[Carl]

Originally Posted by Toddington Ted

Welcome to the world of model railways, it doesn't have to be as expensive as full sized railways or golf but it can be pricey so my first bit of advice is be careful what you buy and shop around!
I'm not an experienced modeller but I am the Treasurer of our local railway society and we do run a popular model railway show every year during the first weekend of September at Grantham (shameless plug!) and so I have picked up some hints and tips as I've mixed with "them wot knows."
1. Decide what gauge you want and go for it. N gauge is getting better and better but I find it too small and fiddley - but many people don't have this problem with it and it is a space saver.
2. If you want Continental stuff then it can be very expensive but again, very good.
3. I recommend OO gauge personally but if you are a purist you will want to go EM or finescale and build everything from scratch!
4. The OO gauge British outline ready to run market is currently, IMHO, really good, after all why the heck would manufacturers be bringing out obscure or mundance locos like GWR ex ROD 2-8-0s (thank you Bachmann!) or SDJR 7Fs if they didn't think they would sell, so its a good time to do it.
5. Do you want to model a prototypical layout or make one up or follow a plan? I tried to copy a real location (Andoversford Junction) and sort of succeeded but its a bit too much of a compromise for me (16 feet too short in fact!) to be really accurate.
6. Choose between DCC or traditional control. If you are new to the game then go DCC, its more expensive but its good. I don't think I ever will.
7. Whatever you do you will want to go back after a while and do it better so don't nail everything down too much!
8. Decide whether you want to go modern image or a particular period. If your layout covers a specific time period then you will need to do some reasearch (eg: the GWR painted their station buildings dark and light stone but after Nationalisation a daffodil cream yellow colour was introduced.)
9. The default setting for a model railway layout is not a GWR branch line (or is it?!).
10. Do you want your layout to be fixed or portable (for shows, displays etc)?
11. If you have a lot of money, time and room then "Stoke Bank" in OO gauge is a possibility. If you ever get the chance go and see that layout!

Hope this helps.

Alternatively there is golf.

lmao you joka . Yer it kinda somewhat helps be it a bit to confusing for me hehehe.