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I bought my first Broadway Limited locomotive in 1989, set it on a borrowed loop of track, and immediately realized I had no idea what I was doing. The locomotive ran beautifully. The track? A disaster of wobbly joints and dead spots. Thirty-five years later, I've learned a few things about what sep …

Five years ago, when Mike Wolf announced he was retiring and closing MTH Electric Trains, I genuinely thought the O gauge world was about to lose one of its most innovative players. I remember sitting in my office at the Railroad Museum, staring at my shelf of MTH Premier PRR locomotives, wondering …

I've been modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad since 1989, and every December I watch the same scene unfold: someone buys an O-gauge train set, tears open the box on Christmas morning, and then realizes the oval won't fit between the tree stand and the couch. The magic dissolves into frustration, and …

I still remember tearing into my first Lionel set back in 1989. The box promised magic. What I got was a tangle of wires, a locomotive that stalled on every curve, and a growing suspicion that I'd missed something obvious. Thirty-five years later, I've learned that most setup frustrations trace back …

I built my first HO scale structure in 1991. It was a Walthers depot, and I managed to glue the roof on crooked, fog every window with superglue fumes, and create a building that looked like it had survived a minor earthquake. The thing sat on my shelf for three months before I finally stripped it a …

I bought my first N scale locomotive in 1989, and I chose poorly. The thing stuttered at slow speeds, stalled on every turnout, and eventually developed that dreaded "clicking" noise that signals a cracked gear. Three months of frustration later, it sat in a box while I questioned whether this hobby …