What got you started in "N" scale?

[jimktrains]

My parents bought me a Postage Stamp set for Christmas 1968.  The following year was an Atlas PRR passenger set. I had a lot of HO so I stayed with that,  I didn't actually start to build an N scale layout until I got married and decided I had room for an N scale layout.  Now I am completely converted and have also brought my two sons into N scale. 

[RWCJr]

Started in HO around 1963, but just never had the room to build much more than a loop for my PFM ATSF northern...so it was time to make the change to N.

[LV LOU]

 I had a Lionel set,got it probably in 1959,my father bought it at Shelbourn Electronics in Wilkes Barre,where he bought his stuff..[He was in the TV/antenna business..] It only really came out at Christmas..I started right in N scale,67 or so,got my first set for Christmas from Sears,a Postage Stamp freight set.I went to Jack's Hobby Shop in Kingston on my bike for my stuff,I had a 4X6 layout for a while,but got interested in other stuff in High School,stopped trains for 7-8 years.I have been in other scales briefly,O,Lionel,HO,Hon30,belonged to a few clubs,round robin groups,ETC,but N has always been my primary scale.

[ryan_wilkerson]

I moved to Denver when I was 15 years old. I met a guy from my church who was starting to build an N scale layout and even though I had only seen HO scale up to that time, I really liked the idea of having so many trains in a small space. Caboose Hobbies was a wonderland for me. Over a few years, I also helped build a few NTrak modules for as part of the DANS group. Nothing like at 96'x 12' layout with 100-car trains to solidify my love of N. I've been in N for the last couple decades and have involved my sons too.

[Puddington]

There's a beautiful Earth out tonight...

-Bugs Bunny

I was pretty young in 68 but I remember those grainy black and white images of our planet like i was yesteday.... I don't know what could affect today's youth like that did my generation but "wow", we were on another solestial body and I was wstching live... (and the Turbo Train was only 14 months away.... But I digress)

[R L Smith]

Like Gary, Santa Clause in 1968 - I was 8 years old. It was an Arnold Rapido set. Still have most of the pieces of the cars and FA loco, but the box is long gone. Still have the original loop of track on paneling that my dad assembled that day.

Briefly forayed into HO in the1990's but came back to my senses....

[rg1331]

It seems a lot of us got into N when we were 8. Grew up playing with dads HO triang, then in 78' just before my 8th b/day
dad took me to the Sydney N Gauge MRC's exhibition loved N, month later B/Mann BN F9 hand full of cars etc, joined Sydney N
with dad(he's still a member) and a love of N been there ever since .
There was a gap were I did no actual modeling, but never lost the love for 9mm, then bought an MR with David Popps  layout on the cover, 7 yrs later have my own peace of the pacific northwest built on 2 doors.
Now I find that there's nothing more relaxing then getting home from work, having a cold beer and watching 2 RS 3s pull a local through town. Doesn't get much better than that.

Cheers Reid

[glakedylan]

what got me introduced to N Scale?

one Christmas, I believe it was 1979, there was no room in the apartment for the 4x8 ft under the tree layout in HO.
had to settle for a 3x6 ft and I bought a N Scale trainset and created a over/under double oval, cookie cutter method,
and the train ran wonderfully!

after my last HO layout expanded by heat, popping the rail out of too many sections of flex track, I gave up on HO
and model railroading.

visiting a train show in the area in the Autumn of 2000, my wife bought an N Scale trainset and I fell in love with it.
we've been modeling N Scale ever since.

HO is in storage awaiting my grandson to grow older. It will be a gift to him. I fills 3 footlockers completely. All I will
be keeping is a PA A/B and passenger cars custom painted for the Reading Railroad. The rest of the locomotives are
PRR.

In N to stay!

[robert3985]

Ntrak.  And a bunch of great guys in the Wasatch N-Scalers...early 1980's.  Also, the challenge of making Ntrak look and run better while still retaining compatibility.  I was already a professional industrial model builder.  Ntrak looked like fun...and it was.

[Bob Horn]

I had been in outside 3rd rail O gauge club and then in an HO club in Madison, NJ. When I married in 1965 and moved to an apartment in N.Plainfield there was little space, first son was born about the time Atlas brought out the E units. Operation was poor at best but they stayed in a box till we moved to Florida and a new train store opened in 1995. Since then I have built 2 layouts, current one lacks a lot of scenery, has 3.3 miles of single track main line, at least twice that in passing tracks, yards etc. The biggest thing that got me to go to N was the amount of layout that could be put in any space. Some day I will get to the scenery. Bob.

[pwnj]

In the summer of 1970 I had originally planned on something larger, but that just wasn't feasible. So while dad had an HO layout, it was 2 years later at Christmas in 1972 that I was assimilated.



That's me on the left in the red truck pajamas.  I was smitten from the moment I set eyes on it.  Tiny trains!  I still have the yellow UP stock car, and I just finished recreating that train, too.  I even have a lot of my other original N-scale stuff.  Lima passenger cars (originally B&O, now PW&NJ), postage stamp cars (though one has been heavily modified), Atlas, Roco, etc.

In 1977 I got the Bachmann Amtrak Metroliner set for my birthday. I was STOKED! So what if it sounded like a meat grinder, it ran and it looked AWESOME!  I still have it, too! (Anybody got a geared truck for one of these? I'm restoring it and mine needs a replacement.)

Even though we had an HO layout in the basement, I kept working with little N-scale setups through the years, and when I moved out on my own, I just started collecting rolling stock, structures, and locos for my "one day" layout.  In 1998, I took a hiatus from the hobby in general (still watched a lot of trains, just didn't have time for model stuff).  Fast forward to early 2011.  Needed money to pay the mortgage and found my boxes of train stuff.  Sold off a whole bunch of it (most of it new in box stuff from Kato, Atlas, MTL, etc.) on eBay for about $750, but kept the customized stuff (wife thought it wasn't worth the effort to try and sell stuff that wouldn't bring a bigger return) and blam, back in the hobby I went. It's been my primary source of stress reduction ever since (even at my life-imposed $0 MRR budget).

My kids dig it, and now my oldest son's friend is interested in it, too, so we're working on some trades to get enough supplies for a bunch of T-trak modules.  Gotta love it!

[eja]

Parental units purchased a used Lionel train "set" for me in Montreal when I was six.  ( I have no idea what happened to it after a couple of long distance moves.)

Oh, I was already hooked on trains. We lived a few blocks from Westmount station. I could hear and smell them from our appartment. Mum would take me to the station for a walk, strole, get out of the apartment or whatever.    Oh, and an uncle who worked for Baldwin in Eddystone PA didn't hurt my current addiction!

My wife received a crappy HO train set from me as a Xmas present sometime in the  70's. Good excuse to buy rolling stock, RR books and learn stuff about weathering, detailing and RR history.

I detailed a lot of fine HO cars for several years  (still have some, sold others) and even purchased two brass locos. Finally, I  realized that the only way I was ever going to run trains in the available space was to switch to N.

Thanks to purchasing somebody's excess Unitrak via the Railwire,  my collection of great N scale rolling stock has a chance to run !  Almost sixty plus years later, a kid's dream of a real layout may be realized !
 
eja

[ednadolski]

I got the opportunity to visit Paul Brennecke's incredible Grand Road layout.   I was truly impressed by his fantastic workmanship and the level of fidelity and detail that could be done in the smaller scale.

Ed

[Nato]

          I have the usual age 66 Old Fart thread. Started with Cheap Marx Tinplate and some Lionel. There was a fold down out of the wall board in the kids playroom that held the O layout. My dad had a good friend who lived in the neighborhood. He had a rather large HO layout in his basement that was a near clone of Allen's G&D mostly steam ,multi levels ,many bridges and mountains. I knew it was time to switch. You use to be able to buy the old "Globe" later Athearn dummy F-7 Locomotive kits and some rolling stock in the local drug store. Bought a UP A-B F-7 came ready painted ,but not striped. My dad and I used Chart Pack type striping tape in the right width for the red striping. Eventually had a layout on the train board with powered locomotives from Revell and Athearn (rubber band drive). Also two steamers , a Mantua mike, built from a kit, then brush painted mostly with Testors Paints, and a Brass SP Pacific that I was gifted . The brass loco was a poor runner. I still heve both of these plus some old Marx. Even the shorty Athearn SF style cars would let the early Kadee Couplers work on my sharp curves, so I used Mantua Loop couplers except for metal dummy couplers (think Precission Masters,on the F Units and a head end passenger car at one end. I also had one F Unit with the dreaded XF2 Horn Hook Couplers, that could pull freight cars so equipped. I even had a train of PEN LINE heavy weight Pennsylvania passenger cars.                                                                                                                                                                                              I wanted a bigger layout, I had even tried scratch building a mine building out of Balsa. There was no room on the train board, in 1964 as a high school graduate I began seeing adverts in MR & MRC for both British Lone Star 000 and Arnold Rapido (more Costly) 9MM Micro Gauge . I broke down and bought a Lone Star freight set with Powered & Dummy UP F-7 diesels and three freight cars, a couple of extra freight cars ,3 passenger cars and some extra track with switches. Set up a layout on the floor in the corner of the room where my HO was, I was impressed with what you could build, and the Nickel Silver was Tits compared to my Brass HO track. I got two sheets op plywood, set them on two redwood tressel picknic tables in the corner of the room and built a nice L Shaped  elaborate layout, that was had no scenery, but had buildings , some from Lone Star. Saved up some money and bought some Arnold Locos and cars ,one a set so old had NH Baldwin switcher I repainted to UP and cars with tin plate style hook couplers. This layout came down in the very early 1970's and was replaced by a better one with real scenery powered Trix Switches, by then I had an Aurora Postage Stamp UP Passenger set, I repainted the cars into correct UP paint to match the locomotives and fired off a nasty letter to Aurora pointing this out. To this day former Trix late Model Power UP cars are still sliver with a yellow window band  W-a-a-a!                    I have one of the earliest Con Cor Customer ID numbers (they were originally going to make am E-8/9) , but switched to a PA when atlas Rivarossi E Unit was announced. The first Hudson with the Metal Valve Gear & Rods was junk. It looked good , but shorted out. The 2nd generation of these are the ones we all love and remember or even still own.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      In 1996 my mother  (still living with my parents) offered to pay to have a separate building built for trains. I explained that it would be easier to add on to the house and offered to pay half the cost. By then I had Joined the Utah N Railers N Quack (Trac) club (how I met Bob Gilmore) and had four modules all retired ,two I had built, two by another member. The room was built, my mother passed awayin 1998, still lived with my dad as a partial caregiver, he passed away in 2004 and I inherited "This Old House" 1947 vintage, three add on' s. The layout you see here in photos incorporates the 4 N Quack modules and new construction. Well I guess that my story and I' am sticking to it. Yes I had girls , cars and college, but never gave up my trains during those points in my life. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[strummer]

Mid 60's. Marx
Early 70's. HO
Mid 70's. Dabbled in N,but was unimpressed. Back to HO.
80's.  HO and some 2 rail O scale
Mid 90's.  Discovered something called Kato "Unitrack", and all the improvements made in the scale since my "dabbling" days.
 
That was the clincher.

Mark in Oregon