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When I inherited my father's incomplete N scale layout back in 2011, I remember staring at boxes of track, half-finished scenery, and a locomotive that hadn't run in years. I had no idea where to start. The hobby felt like it had a thousand unwritten rules, and every forum post I read seemed to cont …

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 …

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 …

When I inherited my father's unfinished N scale layout back in 2011, I remember staring at those tiny locomotives thinking, "How am I supposed to weather something I can barely see?" My background in landscape architecture meant I had ideas for scenery, but the scale felt limiting. Then a friend dra …

I'll be honest with you: when I first started helping fellow modelers troubleshoot their layouts, I thought dirty track was dirty track. Grab some alcohol on a rag, run it around the rails, call it a day. After years of watching perfectly good locomotives stutter across what looked like clean track, …

When I inherited my dad's N scale layout, I made every rookie mistake in the book. I bought cheap, regretted it fast, and ended up spending twice what a smarter purchase would have cost. So when friends ask me about finding the cheapest HO scale train sets, I always pump the brakes on that word "che …