Big week ahead as I'm begining my move to the North Chicago suburbs. I have two questions, where are the best N scale shops and are there any N scale or N Trak clubs up there? If I can find a house in the next week I may hop over to Galesburg. Thanks Brad
brad des plaines hobbies is one of the best in the area although not really nw area, it is close to o'hare, for clubs or groups there is heritage n trak of which i am a member of that is based in joliet but we do quite a bit of shows in and around chicago and a couple in lower wisconsin, also northwest ntrak out of palatine? correct me if i'm wrong. pm me if interested in heritage and i will give you some contacts. mitch
Midwest N Pioneer Club I used to be a member of this club. They are presently without a home, but is is a very large permanent N scale layout. Midwest N Pioneer
Hey Flash, Weren't they the cover & high lighted featured story in NSR a couple of yrs ago?2003 maybe?
Charger, first welcome to the land of Lincoln! Second if you do make it for Galesburg, PM me about the Trainboard memeber meet up Saturday night. Third, I have ran with Heritage and Mopac, great group of guys that run with prototype equipment and modules. Nothing as far as shops on this way from Chicago, West that is. Rockford has no N-Trak clubs and no real train hobby shops that have N, however JTW can help you with your Micro-Trains fix soon. If you are ever up for a trip this way, there is a guy an hour from me in Monroe WI that is awesome! Well worth the trip as he has almost everything in N. If you don't make it to Galesburg next weekend, give me a shout out if you want railfan the C&I. Jim
MNP Layout In NSR I think it was N Scale Railroading. They had a lot of great scenery, but I was most impressed with the full scale steel plant. That was approximately a 25 x 90 foot layout. They moved to another almost as large, but that is gone for now, too.
As a kid I loved visiting the Elmhurst Model Railroad Club. They had a nice N-scale layout back then (mid to late 70's). I just read they moved a couple times and gave up N-scale a while back due to lack of interest. Too bad.
Elmhurst Model RR Club Here is the website for the Elmhurst Model RR Club. This is an HO scale layout and one of the finest around. They did indeed have a large N scale layout at one time. Elmhurst N scale was one of the clubs that participated in the original NTrak layout at the San Deigo NMRA convention (1969? 1970?). That part of the Elmhurst club became the Midwest N Pioneer club.
Galesburg Clubs from Joliet area (Heritage NTRAK), Milwaukee (Mantrak), and Bloomington-Normal (NTRAK of B-N) will have a layout at Carl Sandburg College over the weekend. If you get to town stop in, or better yet, bring some trains and run with us for awhile. We should have at least 1 DCC line. Several of us are Trainboard members. Just mention this thread.
Brad- Welcome to Chicago!!! NorthWest NTRAK now has a semi-permanent clubhouse in Bensenville where many of our clubmember's modules are set up. The clubhouse (you can't miss it....there is a 1:1 0-6-0, MILW Touralux Sleeper, and a MILW ribside caboose next to it!!!)... is at the intersection of the Milwaukee Road (you can tell what era I am from..now METRA West Line) and Church Street in downtown Bensenville. The clubhouse is open just about every Tuesday evening from 7pm - 10pm and visitors are welcome. This Saturday is the regular clubmeeting and the clubhouse is usually open around 10am on meeting days....the regular meeting starts around 3pm. Contact me offlist for more N Scale opportunities in the Chicago area. Charlie Vlk
"RAM" Hobby on Higgins Ave is an adventure worth doing.....at least one time. It's out towards the airport area. Just be careful when you enter. Inventory from floor to ceiling, but you'll never know what you may find.......that you've been looking for. Just don't wear any "aftershave", and don't bring up the subject of "x's":zip:
Hi Guys, How many clubs were represented at the Galesburg Composite N Trak layout two years ago when we set the record for the largest N Trak layout ever put together in the Sate of Illinois? I do remember that the route was over 12 scale mile around. How many modules? That was the 10th year of the Galesburg Railroad Days Train Show and we used the entire basketball court for the set up.
harry if i remember correctly there were 5. heritage, ntbn, gateway, milwaukee or madison not sure which, and dayton.
A lot of the Nscale shops appear to have closed. End of Trak in Franklin park, Downers Grove, Palatine, anong others. Some old standbys may still be in business, but I don't know how much Nscale they carry: 1) Al's hobby shop in Elmhurst 2) Northwest hobby 3) Hill's hobby shop in Park Ridge 4) LaGrange hobby shop
Well it has been a great two weeks since we got up here. Thanks to Jim and all his help at Galesburg, funny how we'll drive 3 hrs to a Train show to save $20 on a loco. My wife picked out a Townhouse online that she liked, I went and looked at it the first day here and signed a lease that night. A couple of days later I realized I can watch Metra and CN (former WC) from My living room sofa! Thank god for Metra! My wife does not really understand my Trains affliction, and has never shown any interest. Upon seeing an MP36 last week though she said to me "Now that one is really cool, is there a model of that?" OK here is my brief report on N scale on the North side. Chicagoland Hobby Co. Wide selection esp MTs, lots of books, helpful staff, Less than MSRP, more than internet, was a bit hard to find. Des Plaines Hobbies. By far the best, huge selection and large amount of books, detail parts and Decals. Hauf's Trains, was weak on N and most other scales was toy like Hobbytown- Crystal lake, WAste of Time and Gas RAM Hobbies- I can second Johned53's remarks, tons of stuff, N Scale is placed in an almost impossible way to see, cabinets blocked by other cabinets and boxes everywhere. I was able to find a couple of deals though and the owner did boot a guy who came in wearing cologne! (he has serious respitory problems.) Rons mundelien Trains-Pretty nice store, lots of special order stuff, Video rentals! Thin N Scale, List price not many locos. Americas Hobby-Great for Lionel and G scale, and tons of Thomas stuff, otherwise not worth the trip. Asked if they had any N Scale microscale, first answer was no, then wait a second, I waited and the guy handed me a binder of HO decals, that were some other brand. Des Plains and Chicagoland seem to be tops so far.
If you got up to Rons in Mundelien, you should've popped over to Destination Trains in Libertyville. He moved there from KC a few years ago. Good shop, some discounts, so I walked out of there a little dissapointed, because in KC I could always count on finding some details, books, track plans, etc. Maybe George just has us spoiled.
