All Aboard

Fastrack acquired and assembled; transformer got a check up. We're rolling!

Note for future:
White wire to top terminal.
Don't put freshly-greased engines on carpet.

To Clean or Not

I assumed cleaning the trains would be the right move: years of nicotine, cat litter dust, and of course remnants of the driveway gravel we'd fill the hopper cars with. Then I found a whole chapter in a train book about how to dirty up the cars to make them more authentic. So I guess this is permission to do a bad job cleaning?

Trains

I have the family train set and really thought that I just needed to hook up some wires and hit go. I didn't realize how much wiring Pop-Pop, my uncles and/or Dad must have done for the board layout. Well. Maybe because the first thing I read was more ambitious than I am right now.

Dumping some links here and fretting a bit about joining some kind of train club.

Lionel's website re current version of ZW Transformer

Pretty useful forum discussion of what connects where for simple running.

Classic Toy Trains magazine site (joined) has wiring piece.

Virginia Train Collectors seem to meet on Thursdays.

Found everything but wire.