I chose N Scale because I remember going to train shows with my dad when I was a kid and seeing the Ntrak Modules set up. They were HUGE! Always saying to dad how neat they were and dreamed of the empire I could have because of their size. Then one Christmas morning, "Santa" left a nice little 2' x 4' oval with two sidings, two train stations and one of those little styrofoam tunnels. (What a memory!) Since then, that layout has ceased to exist, but the spirit still lives on. Eventually, I will build a nice layout. Until that day comes, I will continue to dream, and MY currently unamed shortline will continue to "acquire assets", and will absolutely enjoy building it and sharing with my children(hopefully!). Until then, I need to stop going to the LHS so darn much and I need to keep telling myself there is no "perfect" layout that you can build, you will always want something more than what you have. (Sigh...)
At 12, sold my Am Flyers for money to buy Lionel HO. (By the way, years later, bought back the AF's for $100 - what I sold them for ). By 17, my pal moved away leaving me with no place to run trains, so he got my HO's. At 19, purchased the Postage Stamp Trains set. After that, began the accumulation of various aspects of equipment, buildings and track ( all N of course) , with no real focus and never really used. At 35, after a relocation for marriage, found an HO club to learn skills. At 40, began more serious accumulation and an occasional burst of creative energy to build and assemble. Almost 60 now, finally starting a layout for real. Hope the eye (only have one) keeps working good for me until I can bring things along.
You know what really amazes me? Take a look at any forum topic like this asking why you got started in model railroad, and the prevailing answer is: DAD. Me too. My dad was incredible impetus or help on every layout up until my thirties. Ironically, there is tradition here. Watching the "Trains Unlimited" series on History Channel a few years ago, which I taped, one of the segments was about model railroading and Lionel Trains. It sort of alluded to how Joshua Lionel capitalized on the father-son bond to buy and build model railroads, and every catalogue showed a kid with a glow on his face with good old Dad in the background, which was really memory provoking, melancholy for me, and inspiring. The truth in the segment, was that Joshua sold the Lionel company right under his son's footsteps, leaving him high and dry. Too bad Joshua didn't read his own catalogues. I am real fortunate to be from western Penna, as my family and ancestors are all train guys, and family outings were train intensive. Now, my kids get to see my glee when a train crosses the road in front of us, or slowing down past a storage track, or stopping by to look at a stored train. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Why did I choose N scale, well, the blame for that would have to lay with my friend's wife. I went to Hong Kong with them a few years ago and was going to go with them again this xmas. She decided a stopover in Japan would be good, my friend and I agreed as we were only in it for the RC & gadget shopping, and we knew Japan had lots of both. This is when the small voice in my head , that has a speed affliction, said that Japan has Bullet trains and that we had better take a ride on one. So now it was time to hit the net and do some research. I soon discovered that Bullets are called Shinkansens and that the 500 series was the fastest at 300 km/h. I decided a model of the 500 would make a nice display on top of the TV, and promptly found one in N Scale on ebay made by some company called Kato. later discovered that Kato was today's version of Sekisui who made the Hudson that Dad used to have 30 years ago, it still has the trademark wobble. The more I researched these Shinkansens the more I was getting drawn in and soon discovered that N was the way to go if I was going get into these things. Well now i have only 1 more Shinkansen coming to complete the whole fleet, a few TGV's, an ICE 3 and a range of American steam and diesal. My railroad won't be confined to a continent, never mind an era. I can just hear the rivet counters scream as the latest Bullet rounds up the Big Boy somewhere in Europe. I've run out of money to visit Japan this year, but the 16x30 shed will arrive next week so construction can start. Maybe next xmas for the fast train ride that started this journey 10 months ago. Gordon
Why did I choose n scale? I was looking for a year round indoor hobby. I have in recent years become very interested in trains. So model railroading seemed to be an easy choice. I know N scale has several advantages and disadvantages, but for me it's all about my available space. Being an apartment dweller dictated I go N or Z. N seemed a little more beginner friendly with far more product available, so here I am Matt
I've put off a trip back to Japan I was planning next year too with the present exchange rates. If you get time go beyond the Shinkansen and sample the rest of what Japan has to offer the railfan, there are still private interurban lines that belong 50 years ago, country branchlines with two or three railcar services a day where you can be the only passenger on board and many weekends, especially in summer there is a steam excursion somewhere that you can get on with a JR pass. I got hooked on my first trip in 1990 and have been back six times so far.
new member & 1st time to post Just joined Trainboard and this is my first post. Why N-Scale trains? Probably because I could not get my 0-27 trains to run on that teeny-tiny track! :tb-tongue: I've got a handful of Lionel locos and cars wrapped up in a box. It's been that way for years. A few weeks ago, I dug up a couple of Bachmann locos that I never did anything with, found a few scraps of track and put together the classic over/under figure 8. Since then, I've had a blast just watching my 2 engines go round and round. Wow, this is so much more fun than just staring at the box of wrapped up Lionel gear!!! Well, I've got the bug and now I'm planning a 3 x 7 N-scale layout. I'm looking for info on building a harbor scene along with a couple of ships (not really into scale accuracy, just mostly going for fun). My new layout will include a lighthouse. I told my wife that once construction is complete, it may be the first time in history a Superchief was seen speeding by what might end up looking like an east coast lighthouse!
Why n-scale? N-scale was never my first choice. TT-scale (1/120) was preferred. While I was stationed at Treasure Island Naval Station, San Francisco, Ca (1963) I visited a downtown hobby shop on Market St. I grew up with Lionel/American Flyer trains, but those were too large. For awhile I considered HO, but it was still larger than I actually wanted. While I toured the hobby shop, they had a TT scale runaround track setup. As soon as I saw it I knew that was the size and scale for me. When I got out of the Navy in 1969, the job I found moved me to Pendleton, Oregon. After the first six months I visited the local hobby store with hopes of acquiring at least a TT trainset. It was then I learned that TT never became popular here in the USA, but rather N-scale (1/160) was the latest "craze" (as the store owner put it). Well the rest, as they say, is history. If TT were ever available commercially in sufficient quantity, I would probably switch as I consider TT the ideal size for empire building (like n-scale) but still large enough to allow for sufficient detailing of equipment (like HO). Anyway: "That's my story your Honor; and I'm sticking to it!" ... *for now. :tb-cool:
I had HO when I was young, but always wanted N because of the Amtrak trains at a local hobby shop. Over the years while visiting hobby shops, the trains I always looked at and where fascinated with were the N scale ones. I really do not know why, I guess I just really like the size. Now that I have decided to pick up model railroading as a hobby, I am naturally attracted to N. It has been a hard choice though, because it is not so much the detail that attracts me to HO, but the sound. But since sound seems to be picking up in N, I figured I would give it a shot first to see if I can be satisfied with it. Another big factor is that even though I have cheap N and HO sets, my daughter always wants to play with the "little trains", and she is half the reason I joined the hobby. So I have been setting up the "little trains" on her Thomas train table and we have been having fun with them. For my permanent layout (to begin this summer) I still may model in HO, but I think I can find enough space for at least a small N layout. That is the great thing about N, a lot of fun can be had in a very small space. I agree with the above post though, TT scale would be the choice if it had any presence in the US. It is too bad that it never took off.
I choosed N scale because it fits me really perfectly. I feel totally at ease with these small things. They are just perfectly shaped. Z is way to small and HO seems too gigantic, out of proportions. I never could have modell something else than N scale trains. :tb-wink: - Vincent
Ken/"Florida Boy" said, That's why I picked N scale. We had Lionel when I was a little kid in the early/mid 60s; I don't know what happened to all that stuff. I did HO in high school with a friend in Ohio and in Germany. Move forward fifteen years to 1995. I had periodically purchased a copy of Model Railroader or eventually N Scale, but only thought about the hobby. I decided to take up the hobby in again in '95. I am a physicist by training, so numbers give me answers. The question was, "Which passenger cars look better on an 18" radius, HO or N?" The choice was clear - even then it was a passenger car focus. Those were hard days - pretty much the only thing you could get was Con-Cor's smoothside cars. There wasn't really much of an Internet yet (AOL, CompuServe, etc.). I found some Con-Cor Viewliners at a big NTRAK show in Orlando in '98(?) but they melted in the summer heat in the back seat of my car. Back to the quote above. I think Ken captures an esseNtial elemeNt. When you see a train go by, what do you see? You see the world (at eye level) with a train going through it. Do you see what kind of brake rigging the cars have? No. Do you get a chance to read all the data on the sides of the cars going by? No. Do you visualize a world so overly detailed that it looks like a caricature? No. So, what do you see? You see the world with a train in it. You are too far away - and the "details" are too small to see - so you see the big picture. You can do that in N in a realistic space. With long passenger trains if you will. Related - you've seen the Kalmbach pictures with the F units in various scales from G to N. I would like to get one MTH UP passenger car in 1/32 (Actually I want a set of three for the mantel, but THAT'S not gonna fly!), one in HO, one in N, and one of the new ones in Z from MicroTrains to take to club shows so people can see. I like to feel the look of glee on my face, too. I've enjoyed reading other people's stories and now you have mine. Terry
Perfect reasoning. Terry, that is a perfect example, and is helping me over the edge into N Scale. :thumbs_up: I want to get as much of a feel of my RR of choice in as little space as possible, and the above quote is why N will almost certainly be my scale when I finally start building.
I began in N scale in the 80's because I wanted to run a little loop on a 4x4 square of plywood. I didn't know anything then--I just liked trains. I started reading about the hobby and of course began building a real layout. Though N scale ran VERY badly, I stayed with it just because I had already gotten used to the small size. HO seemed huge to me--like I would need a whole basement! Today I know better than that, but HO still seems too big and unwieldy to me just because I'm used to something half the size. I am of course beside myself with delight that manufacturers today have blessed us with such wonderful equipment and details. Beautifully running steam? Unbelievable!
I had the traditional HO-scale 4x8' layout as a boy in the 1970s. Then around 1980, I found a model railroading book in the hobby shop. All of the chapters looked just like what I already had, but the last chapter had a story about an N-scale basement size layout. I had never heard of or seen an N-scale layout before. The very last photo on the very last page of that book had an overall view of the layout filling the entire basement. And as they say, the rest is history. Jamie
MICRO MACHINES! Yep, bet you didn't expect that one. I guess I never really 'chose' N scale, but before I was allowed to play with dad's HO stuff, I had those little micro machine trains which were probably half way between N scale and Z scale. Anyways, one day dad comes home from a business trip and he has this circle of track and a Santa Fe F unit and some cars. Naturally I fell in love with it and so began my N scale adventures. Now a days I keep it up because I love seeing the train run non stop through the scenery. Z scale is starting to show up more and more, just as N scale back in the early 90's... Don't worry N scale, you're safe for now.. but once I start my career and actually have spending money, you might have to start worrying about me switching to Z :-x
I grew up with American Flyer S scale. Went to HO. Could not get everything I wanted in the space available. Started in N in 1964. My new N layout (36X12 1/2 ft) will be 2 levels and have it all (An operating hump yard, a port, a 3 track Intermodal yard and plenty of space for the steel mill, as well other industries).
In a word, space. I had a few HO locomotives and about 70 cars, but no layout. in 1999 I saw an Atlas Conrail GP40-2 test run at a LHS and I made the decision to go with N right then. (I bought the 40-2.) I can have a reasonable sized railroad in limited space with lots of operating potential, and it can be portable. Plus the quality and selection of equipment gets better all the time.
Great discussion. I actually sat and read through everyone's comments instead of skimming like I normally do. My story is simple. I was in the LHS buying some track for my HO layout back in the 70's. I spotted a N scale train set back in the seventies. I begged my dad to get me that cute train set. Bought another set a while later because it had an Atlas Plymouth switcher with some 70 ton ore cars. Way too cute. So that was the key to it all. The past few years I have dabbled in other scales. I have even contemplated O scale. The thing that keeps me coming back to N is how crappy figures look in all the other scales. I just can't stand it. In N scale the lack of need for detail makes everything look better at arms length. I'm even thinking of scrapping my door panel layout and building a smaller layout that is simpler. I know, that's just sick and wrong to want to downsize. he he
I received a Lionel in 1952 from my folks, ran it until 1957 and discovered HO and dabbled in that until 1963 when the car bug bit me and sold every thing. Then with my mom, while walking through a toy store shopping for a Christmas present for a relative I spotted a N-scale train set, looked at it and said I should get back in to model railroading and behold for Christmas that year I received the set I was looking at and from that point on I have been collecting n-scale cars, Locos and structures. I have built 3 layouts over the last 38 years with the last one filling a 15' X 30' room. Converted over to DCC and Code 55 track. Even if room was unrestricted I would still model in n-scale, you can have more train for the area with this scale and I just like the challenges that the scale has over come through the years. The performance of the equipment has gotten better as well as the detail.
