New Boy!!

[Stek]

I've no idea how this happened but I now the owner of two Connie's (one fine, the other butchered) and I just today received my Unlettered K-27, new item, massive box, I'm in the UK so my jargon might be a bit different. I'm no stranger model railways/roads - but that was a long time ago and certainly not G-scale...

Basically I just want to do this for now, I've read the forums and just gone blind. Really for now just want to drop in a battery pack, sound and smoke the Bachmann one is no good, chuff-sensors? Maybe leave that for now, all I want is the run it backwards and forwards with lots of smoke and lots of realistic noise!

I don't want the cheapest but at this stage I'm not sure I'm ready for state-of-the-art so what do you recommend? Prefer something more or less drop in for now and do the hacking later....

Cheers!

Steve

[tac]

Mornin', Steve - tac here, also in the UK, and modelling [about 20% of my stuff] in the same scale as you seem to have adopted - 1/20.3, also known as Fn3.

Sadly for those living in the UK, there is not any economical way into loco sound.  I have Sierra, Phoenix and QSI in my electrically-driven locos, but I also have live-steam as well [see tacs trains on youtube - 100+ videos].
The average cost of each of these installations is around £220 or so, but that was a good while while back, and as you may have guessed, I only live here in UK, I don't belong here, so getting stuff back over in the US or even Canada is not hard for me to do.

There are some really useful guys on THIS forum who can take you through the r/c battery power route, though.  Here in UK we have the redoutbable Mr Brian Jones and all his wonderful r/c stuff, as well as RCS, available from Brandbright.  Over on IPPW in Ottawa we have ONLY RCS gear and have found it easy to use and very reliable, running sixteen trains at a time as we often do on the 'Invasion' weekends.

I also highly recommend the only monthly magazine for large scale modellers - Garden Rail - published by Atlantic Press.

The level of fun you have with trains this big can really depend on how deep you want to dip into the childrens' inheritance.  

You might like to get aboard the UK's biggest website for this kind of train...http://www.gscalecentral.co.uk/home -  and what with the UK being so small you are more likely to find somebody nearer to you for hands-on advice!

Welcome and Best of luck!

tac in rural East Anglia
www.ovgrs.org
G1MRA #3641
Vibona Bridge & Crow Creek RR

PS - if you PM me with your locale I might be able to point you in the right direction.