Hi, I live in Switzerland, and I do a bit of everything. One major drawback of European N scale is the fact that they still routinely come with those oversized Rapido couplers. HO has more flexibility couplerwise, but N scale is still basically dominated by the outdated looking coupler. I have not followed possible development in this field though. My own N scale engines and cars are all essentially over ten years old. But prices were high then already. My favorite N scale steam engines of German prototypes are the ones made by Fleischmann. There are some problematical ones there too, mainly regarding running characteristics. But optically, they are top. And as European trains have buffers, it helps considerably if a train is equipped with shortcouplers. Yet there are still lots of engines and cars without a functional shortcoupling possibility. Fleischmann in particular used to think they could do without. Again, there may have been some changes, I don't know. Fleischmann has long lost its independence. Maybe because of this lack of recognizing the signs of the time.
Yes! We are here I`m from Moldova (Eastern Europe). Also there are some modelers from Russia and Ukraine registered here. Mostly my collection consists of European models, but about 1/4 are American models.
