So why did I come back to Nscale?

The truth of the matter is I've never left. I bailed from active modeling for at time, but I think I am ready to go at it again. I've got some pretty good models (of structures, mostly) sitting on my workbench right now that I built before I stopped. Why now though? Well really I think that I just happened to be paying attention again. Got to lurking on the MR Nscale forums. Nscale.org too. People were talking about this Code 55 rail. From what I could see it was a vast improvement over C100 or C80. But would all my old stuff run on it? Also there were a couple of free CAD packages specifically for designing Model Railroads available. The one from Atlas Mfg. available from their website http://atlasrr.com/ was geared more toward Atlas equipment (of course!). But it was free. The other is a free download from Sillub Technology at http://www.sillub.com/. XTrkCAD. Not only is it free, but open source software to boot. It has quite a few libraries available as well. And for NScale too. Not everything, but you can add your own. Has it's own group on Yahoo! as well. And they are fairly active and responsive. You do have to join the group to pose questions though. So the wife was out of town for a few days... I sent a few emails out, checking to see who had stock on what. The idea was to buy enough track to make a simple test track to test my equipment on. Papa Ben's Train Place responded fairly quickly and with some good prices, too. So I cruised over there one Friday after work. Met the owner, That would be Ben(!). My wallet was a little flatter when I walked out of there. But I did close the place down. And I had a lot more information than I'd had when I walked in there. Ben was great. Very patient. Answered all my questions. Even the stupid ones. That's the way to get repeat business. Plus they've got a goodly amount of NScale equipment and kits. So I had bought: 2 pieces Superflex (30 inches long) 1 Each No. 5 right turnouts 1 Each No. 5 left turnouts 1 pkg (6 pcs.) 30.609R (at least 2 pc. for the turnouts) 3 pkg 11.25R full curve 3 pkg 12.5R full curve 5 pkg 6in Straight. I could make something simple, but it could cover a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood. After a while though, I ‘m thinking that I just need to setup a simple track using the switches something along these lines: I may even get to start on this today!