I have been building an Alpine scene railroad in DCC and DC over the last few years in Z scale and have been inspired by other great blogs to start my own and record my progress/trials/tribulatons. I have learned so much from other member's comments in other blogs and I am hoping my story will help others and I may be lcky enough to have some of my questions answered my my hurtles overcome.

No matter the scale, wiring, scenery, maintenance etc are all pretty much the same so I hope guys with other scales will feel free to contribute here as well. Z scale adds a few extra challenges in many aspects but most can be overcome with a little patience (who am I kidding; a LOT of patience) and some creative thinking.

I will soon add photos I have taken over years (not many unfortunately) so you all can see my progress so far and what lies ahead.

First a quick summary of what the little world I am creating is all about:

I am modeling (roughly) Alpine terrain with small villages, a river and lots of mts and bridges (of course). I grew up with a decent sized HO layout in my basement though my dad and I never went beyond lots of track and handful of buildings and one never-really-finished mountain. When I moved into my first apt I wanted to build a set but room was an issue so I decided on Z scale for sheer convenience. I bought a Marking steam engine, a couple pieces of rolling stock, a bunch of track and some turnouts. I ended up building a 2'x4' L-shaped table and had most of the roadbed glued down when financial circumstances and a move to a new place cut that short. Everything went into boxes and I finally brought them back into the light (I think) 3 yrs ago to create my current empire in the basement of the house my wife and I currently rent.

I was inspired by the Alpine idea from a trip my German class took to Germany when I was in high school. I loved the old buildings, small villages and the majestic mts of southern Germany and Austria where we traveled. We also visited castle Neuschwanstein in Austria (you've seen pics of it, I promise) and I actually found a 1:220 model of it I built and painted last winter to add to my layout.

Marklin makes a series of elec locos that can be run off of the pantographs and overhead wires they provide. I essentially have two layouts in one. My DC section will be a mainline of elec locos and my DCC section will be steam and diesel locos running both passenger and freight trains. I have already installed decoders in two of my locos (not easy in such small engines) and it works great.

 That's my quick rundown. My next post will include early photos showing the progression of my layout over the last couple of years.

Anthony