So, My Athearn Genesis MP15AC is stalling out. On my old layout, it was finicky. My new layout is wired better, all turnouts are electrofrogs and were modified. The frogs are all juiced. Every section of track has feeders. And, this little locomotive is still finicky. I cleaned all the track and locomotive wheels. And, at creeper speeds it still stalls out. I am building an ISL on a shelf, so slow speed switching operations is what I am doing. Its getting frustrating. 

I will admit that sometimes I am quite thick. My wife will attest to that. However, I am confident I can be taught. I have in my possession three NMRA gages. I prefer gauge. I decided to buy the Mark IV to be up to date on any changes. There doesn't appear to be any. I looked at the instruction sheet and couldn't quite wrap my head around the flangeway and points section. So I looked it up online and see there has been a revision to the instructions packaged with my gauge. I'm still a little confused.

It has been pointed out that as the hobby has evolved to more available products as ready-to-run and moved away from the need to scratchbuild lots of things as in the early days, the skills needed to do the hobby are being dumbed down.

For example, being able to get ready-to-run rolling stock means the modeler is no longer familiar with how things track like they were when THEY built the rolling stock from scratch. That means if something doesn’t run right, they’re clueless in knowing how to fix it.

Of all the parts of the hobby, wiring is my least favourite . You spend a lot of time working on it but change is not obvious. 

I have all of the bench work completed where I was able to. I put led strip lights under the top level so I can see my track while doing the wiring. I got my turntable in and the roundhouse repaired an set in place. 

Here are a couple of panoramic views of the layout to date.