What got you started in "N" scale?

[bbussey]

Stumbled on one of the Austrian (AHM/Trix/MRC) 40' steel ice reefers decorated for CB&Q in a Woolworths or County Discount around 1972 for $1 or so.  Realized that I could create a small layout in the basement that the folks would let stay up, unlike the HO layout.  Picked up some additional Trix products and Atlas track with allowance money.  Then the introduction of the Kadee cars sealed the deal.

[C855B]

At 10 I was ready to make the jump from American Flyer to real models, and was already spending my allowance on Model Railroader every month. Dad was weary of my train obsession, and he forbade me to do anything new on the fold-down 4x8 in the garage, such as HO. I needed something smaller that wouldn't intrude on "his" space. So the ads for the new line of Atlas N were really attractive with the promise of a lot of railroad in a small space, and I hovered around the local hobby shops impatiently waiting to see the real thing.

As soon as the models arrived, I had allowance and chore money in hand, and bought a Santa Fe E8, a caboose, three freight cars, and enough track for a loop with siding. After some dissatisfaction running it on the floor tinplate-style, I took down the folding 4x8 (to dad's delight), cut it down to a 3x5 to fit under my bed, ran back to the hobby shop for some Midwest roadbed, and built a "real" layout.

[Baronjutter]

When I was a kid me and my dad made a big 4x8 and a bit HO layout.   This was in the 90's and back then HO seemed like the "standard" scale.  This layout didn't run so well and of course were all the cheapest locos and track out there.  We worked on it for a few years but then I lost interest due to it not turning out how I imagined and the damn thing rarely running properly.  Who knew an impatient 8 year old was bad at layout planning and laying track.

Fast forward to the early 2000's and our house had some space open up in the basement, a whole little bedroom.  I had the itch to do trains again but this time I wasn't a stupid kid and would do everything perfect.  To fit what I wanted in my mind into the space I had I started to notice N scale.  It for some reason seemed closer to the trains I remembered while HO suddenly felt like O scale to me.  When I found some old HO track I wouldn't believe it was HO, it seemed way too big.  Why would anyone want such stupidly over-sized trains???

I decided not to be too ambitious for my first layout.  Just a simple room-filling double-decker layout with no actual plan on how to get between levels other than some vague idea of a "big ramp".  It was 4 2x5' sheets and I filled one of them up with horrible track that barely ran trains and got very frustrated.  I was a stupid impatient 20-something.

In the next ten years I'd abandon that layout and the whole train room for a few years, then start 4 new layouts, constantly having to re-start due to growing skills and growing standards.  Now that I finally have my own place my wife let me have a bedroom for trains and I've got what is hopefully finally a decent layout!

[Kisatchie]

I think it was 1994 when I was at my local hobby shop. I happened to glance at the counter where the (limited) N scale was kept, and I noticed a number of car types that weren't available in HO. That got my attention, because I had mainly Athearn and MDC cars (limited selections).

I went home and did some research into N scale. I liked what I saw, went back to the hobby shop and bought a LifeLike SD7 (SD9?) loco, an Atlas 33000 gal tank car, and several other cars. I was hooked! I still haven't built a layout, but I'm working on it. Just need about a million $$$ or so.


Hmm... I got into N scale
by stealing whatever cars
and locos I could from Kiz...

[soo]

I always had interest in trains as a kid.  If I had to pick a time frame I would say from 5th grade on.

  Had friends in junior high and high school that modeled HO scale, so started to buy HO stuff to run on their respective layouts. During this time I had the fortune of seeing the Reid's CVS in person. I could not believe how well that layout ran. The quality was just mystifying. Also seeing the brothers Reid at Lyon's Township Highschool train show with their switching layout,,, that sealed the deal. I thought it was so cool that you could have the large industry and un-couple cars without touching them. I later learned that was because of the MT couplers and magnets. And seeing the Kingsbury, man, I was hooked for life.

  Ideas were starting to form. I told my parents what I wanted to do, they supported me the best they could.  My dad got me a atlas track plan book as a gift. So I proceeded to pick out a plan . The lucky plan was to be #11009. Nice yard, couple of industry tracks and plenty of passing sidings. So I set  my goals to have the layout completed for the Lyon's show the following year. I was so pumped to be a exhibitor and not just an attendee. I can still remember watching my B-mann CB&Q GP40 pulling Atlas cars around the loop. Life was simple back then.

  During the time in High School I helped build a couple layouts. One day my friends and I were talking, we ( 6 high school kids ) decided to make our own modular N scale layout that we would take to shows. The Layout would consist of Shinohara CD70 track and be double main line. Even then I was more about switching that just watching trains go round and round.  My pride and joy at the time was a set of GN empire builder E units from Con Cor/Kato and the GN SW1500 cow calf set. Had some great times with great friends. I even remember going to Al's in Elmhurst to pick up the RS-2 from atlas in D&H blue. That was the first loco I ever install MT's on.

  Now look at me,LOL. All the friends that I had back then no longer do anything with trains. Ya, they still railfan,, but I am the only modeler left out of the bunch. Boy, those guys don't know what they are missing. Typing this brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye, I miss those days. That is why I chose the 80's as my era. N scale is only going to get better and better as the years progress.

Adios, Wyatt

[SP-Wolf]

My N scale adventure started on my 8th birthday (1971). My Father bought me an Arnold Rapido starter set. It was the 0-6-0, 2 freight cars and a caboose. It came with a circle of track.. he sprang for a couple of streight sections to give me an oval. No turnouts. My affliction has gone downhill-- oh- mean-- uphill ever since.  It has been quite a fun adventure-- I have learned alot-- and - am still learning... thanks to all the wonderful folks on the boards - I lurk on.

Thanks,
Wolf

[casmmr]

In May, 1968 I went to Strete's Hobby to spend some of my birthday money.  Saw some MRC engines and cars, Kadee Micro Train cars and Atlas track.  They looked much better than the Mantua HO I was trying to get to run.  Almost had a layout completed when law school, marriage and kids came into my life.  After going to NMRA MCR Div 6 with a Cub Scout Pack for a tour, I got back into N as the HO always had a long wait time to run, no one was on the N so I could run all day.  From there into Central Ohio N-trak, Discover N'92, and I have never looked back.  Now into t-trak modules, only have 60 of them sceniced.  Retired and my wife keeps saying WHAT YOU ARE BUILDING 6 MORE MODULES.  Hey, the basement is mine, I do the laundry, always have and always will, while waiting for laundry to wash, or dry, run trains, build trains, or just dream of trains.  later, Craig

[dnhouston]

Got hooked on trains back in the 70's during elementary school when my dad remarried and my step-brother had an HO oval.  We were military though and soon moved and the train did not make the trip.  From then through college I collected books and read magazines with nothing to show for it.  Finally in 86 when I moved out of the dorms and got a one bedroom efficiency I decided to get my first train.  Space was at a premium so N was the only real choice.  I bought two Bachman Big Hauler sets and built the most horrendous 2 X 4 spaghetti bowl on three levels with outrageous grades.  But it ran, and I was hooked.

Got my first job after college and discovered that my new apartment was less than two blocks from a large LHS.  Talk about fate.  I was in that store at least once a week for the next several years.  Sometimes buying, often just talking and watching the store layout.

Fast forward 4 moves and 4 layouts later and that's where I am today.  Still hooked on N with each layout getting a little more realistic and substantially better built.

[tehachapifan]

My HO scale layout with 20" radius curves got me into N scale when I realized how unrealistic everything looked. I couldn't make the curves any bigger, so I made the trains smaller.

[DKS]

After putting a lot of miles on my older brothers' Marx tinplate set, I received an HO set for Christmas in 1965. But two years later, after nailing a loop of track down on a ping-pong table and adding a 150-pound plaster mountain (seriously--think Close Encounters, when Roy builds Devils Tower in their living room), I saw a Postage Stamp train set and spent some months pestering my parents into letting me switch scales. The rest, as they say, is history, FWIW.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I had no chance of escape.

My Dad is an N scaler, and I went to my first NTRAK show when I was -3 months. I grew up doing NTRAK shows with my parents.

At a young age my dad custom painted a Bachman GP40 into Conrail for me and did a bunch of matching freight cars. This was because we would often go train watching at Frankford Jct in Philly and would see Conrail stuff waiting to cross the Delaware River.

My first layout construction was when I was two or three. We had a little Christmas oval, and I wanted to install a passing siding. My mother wasn't paying attention, so, I got out my Fisher Price tools and went to work. By the time she noticed what I was doing, I had found a pair of switches and had the siding up and running (although I think I might've submarined a joiner or two... my bad track work also started early).

[GaryHinshaw]

-Santa Claus, 1968.   The arrival of Kadee N a few years later was also key.

[Blazeman]

Seeing the Matchbox Trains ads on TV (yeah, they did that) in the summer of 1969.  Working a summer job, saved my pennies and was able to accumulate the $24.95 or so that the store had it priced for. Would set 'em up, take 'em down but nothing permanent.

The itch to build never came around until  marriage and the Clinchfield series got it going real good - had a house to build it in. Where we lived, there was a model RR club so I could get some hands-on exposure, but the that was an HO group. Several starts fizzled out over the next 30 years. It's happening now though.

[mionerr]

1971, just started my first job out of college. I needed a hobby. Boats? Nah, the model sailboat I had as a kid was hard to retrieve when the wind shifted. Control line airplanes? Nah, I kept crashing them when I was younger. Trains? Hmmm. Why not. Started doodling track plans. My mentor at work suggested N scale. He wanted to build a small layout for his stepson as a surprise at Christmas. He built it in our spare bedroom and I started my 4x8 N scale empire. Been at it since.

[jnevis]

My dad had a small shoebox of older Atlas stuff in his  closet growing up.  We'd put together a 4x8 HO layout and ran that for a while through 1st grade.  Didn't do anything train related again until High School when I started piecing together an 10x12 HO that didn't get very far.  Heavy on equipment but only a small section that actually had track.  Left for active duty and it got packed up or thrown out.

First duty station was Japan and rode the trains around Yokohama and Tokyo all the time.  At the end of my tour I decided to get some Japanese only trains for "eventually."  I picked up a Kata E1 Max bullet and KHK train, plus a Greenmax KHK unit.  I left it with my parents until I got married.  My wife saw them one day and asked what I was going to do with them.  There is a train shop locally so we stopped in.  As it happened he was selling off all his N 60% off so I got a set of Kato Amtrak cars and some track.  There was a train show too where an Atlas Trainman set came home and I could run a circle of track. 

Started a small 2x4 "scenery lab" with a simple circle and a couple sidings.  Mainly built to get something to test stuff on, whether engines, building techniques, or scenery.  Its pretty much on hold since I've gotten sick but the wife is constantly telling me to do "Something" with my trains.  I would if I could get to the workbench  (the office became storage).  We're looking to move soon so anything is possible...