Hello everyone. Having appreciated railroading since shortly after landing on this planet 58 years ago and always getting a kick out of seeing the actual prototypes or any layouts I am finally getting back into modeling after 30+ years of being on the road for work and having to let my interest slide while day to day realities and/or earning a paycheck took it's grip on me - however retirement has freed me from that yoke of life. I stumbled across Trainboard 24 hours ago as part of my project to begin the planning of a HO scale railroad setup that will go into a room measuring nearly 16'x22'. As I am an ex-pat at this point in my life (Vienna, Austria) this will be a very slow ramp up towards building out my railroad back in my home state of Delaware sometime when I return. So planning gives me something to do until I have more time in the states to devote to actual building instead of just planning. I am initially looking at modeling using a 2 level layout, plus a 3rd level for staging, etc. As I plan to model the Vienna and Austria transport system I expect to confront some unusual situations as all motive power and rolling stock will be European, most likely all OBB/Wiener Linien in origin, respectively the Austrian and Vienna City railway operators - but those are challenges for the future (I'm thinking specifically about the coupling connections that come with European equipment and whether I should attempt to change that to a knuckle type in order to provide as much automation as possible). Fortunately OBB just switched over to "right side drive" in the eastern sector of Austria 3 weeks ago so I don't have to deal with THAT issue :happyonly the eastern portion of Austria operated in the old British format). I will also have some DCC conversions to do as I plan to model trains that run into Vienna even today that date back to the Eastern Europe times, which means I have already loks/passenger cars from 1960 (actual build date) from the old DDR company called Schicht (merged with Piko at some point post reunification I believe) I bought from an auction house here in Vienna within the last 6 months. I will have a variety of equipment up to and including today's latest Epoch VI trains the OBB Railjet. My intention is to model the Vienna intracity operations (U-Bahn, Strassenbahn) and the intra country and international operations (S-Bahn and Railjet and the like) As this will be a complete new build I will go with DCC throughout and I will attempt to use current benchwork, roadbed, track, etc technology, including at least one helix to move between levels. That's enough for now - thanks in advance to anyone who helps me going forward and to the admins, etc running the web site.
Welcome to Trainboard, KC! It sounds like you have a pretty large project planned. I hope you will keep us informed of your progress with some photos, as you move along. Congratualtions on your retirement too. Enjoy! :O)
That sounds like an interesting, and challenging, idea. The mix of eras and styles should make for a fascinating layout. Best of luck and welcome aboard!
Welcome aboard, KCC, and we will look forward to your progress. Oh, and retirement is great. I have been there for 18 years and am so busy now I don't know how I ever had time to go to "work". :happy:
