This portion will be an ongoing living document.  Hobby-Tronics has 'been there--done that'.  Our crews have been exposed to almost everything you can think of.  Just when we think we've seen it all there will always be a big surprise just around the bend.

1. Plan, Plan, Plan.  Make sure you have reviewed the layout room space for all the elements of good layout planning, construction, operation, and fun.  Where are the power connections, where are the doors, where are the windows, and where are the lights?  These are but a few of the many site selection issues.
   
2. The new pike is YOUR railroad. DON'T be influenced away from YOUR dream.  Review your favorite prototype railroad, look at your existing collection of engines, rolling stock, etc, and decide what you like about all of these things and what you don't like.
   
3. The best single tip Hobby-Tronics can give you is to over build your bench work.  If the bench work is marginal nothing else you build upon it will be correct.  The bench work MUST be solid, straight, and strong.  The bench work must be dimensionally stable.  The underside of the bench work MUST be accessible.  Maximum reach cannot exceed 30 inches with both feet flat on the floor.  Allow for access to all points.  There is an old axiom that applies to model railroading and that is 'if it can happen it will happen'.  Where ever that tunnel is, is where the train is sure to derail!
   

4.   In lots of applications a simple picture can set a whole scene.  We needed to fill in a corner on a small layout.  The customer had this carousel and we found a picture of a roller coaster on the net.  After printing out the roller coaster we laminated it on a piece of foam core and then put on a few Plastruc I beams for a touch of texture and shadow.  A piece or two of O scale fencing to set the scene and the corner was filled, and a new amusement park was born.

5.   I belong to the operating group for the Lone Pine & Tonopah, belonging to Kermit Paul.  His layout has been the feature several times in RMC.  We have had a 'planned' project for years to add a staging yard off of the two stacked reverse loops.  Well Kermit and the latest issue of MR came up with a very clever staging yard that works like a giant switch except it's a ten track yard called a sector plate track.  It's hinged at one end with a single pin.  The tracks are aligned visually and electrically from the simple panel.  The change was dramatic.  Instead of just being a little branch line running between Lone Pine and Tonopah, the railroad now is a bridge route.  Lone Pine now interchanges with the Santa Fe and Tonopah interfaces with the Southern Pacific.  While doing your normal switching chores with the peddler you now have to clear the main for the Overland or the Lark or . . . .

More to come!

If you wish to contribute Please email us at hints@hobby-tronics.com