I want to start planning for an N railway. I have a bunch of HO stuff that I will sell or trade to get the N trains, track, buildings, etc. I was thinking to go with Unitrack, not sure. It seems like a popular track. One of the benefits is the built in base. I assume that makes it more expensive than regular track where you have to build the bed. Do you guys prefer to make your own base? Is it less expensive to make it vs buy track with it built-in? Are the sets a better value than piecing together the locomotives and rolling stock? Or do you think the pieces in the sets are usually a bit too cheap? I like to get good stuff when I can, I don't want to get something really cheap and end up buying the better stuff later anyway. I am looking at an HCD sized layout, maybe a little bigger if that matters for the discussion. I have access to a well outfitted cabinet shop so can make whatever wood parts are needed. Comments/opinions are appreciated!
Mike, welcome to N scale, the best scale. When building your layout you might consider using 1/2 inch blue insulation and at least one inch pink foam. I use a 3/4 inch Birch plywood as a base and attach the foam on top with caulking as glue. Some people use a hollow core door for the base or 1x2 or 1x4 inch frame for their base. The foam will allow you to model below the track level scenery, the 1 1/2 inch foam is equal about 19 feet. Enough to model a small stream. The blue foam will act as a warning track when carving out the foam, to Barrow a baseball term. I use a keyhole saw for carving out the foam. After installing foam you can install roadbed, I use Mid West Products cork roadbed, it's fairly cheap. Next step is installing track, I like Peco turnouts and flex track, it is probably more expensive than Atlas but is high quality. You want to use as large radius as possible because it looks and operates better. The flex track will cut down the number of joints in your track. It's real easy to install. Please ask questions and we will guide you through it. This is a great website and has a lot of experienced members that can help. Joe
I have used both since I came back to the hobby less than a year ago. Kato is great track, and readily available. It’s much easier to get a functional track and to change or re-use it later. Nothing wrong with using flex either, but once you buy track, cork, etc, you could have bought the Kato. That being said I am doing TTRAK and it is only Kato on the very ends, and atlas flax fro the mainline, and tomix (Kato’s unitrack-like more popular JDM competitor) for the trolley line. As far as locomotives and rolling stock, what are you looking for, what era? For passenger cars Kato sets are fantastic value. But beware of “starter sets” most are not great product.
When I first read your questions and remarks I thought, Oh No not again! LOL N Scale is one place you can't really go wrong. Looks like you are getting good advice. My best advice is the newest production is the best production. Try to buy new switches, track, engines, train cars and buildings. The older stuff is just that and should most likely find the bottom side of a trash can. E pay is okay pay but there the fine folk are selling off used stuff like it was the crown jewels. So be-careful what you buy there. I've been stung twice the last two months. I'm tired and this night owl wants to unwind in front of the TV. Then head for the sack. You'll do alright especially with the right questions.
Mike...you started the 'HCD Group' with a question about HCD and a group. Boxcab moved it up top as a 'stickiy' I cussed Unitrack for years on here...until I started using it. I posted my "Hanging HCD" in that discussion group. It worked so great on the HCD...I used it exclsusively on my THERR RV ! You cant go wrong with Unitrack. If you factor in 3 straight pieces of Unitrack VS 1 stick of flex track...cork trackbed...and ballast...the cost of Unitrack evens out pretty much with doing it the hard way Even manufactures like KATO have 'trainsets' so do some research and due diligence and see what ya like. If you have any HCD questions...think about posting them up in the HCD Group up top
That is true as all get out. Super wrong “rare” atlas cabooses listed for $30 or many many many box cars that are jsut soooooo Bachmann wrong listed for sucker pricing because “vintage”. Pretty much anything Bachmann stay away from unless cheap or looking for something like a project building to modify. However, Almost everything I have came from eBay, except one S.P. F3 I found new at SBS! First use spookshow.net. Best guide to power and even rolling stock I have seen on the web. The good the bad the fair and the ugly. Second be patient. Watch list things you are interested in and get a feel for what they sell for, or DONT sell for. Maybe put in a low bid and sometimes you get lucky. Third Shop around. Sometimes after shipping it is cheaper to buy local. Or from a store website rather than eBay. But not always. And sometimes it’s cheaper to buy something from halfway around the world where they are common than to pay the premium because “rare” in the US. Tomix track is that way for example. With your new found knowledge, You’ll better maximize your return on investment... and it’s kind of fun finding those deals.
I never buy any N scale rolling stock manufactured before 1990, and if you plan to run DCC, never buy any N scale loco manufactured before 2000. I understand if you've been an N scaler for over 50 years, the older stuff has sentimental value, but if you're a convert from HO, the older stuff is pretty much worthless in terms of both looks and performance (i.e. rapido couplers and pizza cutter wheels), so there's no sentimental value there. Modern N (referring to modern manufacturing, and not necessarily the era) is way better. N started getting better in the 1990s, and by the mid-2000s, got REALLY better (thanks to advances in plastic tooling, digital CAD design and forward-thinking companies like BLMA (since sold to Atlas in 2016)) to the point where it's basically a smaller version of HO scale now. Longtime N scalers will lament that modern-made N scale is too expensive, but compared to modern-made HO, it's actually cheaper or at least equal in price.
At this point I don't have a plan as to what era. I will probably do something current/modern. Not planning to recreate a particular line or railroad. I will look for things that match the local area, coastal Georgia. I remember lines of Southern Serves the South cars making us late for all sorts of events : ) I am planning to use the foam, from what I have read it seems like a good way to make topographic model. I will look at Ebay for some deals but as mentioned you can get burned if you don't do your research. And sometimes even if you do! Selling off the HO stuff will help fund the N scale project. I need to decide on a track layout to start and have been looking at plans on the internet. I want a trestle and a tunnel so am looking for those features on potential layouts. Thanks for the comments.
Welcome to N scale. The HC door type of layout is gaining in popularity because of it relative simplicity for small to medium sized layouts. I chose that route for my medium sized layout and decided on using simple base cabinet units as the support to avoid bench work. The plus side to the base cabinets, bought on sale cheaply, was that I also gained storage drawers and the cabinet space, plus had a solid foundation for my layout. I topped my HC doors with Owens-Corning semi rigid insulation foam and used the same foam for hills and a hot knife to carve the pieces. Elmers white glue was used to fasten everything. The maximum width of HC doors is 36 inches so there are maximum radius restrictions of about 16 to 17 inches in keeping back from the edge which is adequate for running 6 axle power and long cars. You did not say what era you might be modeling but you can't go wrong with Kato or Atlas locomotives and both offer 4 and six axle locomotives. I would consider Atlas, Kato, Intermountain, and Microtrains cars because of better quality and details. I use code 80 track because I have a lot of rolling stock that just will not run on code 55, but the newer stuff all runs on code 55. I use Peco and Atlas turnouts and I use Atlas flex track simply because it bends well to tight radiuses but I also have some Peco flex on my layout. All my mainline use cork roadbed but for sidings I use shelf liner cork that comes in rolls for the lower profiles. I have designed my layout with arm reach length in mind keeping all turnouts and track within a 30 inch reach of less. I also go away from using tunnels for ease of maintenance preferring to use cuts that I can reach into and bridges to get upper level tracks across those cuts. The use of a foam topping on my HC doors also makes it easy to lay in creek and stream beds.
Regarding Unitrack vs flextrack: The overall cost difference is really not that great and really not the big issue. One big issue is how realistic your track and track plan needs to look to make you happy with your layout. The Kato sectional track has the more obvious issues of too large rail and ties that are too large and too far apart to represent U.S. railroads accurately. But, less obvious, without experience in using it, is the effect of the Unitrack having everything set-up for 15° angles. Especially when you put a large amount of track onto a small layout area (which we are inclined to do if we like to do "operations"), the pattern of the trackage just starts to look too regular to be realistic. Flex track allows for much more realistic trackage patterns on a layout. Besides using a variety of angles among tracks, there are the slow, continuous changes in radius of curvature (including "easements") that just are not feasible to do with Unitrack. It is true that you can use a Dremel tool and saw to make longer and shorter pieces of Unitrack, and even make some flexible straight sections (see Mike Fifer's You-tube videos), but, that is just a way to make things fit where they won't fit when using only stock pieces. If you want to do a lot of that, it is best to start with flex track. The other big issue is how easy and fast it is to get enough track down to start running trains on at least part of your layout. That is where Unitrack really shines. You can be running trains in one afternoon, starting with a box of Unitrack. You don't even have to glue it down. Just stick it together and hook up the wires with the supplied connectors. No soldering required. And, if you are careful not to make kinks and dips in the track joints, trains roll on it very nicely. It is much more likely that you will make trackage with operational problems when using flex track for the first time. However, be advised that there is an issue with Kato #4 turnouts (which you will probably not want to completely avoid using on an HCD-sized layout). There is a fix that you can do yourself to make those #4s stop derailing your trains, but it is forcing you to go past "beginners stage" pretty soon in your model railroading endeavors. I have used some #4s without modification and not had problems, but have had some track plan locations where every #4 I tried caused repeated derailments with some locomotives, so I have had to modify some of them. Once modified, they work very reliably. Recommendation: If you did not build layouts when you were in HO scale, then I suggest that you start with Unitrack, even if it doesn't look as realistic as you think you will ultimately want. That will allow you to get something operating quickly, so you can properly test new locomotives and rolling stock and couplers and all those other things that are decisions you need to make about what new N scale model equipment you really like best. And, it lets you rearrange your track plan easily to see what works best for the types of operations you find that you really want to do. If you already know that you will want to use more realistic looking track for your "final" layout, then don't buy all the Unitrack that you would need to make the complete final track plan, but buy enough to test out the operational practices you want to ultimately do. For instance, if you like yard work, and want to have a classification yard with 8 tracks, maybe set-up 3 tracks in Unitrack and practice the maneuvers. That will help you decide on things like locomotives, couplers and uncouplers, yard track minimum curvature, drill track lengths, etc. so you can make the "final" layout work like you want it to work. A lot of new modelers who start to build their ultimate layout before building a practice layout never get that final layout operating, because it is a bid endeavor, with the potential for a lot of false starts/rework, and they either lose interest or health before getting trains to roll and "operations" to work. It may seem like a waste to get some Unitrack that you won't put into your "final" layout. But, unless you are already an experienced layout builder, it will probably save you some money and a lot of time in your learning process progressing towards that "final" layout that you really want. And, even if you are very experienced in HO operations, you may find that N scale operations are enough different for you that you might prefer to do some things differently to accommodate you eyesight, arthritis, or whatever.
If you enjoy railfanning, you can do the "model what you see" route and model both Norfolk Southern and CSX trains since you're in their territory. I'm sure there's shared NS/CSX trackage in Georgia? If not, you can make it up on your "proto-lance" layout. Pay attention to the types of freight cars you see. You won't be able to model a mile-long intermodal or manifest train, but you can replicate the ratios of car types and roadnames you see on the rails. Kato, Fox Valley, ScaleTrains and Broadway Limited make modern 6-axle mainline locos like the ES44AC, ET44AC, AC4400, SD70Ace and SD70M. ScaleTrains and Broadway Limited makes locos with built-in DCC sound. Atlas' specialty is older 4-axle locos like the GP40 or the GP38-2 which are still popular today as switchers or power for locals.
You can find locomotives in the 1990's that are DCC ready, they are the Kato E8/9 units and the Aclo PA units. That said, the newer locomotives have better detailing if that is important to you. But I also find at any one time there is not a very large selection to choose from so when you see something in you road name you should grab it straight away. This goes for rolling stock as well. And if this is a smaller layout, resist the temptation for long wheelbase cars! I will add that the type of track is more dependent on the size of the layout. The Flex, Roadbed etc get substantially cheaper when you can buy in bulk for a large layout. But since you are looking at a hollow core door, I would also say unit-trak is probably a good way to go. As for structures, I agree that in many cases the newer structures are better than the older ones. I prefer the wooden structure kits over the plastic ones but the wood ones are getting harder to find.
If you look up hollow core door layouts on You Tube there is lots of different layouts shown. Will let you see what can be done in the space. Local swap meets can be a good place to find good deals. There are both good dealers and poor at swaps, just as on Ebay. Good part is can see first hand the locomotive, car, building, or what your looking for. If find a locomotive or car with rapido couplers figure in the cost of converting to a better coupler. I prefer Micro-Trains. If can find an N-Scale club talk to them. Most members are happy to advise.
HCD layouts are a great if they fit your space. I highly recommend the Kato Unitrack. Had never used it until earlier this year and really wish I would have switched a long time ago. My former layout was built entirely on hollow core doors with 1/2 inch pink foam on top. You can see some pics in this thread: https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/a-few-layout-pics.116164/ It was a quick cheap and easy way to get some benchwork up for it. Would do it again if I get the proper real estate for it.
You can find hollow core doors at a used lumber store fairly cheap. We have one in Tulsa that I bought some door hinges for one dollar a piece. Joe
