Sup all... Well my first post here so lets see how it goes. I am 47 and while growing up, my family had a lot of friends and we did not know one person with trains. NO ONE!!!! but I have always liked them. Back in 2009ish I picked up an HO Snapon train set to run around the xmas tree. Not knowing anything, I set it up and tried but the track kept falling apart. I didnt realize you solder the joiners together so I boxed it back up. Few years later, I see a guy on craigslist selling a ton of stuff and all i wanted was his transformer. Dual train so I messaged him. He wanted $1200 for everything but I wasnt going to pay that. He lived in my old neighborhood so he told me to come over. I did and he was moving out. Told me give him $600 and its all mine. So I did and ebayed most of it off and got my $ back and got to keep a slew of trains, altas 305 turntable and stuff. It all sat in a box...
Recently, like August 2019, my father was at goodwill and found a New In Box Lionel Christmas Trolley and bought it. Gave it to me as he knew we collected Dept56 houses. I set it up around the xmas tree in our front living room for Xmas 2019. Our best friends were over and she said... hey do you want my fathers trains. I was like.. oh I didnt realize he had trains. Her husband was like.. yeah, its all taking up room in my garage stacked in boxes. I said Id take it. Time went on and I kept procrastinating and finally I went and picked it up. All Postwar... 5 Locomotives, 1 switcher, tons of track, buildings, coal ramp, log loader, barrel loader, cow platform and car, milk car, etc...
so I started working on them. All boxed up since 1985. Learned how to tear the Locomotives apart, clean and oil them. Still not the best but still working on them and they are running. Had to order little odds and ends but most are fixed. One of my Locos, I need to get a wheel puller as the pressed in studs the screws go into are snapped..so that will be a while...
First time I took a Locomotive around the track and smoke puffed out, I freaked out. I am in IT and smoke = bad !!!! HAH.. must of been some residue left...
This got me to get my old HO trains out and buy some atlas fast track. I setup a small platform and ran a few trains, bought a bachmann dcc train (cheap one for $40 shipped). I bought the cheap train because I want to convert my others to dcc so I need a good train to start with. I setup the arduino dcc++ to run the train and it works!!!! I converted one of my trains but what a nightmare i had. I had to reverse the wires from what they said to get it to work but it works. Train lugs on DC but on DCC runs fine...
I have only been on one other forum, but its slowing down there due to the new layout and people not happy and someone said this is a great place for O gauge.
So thought Id jump over here, say hi, and read up threads. I saw the cutting o22 track so Ill be posting in there on a question soon!!!!
I am not great at this, am learning and also my layout is temporary. I am redoing our master bathroom, and once done.. I want to sell our house. My next house I want more land and also a very big basement. If not a big basement, I want a big 2 story shed out back but I will make room for the trains!
my HO is all packed away but the O is a 10x6.6 layout and still toying, learning, cleaning and fixing things. adding o22 tracks, switches, and getting used to switching!
my goal eventually is 2 layers. Bottom layer a switching yard housing all of my trains with rolling stock attached. Will drive over to a train elevator that will be between 6 and 8 feet. Already figured out how I am going to build that... then the top will be where I will run the trains and setup all the buildings. But like said sell house and buy one in minimum a year. So I give it a 5y plan to be up and running!!!!
I have added some things that were missing from my friends collection like she had the coal ramp and car but no coal loader. I also bought a coaling station and i want a coal elevator. I have 6 sunoco cars, so I picked up a Oil Derrick and also 3 pre war tankers that im going to mount on styrene and paint to make a oil tank farm. So much to do!!!!
Picked up Little Joe and 5x K-Line passenger cars... last car has a bulb out so they are all out. Just gotta get a bulb.
Few youtube videos
https://www.youtube.com/channe...Ei0XuEObqTynR1UiSFEg
