New member: old/new into model trains.

[Geardriver]

I am excited I joined this forum and just sending this short message to test the waters so to speak. My next message will hopefully be as pertinent and helpful to others from what ever responses I get from the all your replies  Thanks.  Gear Driver

[Bob_B]

Welcome aboard.
Or is that "All aboard!" 

[richg]

Welcome to the board.
There is a lot of info about the Bachmann products here. Take time to read though the different sections of the Bachmann site. Many times questions can be answered by looking around.
If you have been out of trains for sometime, there are a lot of changes. No idea on your level of experince.
No idea what scale you wan to model.
There are forums for the more commonly used scales here.
DCC is adding to the complexity of things. Even if you are not interested in DCC, many locos come with the decoders that are dual mode. They operate with a DC power pack or DCC controller. Some who do not pay attention to details buy a loco that is DCC equipped and does not run on their DC layout correctly or does not run at all. The DC option can be disabled by a previous owner. A dual mode decoder equipped loco will respond differently on a DC layout than a loco that is DC only.
Once in a while I have seen some who bought the loco but the DC adapter was not plugged in.
A lot can depend on where you but your loco.
There are many, many variables with locos today that sometimes confuse new modelers.

Two suggestions, get a Photo Bucket account for posting pictures here and other forums. A picture is worth a thousand words and can many times reduce confusion a lot.
Get a You Tube account for posting videos.

Rich

[andrewd]

hi welcome my name is andrewd so what scale of train do you run on your layout