Oh yes, so true! Take your time, explore, learn. Ask questions. Save yourself from wasting money and time, and from frustrations. Above all, just have fun!
Yes, the CMStP+P is one of the railroads in the 'Rail Baron' game and is on the 'must have' list. As soon as I see one with the 'tilted box' logo, I'll grab it.
For 20 years, we had a hobby store downtown. He disappeared about 2 years ago; I had assumed he went out of business. I discovered he had, instead, moved to a small town 1/2 hour's drive west of the city and reopened. On day 5, I went on a road trip. I found a building made up to look like a train station. Upon entering, I discovered that his wife had taken over half of the store and filled it with antiques, some with a railroad theme. His half of the store was nothing but trains! In looking through the shelves, I found 3 cars with logos from the 'Rail Baron' and grabbed them. One was a Rock Island 50' boxcar made by Athearn: next a NP 40' reefer by Intermountain: and a UP 40' boxcar kit by Accurail: The UP boxcar doesn't have the proper UP shield logo, but it was on sale for $7, I couldn't pass it up. The controller that came with the set only had DC, so to run the switches, I bought a used controller he had for $10. He, also, was out of switches but said he had some arriving with his next order in a few days. He'll give me a call. No new track means no changes to the layout, but if I add much more track, it won't fit on the living room floor. I have a large room in the basement that I'm not using for anything but storage. It's time to start moving things around and cleaning it up. I've gone through the left over wood from the roof repair we did this fall; looks like I can do a 4' x 10' table with the scraps. Lunch first!
Good luck with your first plywood pacific, and now you have me looking up Rail Baron. Didn't know there would be homework JK, looks like a very interesting game. And I guess you are trying to get locomotives, rolling stock, etc... from the Rail Baron game?
