Madison,
These men and ladies are giving you some great advice on your layout, my advise will be about your garage structure. Having lived in Slidell, La where I worked for NASA I built a fantastic Garage layout. We 1st heated and airconditioned the Garage, and added a special dehumidifier large enough to keep correct humidity in the Garage. Next we installed a breaker system just for the train layout, we up graded the Garage wiring, put in over head lights and added 120 electric outlets around the Garage as we needed. Next we secured the windows with steel bars and
replaced the wooden garage door with a steel tripple garge door and added a industrial Garage door opener, which once unplugged, made the door impossible to open. This particular garage opened right into my ranch house kitchen, which was a blessing.
If you plan on using a Garage for your train layout make sure it is secure from break ins, you are about to invest a lot of money in a train layout, set the garage up properly especially today. We used Lionel O guage conventional tubular track back then, built with 3/4 ply with 2x4 trusses and 2x6 edge framing to box the layout in.
Wish I still had the pictures, but we lost them in one the big hurricans.
Good luck with your Garage train layout, lots of work and lots of fun.
PCRR/Dave
