After a very pleasant trip to Scotland recently, I'm contemplating scrapping my plan to build a modern era American layout and take a shot at a 1930s-1950s era English shelf layout. Thinking of the GWR or British Rail. Not sure on where to find N scale English stuff though. I've seen Dapol mentioned once or twice and I think Bachmann has something, but otherwise I'm at a loss unless I go back up to HO/OO and send Hornby all my money.
Peco also do a good line of rolling stock. http://www.peco-uk.com/prodtype.asp?strParents=3309,3310&CAT_ID=3313&numRecordPosition=1 And ghre is a link to my friends shop over here, they do good range. Edited per: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?106711-TrainBoard-Policy-on-Posts-About-Retailers The other thing you can do is check out the UK eBay side www.ebay.co.uk that way you will see more than just the people that offer international postage as standard. Often if you ask they will send international, failing that I am happy to do a forwarding operation! -James
Graham Farish - Make some really good looking stuff. There's a little place on the Isle of Man called Union Mills Models that makes "hand-made" N Gauge locos. They are the strongest pulling locos I've ever come across. Lacking in super detail (which can be added later) they make up for it with reliability, pulling power, sturdiness. One thing, if you buy from shops, NOT ebay, in the UK, you'll not have to pay VAT, which really evens out the price of things.
Graham Farish really surprised me.I went to Scotland myself a while back,stayed in Edinburgh.When I go on trips like that,I always try to buy a steam passenger train from the area.I bought a few Farish steam locos,and a passenger train to go with one of them..I was very happy with how smoothly they ran..
As mentioned, primarily Graham Farish* or Dapol for locomotives. For coaches and freight cars look at Graham Farish, Dapol, or Peco. *be careful when looking at used Graham Farish - there are effectively three generations. The original GF stock is pretty much junk. When Bachmann took over they redid the mechanisms so the locos do actually run well even if some are dimensionally suspect. The newly designed locos are nice, and are the only ones that are in any way DCC friendly. Adrian
If someone could send me a private notification/message on where in the US (or somewhere else that does not have crazy shipping rates) I could find British n scale stuff, it would be greatly appreciated.
I've perused the Graham Farish line. It looks like I can pick up a Scotrail DMU like I rode, and I can snag a GWR Castle or a J3 Jinty for steam work. Very cool. I have to say, the rail system in Scotland and England was immensely impressive.
Ski. Ive found that european stuff is usually cheaper even with the sometimes crazy shipping. The US based companies that stock competitivly priced european stock seem to stick to mainland models.
Yes...I have been pleasantly surprised at what I found online so far. The British stuff is definitely pretty neat!
I am just trying to clarify for myself what the scale of UK n-scale locomotives and rolling stock are. One online source says UK is same as the US ratio of 1/160. I know UK n-scale track from Peco is 9 mm and thus used widely in the USA. http://www.bachmann.co.uk/prod1.php?prod_selected=farish&prod=2# Lots of steam to consider.
UK N-scle is 1:148 (ignoring the esoteric finescale of 2mm/ft - 1:152). It still runs on standard N-scale 9mm track. Adrian