I'm going to try N Scale

I would recommend Otter valley railroad for a great on line supplier.Great selection,prices,service and if they don't have it,they will get it for you.If you are new to n scale,patience is required!Best of luck and enjoy👍

Well, I got my train set today, and I am delighted with it!  I'm blown away by the level of detail on this thing.  If this thing is only ho-hum in the marketplace, I can't imagine what the nice stuff must be like.  I have been running it for about an hour breaking it in on the 24" circle of track it came with and it has proven underailable so far.  I have some additional track I picked up so I'm about to add in a siding.  Fingers crossed.

Also, it's odd that the couplers are mounted to the cars and not the trucks.  Is that normal for N?  Is that how real trains are?  Will these train cars couple with all other N scale cars or do I need to worry about coupler compatibility?

And by the way, everything you guys said about how tiny this stuff is was spot on.  I had to take off my glasses and hold my face a few inches from the cars to couple them.  There will be no taking this engine shell off - ever.  I can barely connect the track!

@Mark Holmgren 110217 posted:

Well, I got my train set today, and I am delighted with it!  I'm blown away by the level of detail on this thing.  If this thing is only ho-hum in the marketplace, I can't imagine what the nice stuff must be like.  I have been running it for about an hour breaking it in on the 24" circle of track it came with and it has proven underailable so far.  I have some additional track I picked up so I'm about to add in a siding.  Fingers crossed.

Also, it's odd that the couplers are mounted to the cars and not the trucks.  Is that normal for N?  Is that how real trains are?  Will these train cars couple with all other N scale cars or do I need to worry about coupler compatibility?

Most N Scale manufacturers are using some version of  Kadee-compatible couplers nowadays.  Only the really (last century) old stuff uses the old Rapido box-style coupler.

Depending on the manufacturer, the cars will have either truck mounted or body mounted couplers and yes, the prototype couplers are mounted to the frames.

Rusty

I am looking at laying down my n-scale permanently, as it turns out we will not be moving for a few years due to lifes regular unplanned events.

Reading through a separate thread about 2 scale o, I thought I would mention that I don't see too much different at _n_ scale. I was looking at local stations to put into the layout, only to find out they would only accommodate (at most) 3 e-235 cars (japanese rail).

My Odoriko, with all 10 cars, is more than 6 feet long... I have station platforms and a station for it, but thats really about it. it will go around a loop-ish, and only stop at the looooooooooooooong station. My e-235 set (10 cars) is ~4.5 feet. For me to get a local train would cost ~170 bucks for an unpowered car and a powered car.

So yeah, n-scale is really a lot bigger than it seems. Insert sad face here. It will likely take up the same space as my floor o-scale w/ only 072 curves. That was... unexpected.

Happy to see this topic come up.

I'm mainly O gauge but I ordered the Kato N scale P42 Amtrak Superliner starter set just to play around with. Should arrive this weekend.

I was thinking of getting an HO set but it seemed hard to find a quality set as mainly what I found available in HO were Bachmann sets.

I really wanted Kato since I've heard great things about their quality and packaging but all the Kato starter sets available seem to be N scale so that's what I went with and ordered some extra straight track to run a narrow long oval. Nothing permanent. Something to set up and tear down from time to time. I really like the Kato packaging for that with the added protection and storage space within its packaging to store extra track and trains.

With that being said if I make the oval twice as long (from 3ft x 4ft to 3ft x 8ft), will the supplied power pack be sufficient?

I'll only be running one train at a time with no switches or turnouts etc.

And yes I have horrible eyes but a nice set of magnifiers. 😄

Thanks

Brad

The supplied power pack will actually run a VERY large layout. I can run a train on 40 foot of n scale track.

craftech you do not need to have the Loksound programer to program ESU loc sound decoders. you can do everything the traditional way via the hand held or decoder pro on the computer. you only need the programer if you wish to down load sounds from their web site.

In my opinion, the combination of good  quality locomotives and rolling stock such as those offered by Atlas or Kato operated over well laid track makes N scale one of the best options for reliability in any of the available scales. Life-Like/Walthers Proto, Rapido, Fox Valley Models and InterMountain are some of the others who have offered models of high quality over the years.

Bob

Don't know if it was mentioned but there are N scale trains that are / were painted in the Lionel 6464 series colors. They even have the 6464-XXX number.  There may be more that that but you could get a Postwar look.

I Just looked and they are by Lowell Smith.

Here is the website for reference.

https://lowellsmith.net/produc...64-collector-series/

@Rick Rubino posted:

craftech you do not need to have the Loksound programer to program ESU loc sound decoders. you can do everything the traditional way via the hand held or decoder pro on the computer. you only need the programer if you wish to down load sounds from their web site.

Good to know,

Thanks Rick,

John