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Hello

I'm trainhoppinhobo and I am a new member here.

I was into HO scale railroading as a kid. I had a "ping pong table" layout and spent a lot of time taking it from a plain board to making mountains with chicken wire and plaster to weathering my rolling stock with paint and chalk. Elementary for sure but I loved every minute of it. My empire was dismantled due to moving and although I really still held an interest, it never came to be again as we moved every year or so after.

Fast forward to an impending 38th birthday, I have suddenly had a resurgence of interest. I look forward to seeing and learning in my time here and hopefully can put what I now somewhat see in my head together.

 

trainhoppinhobo, Welcome aboard. I can relate to the ping pong table layout and the progress you made with it. I think you will find a lot of assistance here.

 

Thanks for the welcomes and replies guys.

I'm not sure how much my participation will be beneficial to others as I am sure I have less knowledge to give than receive here. I will elaborate my plans a bit. I really kindled a re-interest in making a model railroad with a Halloween theme. Though I have the space, my time available to ever reach any hope of completion in the next couple years has kept me to wanting a 4x6 layout. I have a lot of ideas in my head but don't know what is available currently and how much I will have to create or make due with breaking the rules. As long as I like it and it is fun it is worth my time. I don't completely understand the operation levels of railroading and I doubt I will reach that intense of a layout but who knows what the future holds. I want to create a layout with two different loops, nothing fancy. I think my interest lies in more of the creating of it that the operation of it. Perhaps I am not a model railroader per se but a diorama maker that wants trains running through it, but I want it to be the best looking diorama I can make.

That said, since I was a child spent countless hours pouring over the pictures in Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman magazines I was luckly enough to get mom to purchase or get from the library. Even at the young age I understood what a "nitpicker" was. I realized it wasn't what I was going for in my world though. This was my world to create. I do however hold the utmost respect for those who do accurately scale down the real world into a small breathing layout and am always amazed by their results.

Here, I hope to learn the techniques to apply to my world, which is a small Halloween theme for now, and may someday go who knows where.