Good morning to ALL, My name is Chris, my friends call me Spicoli. I'm from the Raleigh Durham NC area. As a kid of the 80s I went to train shows and always liked looking at Model Railroader at the library. I'd check out STACKS of magazines when I wasn't smelling the vinyl section of the library - Yes the library had RECORDS. I'm building my first 2x4 layout - the impetus was building a Christmas layout but I decided against that since my first layout should be more of an all year round piece to look at. I'm planning to learn DCC and the wiring, and everything one way or another. I'm currently trying to decide between Power Cab, Digitrax, or this Raspberry Pi set up I saw on DIY and Digital Railroad's YouTube channel. Here's my raw material in the attached photo. The hardest part for me really is the layout design. I think execution will be easy with the aide of YouTube. I also plan to NOT be that old cranky guy who doesn't want to help younger guys getting into the hobby like I see so often.
@Christopher Lee Moose bid you hearty welcome to the forum! Regarding layout design, Moose highly recommended getting a copy of John Armstrong's "Track Planning for Realistic Operations". See linky for some info. on this title.
Welcome to TrainBoard! Your comment about records spurs a memory for me, of checking out some of them. Those were interesting times, fifty years ago and more for me.
Welcome and enjoy the hobby. Just don't glue or nail anything down right away. You will change the plan most likely
howdy hey. for dcc i would rcomend dcc++ex its cheap and works great add a screen to it and its even more wonderful. i used to recomend nce power cab . but sense ive moved on to dcc++ex i like it much better. its more work to get things set up. but it works. when ya can pics of plan and progress..... welcome here.
I was saying how it's the only hobby I know of where you have to be: -Carpenter -Designer -Urban Planner -Electrician -IT Guy -Artist
Other hobbies I should have mentioned: -Photographer for 23 years -BMX collector -Tamiya RC hobbyist -Bonsai Trees -Coffee/Pour Over/Chemex enthusiast -VW/European car enthusiast -MOTOGP fan 46/69 -Weekend Road Trips
