This is going to be a long journey to getting an operational layout. Gathering the rolling stock and locos, developing a track plan, procuring scenery, procuring track and models for buildings, etc. It is going to be quite the adventure.
First, a bit about me. I live in Minnesota, USA. I have only lived in Minnesota. The first 18 years in the Mankato area, where the Chicago NorthWestern (CNW) rolled through with some regularity. In fact, still standing today is the old CNW depot, just up from the bank of the Minnesota river. Just north of the depot there was a CNW caboose on display. I recall spending lots of time stopped on the bridge crossing into Mankato waiting for trains to go through.
Then I spent some time in St. Paul MN, just south of what is now called Bandana Square, formerly a railroad depot and engine house. There is still an active yard to the west of Bandana Square, easily visible from Snelling Avenue.
I moved away from the trains for awhile, but there was still the itch. I have a vast collection of board games, many of which have train themes. One of my favorites is Ticket to Ride, Marklin edition, where each card has a photo of a train car or locomotive that they have produced. That was never quite enough though...
Recently I moved to West Central Minnesota, where I live a block away from the Canadian Pacific railroad tracks. There is small crew building here where one often sees a CP truck. Importantly there is an old siding that was used for grain, but no longer. Now there are various cars stored there. Currently, just one two bay hopper car, but there was a long cut of covered hoppers and tanker cars all winter and up till a few days ago a cut of flat bed cars with rails on them for some maintenance work.
In November of 2012, I headed to my first train show, in St. Cloud MN. I went alone, and I was swimming in waters I knew not well. I had decided prior to the show that I was interested in putting together something in N Scale, with the CNW as the main player on the layout. I picked up the Beginner's N Scale book by Marty McGuirk (Link). I took my time to read through it, and really digest it. With my modeling back ground I could do this with confidence. Also at the show I picked up an Atlas Dash 8-40c CNW 8577 (Link) and a few pieces of rolling stock. I was not really paying attention to time lines and such, so I have an old cattle car, a caboose, a couple of box cars and a covered hopper all with CNW livery.
At the show I found out about Baker Hobbies in St. Cloud (Link) where they have a fairly decent collection of trains, with a ton of Great Northern and well over 50% of the model train supplies in the store in HO. I went there and saw how rough it could be to get into this hobby. I realized that I may need to buy sight unseen from the internet. Oh well.
I headed home from the show all sorts of excited about the fun I could have in this hobby. Thinking about layouts and how I was going to construct them. As this post is hitting the rambling stage, I will be wrapping it up, and posting more later, especially thoughts about layout, because that is what it seems so many people post about these days...
