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When I inherited my father's unfinished N scale layout back in 2011, I spent three frustrated weeks trying to figure out why his locomotives wouldn't run on some of the track he'd left behind. Turns out, I'd accidentally mixed some Z scale track into an N scale layout while cleaning up his workbench …

I still remember the moment my HO layout went from "collection of trains" to "believable miniature world." It wasn't a new locomotive or a fancy structure kit. It was a $22 pack of Preiser figures placed on my depot platform. Suddenly, my layout had people. It had stories. That single purchase chang …

My dad ran Lionel trains around our Christmas tree in Cicero, Illinois, back when I was knee-high to a boxcar. I never once heard him use the word "scale." It was always "O gauge this" and "O gauge that." Took me years to figure out he was technically wrong. And here's the thing: he wasn't alone. Mo …

I spent four decades building houses in the St. Croix Valley, and if there's one thing that career taught me, it's this: measure twice, cut once, and never skip the foundation work. When I started my first HOn3 layout three years ago, I brought that same philosophy to the workbench. Good thing, too. …

When I first started helping out at my local model railroad club, someone asked me whether my dad's old British locomotives would run on their HO layout. "Same track gauge," they said with a shrug. "Should work fine." It took me about thirty seconds of watching a Hornby Dublo steam engine waddle do …

Look, I spent six months agonizing over whether to build in N scale or HO before I finally committed to my Detroit intermodal layout. I measured my basement seventeen times. I read every forum thread. I made spreadsheets. And you know what? Most of that hand-wringing was unnecessary because I was as …