[Rockette]

I figured this would be a great place to trade ideas & thoughts on g-scale trains. I find that most other chat groups and forums focus on more popular scales, so it's nice to see this one alive and going.

I have a pretty small collection, and it is mostly for the holidays, but I'm thinking about expanding it when I decorate my office. Great meeting you!

 

[OldNoob]

Greetings and Welcome

 

[Pete Thornton]

Welcome.

it's nice to see this one alive and going.

Appearances can be deceptive. This is a commercial site that was bought from the original owner some years ago. It is not well managed. I would recommend you also check out largescalecentral.com, which is still run by the owner.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Unless you insult one of the long time people there by suggesting his R/C system is not appropriate, and then you are banned for an april fools post....

The single moderator there and the "clique" is not something I enjoyed...

 

[kormsen]

best, you try out all three of the still running G or large scale forums.
they have different focuses of interest.

the third one would be the british gscalecentral.net

and welcome!

 

[armorsmith]

Welcome to the forum Rockette. All three fora have their faults, and there is more to the story than Greg is telling. I suggest you leave judgement to your own experiences.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Sorry, was not meaning to be overly negative, just indicating that there is only one "judge" on LSC, where at least here there are several, and they manage multiple forums, i.e. more experience.

Greg

 

[trainmanfw&sw]

LSC is a much more active site and yes you will get your answer pretty quick, but it is mainly a site with old guys (very few ladies) who have been around a long time and for the beginner they may not just jump in and be as informative as this site maybe. I always recommend that if you are new to the scale, or modeling railing in general that you spend a lot of time on these forums and learn from what you read and in time you will be more familiar with what you want to know and what direction you see yourself going. I try to get new interested people to visit a garden railroad, or go to train shows and see what is happing, I find that most there will give you information and if you ask enough people you will start to figure out what direction you want to go. I find that many will give you information that I would never give to a new person interested in the hobby, this is because we all think different and what interest them may not be of any interest to you. Many in the hobby are going to push you to there way of thinking and do not listen to what you are saying and what your interest are, that's a mistake made be most of us make with new model railroaders. Since you did say something about a layout in the office, around the ceiling is very popular and it doesn't take up floor space and as you know G scale gets big right quick. Watch YouTube videos on this, you may get some ideas you might like. Just type in, G scale layouts up around the room, this should lead to something.

trainman

 

[Pete Thornton]

it's nice to see this one alive and going.

I'm sorry I started on a slightly negative note - must have had a bad day yesterday! This site still gets plenty of traffic and attracts lots of new members and beginners.

So again, Welcome.

 

[armorsmith]

Rockette, ALL FORUMS tend to be cliquish to some degree or another. I joined here some 12 ears ago, along with Large Scale Central. I came here from the now defunct Large Scale On Line, one of the first forums, which was not different. For a fair time this forum tended to be heavily leaning toward the live steam folks. Recently it has spread back out to include more sparky topics.

LSC is and has always been sparky oriented. However it has always had the various segments of power - Battery with R/C, DCC, Analog DC and all the discussions of which control system is better. Which one is better is the one that works for you an your railroad. The discussions over the advantages and disadvantages of each have gone on since I joined both of these forums.

My advise parallels Trainman's above. READ a lot! As you learn about the expansion possibilities of your railroad you will solidify what things you want and what things you don't. Keep an eye on technology, the hobby will follow the technology. There will always be the folks who lead the pack living on the bleeding edge of the technology. There will be those who lag back with the 'if it isn't broke, don't fix it'.

Even though you are not a 'newbie', your experience seems to be 'around the xmas tree'. It would not be a bad investment to pick up a copy of 'Garden Railway Basics' by Kevin Strong. He covers many of the debated topics with a mostly non biased opinion.

Ask questions, they will be answered. Sometimes not the way you would like to hear, but they will be answered. Both forums have a plethora of folks with many years experience and in diverse areas. If you are interested in creative scratch/bash building, head on over to LSC and follow along with the annual 'Build Challenge'. A great way to move through the after holiday doldrums.