Free Mo N or Ntrak. Seeking direction now for a project later.

[seusscaboose]

it'll be at 40" and might be sandwiched between a circus and a Star Trek themed module.

or a Zoo and a Dairy Farm

[mmyers]

or a Zoo and a Dairy Farm

If I ever get Harper's Ferry done....

[robert3985]

Realize that if you do show it with a group, it'll be at 40" and might be sandwiched between a circus and a Star Trek themed module.

What finally got me out of Ntrak was the Spongebob Squarepants module....

[peteski]

What finally got me out of Ntrak was the Spongebob Squarepants module....

Oh come on guys! Where is your sense of whimsical humor?  Real  would have not problem dealing with things like that!

[ArtinCA]

Once I get moved and settled I'm leaning toward FreeMo as well. I like the module design for a home layout as well.

[VonRyan]

What finally got me out of Ntrak was the Spongebob Squarepants module....

That would have at least got me out of the club, but out as a whole... seems a bit too extreme.

-Cody F.

[mmyers]

What finally got me out of Ntrak was the Spongebob Squarepants module....

I stayed.
Guess I'm just not that serious about the hobby.

[packers#1]

Oh come on guys! Where is your sense of whimsical humor?  Real  would have not problem dealing with things like that!

Those  just have that darn elitist attitude...bunch of jackwagons 

sorry, had to. Lee, I would echo MC, go with whichever you prefer

[Dave V]

I stayed.
Guess I'm just not that serious about the hobby.

That's it, turn in your a$$hat forthwith! 

 

[robert3985]

Haha    I did "deal with it"...the whole club converted to our own modular standards which included prototype derived scenes only, cutting edge (for 1989) techniques, materials and products, and getting rid of Ntrak's "lowest common denominator" modeling, construction and operation philosophy. 

Don't get me wrong.  I know Ntrak's got a big influence on N scale, and it brought me back to model railroading after a 20 year hiatus.  But, instead of bitching about the rules we didn't like, 17 guys took all our Ntrak modules and literally trashed them...and started over with our own standards and had a whale of a good time doing it for another 15 years.

Sometime in 1994, I wrote a short article for "Railmodel Journal" and Jim Fitzgerald promptly excommunicated all of us.  Truth is, we'd been apostates for five years at that point, so we all laughed about it.  We've all still got smiles on our faces 19 years later, and NO desire to come back to the Ntrak fold.

I think you could probably say that we were, and still are asshats...all of us 

[GaryHinshaw]

Wow.  I love this idea.

[wm3798]

I'm going to try loving it on some graph paper tonight...
Lee

[Philip H]

I'm going to try loving it on some graph paper tonight...
Lee

TMI bro . . . .

[VonRyan]

... Ntrak's "lowest common denominator" modeling, construction and operation philosophy. 
...

What is that to be exact? I'm and N-Traker and yet I don't even know what it is...

-Cody F.

[Zox]

What is that to be exact? I'm and N-Traker and yet I don't even know what it is...

-Cody F.

"Lowest common denominator" is generally a code phrase for "not the way I would do it."

Basically, NTrak uses Code 80 rail, sits close enough to the floor that mid-size children (and seated operators) can see it, and doesn't mandate strict prototypical modeling. It also doesn't encourage hard-core timetable-and-schedule operations. One or all of these attributes are considered unacceptable by some, which is why there are so many "alternate" standards.

^{(snark on)}
Heck, NTrak doesn't even have rules to guarantee that everyone's modeling the same region, or using standardized ground cover and sky colors! Why, you can even put a module next to a completely different scene, or even (shudder) something entirely fictional!!

You'd almost think it was designed for entertaining the public or something. 
_{(snark off)}

Oddly enough, we developed the Smart-N standards for MARRS because we thought the module size and wiring standards weren't "lowest-common-denominator" enough...