started. What to buy and where? What guage(im thinking N since i dont have a lot of room)? How much does should I expect to pay for locomotives and rolling stock? What are somoe good resorces on the web? Thanks in advance for any info

My number one recommendation if you live in at least a halfway good-sized town is to go down and chat with the folks at your local hobby shop. You\'ll likely learn far more from them than you will from surfing the web (although there are also a lot of good online resources).

As to budget, it depends on what you want to model, but you mentioned N scale. I model modern N scale and most modern diesels from the good manufacturers are in the $100 range (list). Rolling stock varies depending on what you buy and by whom.... there are plenty of cheap cars out there, and then there are Micro Trains, which recently priced a WP caboose at $33.00.

Aaron
http://www.hockley.net/trains

Some thoughts on track and other stuff in N-scale...

Some of the sectional track with roadbed pre-attached products are tempting, but my experience with them hasn\'t been good. The switches in Bachman E-Z track cause derailments because the points aren\'t well-attached to the roadbed on both ends.

I\'ve never heard anyone complain about the Kato Unitrack, however, so probably better to go with the Kato product if you want sectional track with roadbed attached, or build your own roadbed under peco or atlas track.

Shop around for locos - those MSRPs are often beaten by hobby shops. If you don\'t have a good one locally, www.nscalesupply.com and www.4nscale.com have always been good to me.

It is worth the time and money (and sometimes the frustration of assembling those tiny things!!!) to use knuckle couplers on your rolling stock and locos even if you don\'t want to do the whole magnetic uncoupling thing. (Micro-trains are the best, atlas accumates aren\'t bad either). Good couplers reduce derailments!

Hope this is helpful!