The last thing I wanted to do was spend a ton of money on electric trains and layouts only to have my son say he wasn’t interested after all! So, as most hobbyist websites recommend, I stuck with inexpensive model train sets at first. Once my son shows sustained interest after several months or more, I can move on to the better stuff. I also learned that buying model train sets isn’t as simple as picking out the coolest cars and slapping them down on the track. Instead, I had to consider things like gauge (track width) and scale (the size relationship between the toy car and the real one), and also had to give extensive thought to the layout.