All I hafta say is Holy...cow!!
After spending a lot of time researching and accumulating a few MTH and Lionel cars, an MTH SW1500 switcher and samples of scale-like track (for the permanent layout ) we were getting antsy for something to actually "run"...or at least move. A Hogwarts steam set is still in the cards for the holidays but payday Friday I picked up some Lionel tubular track (kind I had as a kid) and a Williams by Bachman transformer from Star Hobby here in Maryland to construct a simple living room carpet oval.
All of us, the young 'uns, the Missus (kinda) but especially ME...are truly amazed at the technology of these so-called "toy trains". This is not the toy train my Dad got me in the 60's...albiet a nice steamer freight that went forward and backward and was loads of fun and evidently planted the seed. What kind of "toy" locomotive comes with a 46 page operators manual explaining programming functions (there is even some math for some of the advanced stuff) to make these trains operate as close to the real thing as I've experienced. I grew up next to Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, have been a radio scanning (base and road) nut for years and the drone coming from the living rooms takes me back a lifetime.
This is model trains like I've never experienced before.
Teen daughter JK wants to know how to make it go in reverse, do this or that and my response is "We have to learn how to drive the train" so we get out the train operator's manual. UP the throttle and it doesn't GO...the engine warms up and builds power to creep forward; same as everything else...it's like sitting in the engineer seat and work the loco.Clickety clack over the track connector gaps...this is incredible.
Teen daughter exclaims this is the coolest thing she has ever seen, and til now we've only been to train shows and seen the running modular layouts but now it's us at the controls...when are we issued a licensed after mastering the locomotive <g>? The size, heft and bulk combined with proto programming features leaves our N and HO (both great scales with their own pluses and minus) endeavors in the dust.
Complaint? The Missus thinks the O-31 sectional curves are too tight; it's doesn't "look" right to match the rest of the realistic ops and I'm using shorty locos and cars. Maybe a "finishing" of the basement is in the future if I play my cards right 
, especially since she knows I'm a "if you're gonna do something you do it right" fellow...plus it'll increase our property value. Hmmm....
Pat
