With Menards selling freight cars for around $20 and locos for, let's speculate, $150-200 and Lionel LionChief locos going for about $200, a Thomas LionChief set for around $150-200, one could still afford trains even as a completely unsuccessful surgeon 
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Not a Trainworx custom layout, but maybe a few loops of tinplate track, a few buildings or operating accessories, a few turnouts, and a 4 x8 or 5 x 9 layout. A few hundred bucks, not much more than a video game console and much less than an iPhone. Let's try not to scare newbies too much 
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