Hi Steve and all. Well, here is the first piece of one-cent advice from a totally 'been out of it for 50 years' novice.
First of all, it is a hobby. Don't let it be a job or a dreaded task. Work a while, quit a while. When I work on my scooters, sometimes it can be very frustrating, and my wife gets upset over the same thing. "We spent all that money, and you still have to do a lot on it?" Ha ha. Wives just see the financial end of it, and that is understandable, especially if they don't particularly like the hobby. Just like my scooters though, when I got through with the first one, it is "wow, I never envisioned that coming from what you started with". Ha ha.
Besides, think about it. Course you have to watch a lot of westerns like I have over the years to acquire all this knowledge. Ha ha. The real railroads in those days probably didn't have a clue either. If they couldn't go this way, they might dynamite their way through a mountain. They didn't really know where the h--l they were going either half the time until they got there. Ha ha.
Now, as many have said, try out the basics and go from there. You always can see ahead once you have the foundation laid.
I can give you a real instance of exactly where you are, without being there. Sorry guys, looks like another chapter of my book coming up. Ha ha. Every Christmas, I set up a town. Okay, a town you say, that is a piece of cake. Ten years ago, I started with one of those Target basic Christmas towns with three buildings and a few trees and figurines. That all went on a one foot x three foot shelf. Then, after buying two more buildings the following year, I moved to my tv entertainment center, which is about four feet wide x one and one half feet deep. Then, after buying two more buildings, figures, etc., and since my entertainment center was across a corner of the room, I expanded to a four x eight sheet of plywood. I now have extenders on that, and am planning on expanding. Am up to twenty buildings, and don't have any intention of slowing down. A Christmas nut? A train nut? A scooter nut? You bet.
Every year, I have trouble figuring out how to start it out, so that it is somewhat different from the preceeding year. I mean I build mountains out of cotton, have this one house (solid ceramic with no light provisions) where I have put very, very tiny lights on the outside of the eaves that actually light up, town trees with the same mini lights that light up, a train in the middle, sidewalks, and on and on.
Point being Steve, is that every year, I just pop a few buildings up there, a few trees up there, a few people and sleds up there, etc., and shuffle them around for a day or so, until I have something that resembles what I actually want.
This year I am thinking about adding a ski-lift, made out of barbecue rotor parts.
You have to start at the very beginning, and get a basic layout, and trust me and all the others on here when we say you will start getting multitudes of ideas after you have your basics laid out.
I used to hand make trestles after building mountains and realizing the train had to have a way across. Necessity makes for inventiveness.
Wow! I rambled again. Have a nice day all. Jack.