Al
Folks know I've lost the plot... Assuming that means gone overboard 
Here's a brief recap of the descent into hobbydom.
Somewhere between Christmas 2002 and 2004, my Mother gave us the set she had been running since the 80s. She no longer set it up and we now had a house big enough to use it. It was about 4' x10' O27 in a figure 8. A RTR set that ran well. Forward Reverse. No sound except rocks or something that rolled around in a wheel built into the tender. It was fun, but simply an addition to the Christmas tree. My mother gave us a few Lemax houses with it, and each year, we added a little. Here's the pivotal moment. We set up for Christmas 2007, somewhere around Dec 20. Every time the train hit the crossover, it stopped dead. I knew nothing of trains. Ultimately all this could have been avoided, had I known about a Hobby Shop 30 min, from my house. They would have sold me the missing pickup, and this story might never have progressed. That train still runs each year and was fixed in January after I bought the parts online, from Lionel, for under 10 bucks, including replacing the snapped off decorative bell. I believe it was the last year that Lionel listed and sold parts, for the old stuff. BUT, I went to my local Hobby Shop. A great little store that does a bunch to support the schools and community, and is decidedly an MTH house. It's Dec 20th, I have the track set up. What I thought was a minor part of Christmas, is now critical, in my rapidly transforming outlook. They even suggest "PS2".... But it's $100 more. It makes noise.... And I've already removed the noisy thing from my other tender. So I buy a set with Locosounds and the coup de grace SOFTWARE, so I can recreate the O27 tubular in O31 with minimal disruption to what we have already set up. Very cool. And I'm hooked. I join ebay, yikes, I learn about sniping. I overbuy track. Everything looks very cool. Next Christmas will be bigger.
In March 2008 my son an I go to a Greenberg show and discover N scale together (he's moved on, but N still takes up most of my year).
Christmas 2008 1 loop is now 4 loops on a larger L shaped layout. One of them is raised and 2 N scale loops sit in the middle, because they can. The layout starts Thanksgiving weekend and comes down Little Christmas (Jan 6). 2009 the layout gets a meme. I don't find out about the meme til the tree falls in 2013 and I post about it here. 2010 to 2013 see a gradual widening of curves and the addition of DCS. 2012 was also the year my Aunt lived with us as her house was redone post Hurricane Sandy. She convinced my wife to leave the layout up, well into Feb. 2014 sees the most train action so far. 5 loops a bump and go trolley and a display track, for a set not on the rails. We are back to mid Jan takedown though. Each year more and more people stop in and this year 2 families brought over trains to run. 3 nieces and nephews have received MTH Rudolph RTR sets, to get started and this year Elie (3)greeted me at Thanksgiving with "I love you Uncle Marty and you have to fix the Rudolph train, cause it's not working" (Luckily her Mom had clued me in and they brought the train with, so next morning, it was ready to go and Dad had a second lesson on Realtrax care and replacement track
My wife does all of the layout decorating. I'm responsible for the rats nests of wiring for all the houses and powered accessories. Next year brings another raised platform. The son that lost interest in N, wants to build it with me. He actually suggested expansion, so grand, my wifeshut him down The platform will open floor space on the right and allow for expansion of the small raised loop in the middle picture. I have a few ideas to get another train moving in 2015 or 2016, but we really look forward to kids visiting and sitting in the room to read and watch trains each season.
Lost the plot? I'm still plotting for the floor space my wife doesn't want lost (and a permanent layout)
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