Hi there, my name is Matt and I am new to the forum as of yesterday. I can already tell that this place is a wealth of knowledge and the camaraderie on here is unbelievable. I guess I must have been in the wrong hobbies prior to this, because my experiences on most forums have been filled with jealousy and bickering and fighting. It's great to see a group of men rally around a common love for the hobby and genuinely care for and support one another. Kudos to you guys.
Ok, now that I've got all the warm and fuzzies out of the way, let me tell you a little about myself. I'm a 34 year old pharmacist from Indiana (NE Indianapolis). I have a wife and two little girls (5 and 3) that get the majority of my attention and keep me busy most of the time. I never had a train or train set growing up (an absolute tragedy). I'm still having words with my father about it. lol. But a couple of years ago, Christmas of 2012 actually, a friend of mine started nagging me about buying a train. He had recently gotten back into the hobby himself. Honestly, I wanted nothing to do with it. I had too many other hobbies, and this one didn't really appeal to me in any way. Being the relentless personality that he is, my friend, Brian, kept pressing, "Just buy 'A' train, man! I promise you'll love it. Just one to put around the Christmas tree." I know what you guys are doing right now....laughing aren't you......you know where this is going. "A" train!? Really? Maybe for the first week or two. haha.
As you can imagine, I bought a train, a small transformer, and just enough fastrack to make an 0-36 loop just in time for Christmas......and the fire was ignited. And to be as transparent as I know how, it had very little to do with the actual running of the train. How long can running a small circle hold your interest? What got me was the history. As I held that 2354 NYC from 1954, I couldn't help but wonder about the stories it could tell. How many families had it brought countless hours of enjoyment to? How many times was it presented as a Christmas gift? How far across the country had it traveled? And there it was, running around my little cirlce, just as well as it had for the previous 60 years. Just amazing.....to me anyway.
It wasn't long until I started buying more track and setting up bigger carpet layouts......and buying more trains, and more trains, and more trains. Not having enough room, at my current house to actually build a layout, I had to be content with just collecting all these post-war gems and running them on my little make-shift carpet designs. As my excitement for the hobby started to grow, my parents actually took interest themselves and got the idea to build a small layout in their basement. So for the past couple years, we've just been winging it and making only minor progess in the winter months. And when I say winging it, I mean build, lay track, measure, then plan. It's been a fabulous disaster of working, re-doing, tearing down, and doing it all over again. lol. But it's been a lot of fun too. Here's some pics of what we've got going on at the moment. It's definitely more about scenery and trains going in cirlces than any kind of real railroad operation, but we enjoy it for what it is.
Over the past few months, I've just developed a strong desire to build a layout at my house, and do it right. Actually carefully plan and execute a layout instead of just winging it. My parents live 2 hours away from me, so I barely get to enjoy or work on the layout at their house. What I've realized though is that I am absolutely clueless when it comes to designing a layout. And further reading on this forum comfirms that I am a complete novice and in over my head. So I am coming to you all for help.
Many moons ago, my loving wife was gacious enough to let me have one of the spare bedrooms in our house for a man cave. Since having children, I spend less and less time in there. In fact, the only time I go in there is to run trains on my carpet empire. So I recently decided that I am going to gut the room and finally build a layout of my own. But I plan on doing it right the first time, and not building just a beginner layout that I'll want to tear down and re-do in just a few years. So I am coming to you folks, begging for all the information I can possible consume on how to do this right. And more importantly, the proper steps to do everything in. Also, are there clubs around Indy that I can get involved in and build relationships with other train guys?
Here is a picture of the room that I traced out on graphing paper. This will be what I have to work with. I've got a nice work area in my garage, so I won't need any work space in the layout room other than just to be able to reach all the areas of the layout. I am a Mac guy, and the only software I could find that was compatible was RailModeller. I just got it yesterday, so I haven't had time to mess with it much. Is it a good program? Is it necessary? I'm more of a buy a ton of track and start laying it out on the carpet kinda guy. But I admit it would be nice to have a progam like this to design it on so that I'll know exactly what I need before ever buying anything.
Thanks in advance for all the help and advice. Fire away with any questions you have, but please be gentle. I am so ignorant to model railroading it's embarrasing. I guess I shoud mention that I'll probably never venture away from the postwar engines. I've got some modern cars and accessories, but I'll probably always be running postwar engines. I don't know if that affects anything with regards to advice on the layout?? Ideally, I'm looking for a layout that has more to do with running the trains than scenery. I'll add scenery over the years and years to follow, but my primary objective, especially after seeing so many great layout on here and youtube, is to design a layout that has tons of interaction. I plan to eventually have a huge majority of the postwar lionel accessories, so I'd like to run lines to service them. I'd also like to have a turntable and a roundhouse on the layout so many of my engines can actually sit on the layout instead of on a shelf or in a box.
Look forward to interacting with you all.
, that doesn't sound right, welcome to the forum Matt. Yes it does look like you have a great start.
This is a great place to learn and meet a wonderful group that share your love of trains. The forum has many areas to pursue. First of all, I recommend that you visit the Layout Design Forum. There are plenty of people there who will help you design your layout. If you want a computer program to design with, I recommend SCARM. This is a free layout design program that I found to be easy to use. You will see discussions about it on the Layout Design Forum. The authors of SCARM also visit the forum and answer questions and respond to update requests. There are also other forums to answer questions that you might have including Electrical Wiring, Scenery & Structures and others. Best of luck and enjoy this great hobby. 
