What got you started in "N" scale?

[mmagliaro]

6 yrs old:
Got a neighbor's Lionel set  as a give-away.
I set it up on a piece of plywood over two saw horses in the basement, next to the
HO "empire" my older brother and dad built (also on plywood and saw horses).

12 years old:
Inherited the HO trains (all Tyco and Mantua stuff) from my brother, around 1974.
Rebuilt the "empire".  Packed that away when I went to college at 17.

21 years old:
Finished college, moved into apartment with fiancee, thought I wanted to get back into trains,
but having limited space, decided to try N Scale.

Bought a Bachmann "white box" 0-6-0.  It was junk, of course, and I was about to give up on it.
Then bought a Con-Cor/Kato 4-6-4 Hudson, having no idea that in 1986, I was buying the best
steam engine model ever made.  I saw that run and thought, "Aha!  So these little trains CAN work!"

I credit that Hudson for keeping me in the scale.  If I had bought anything else, I probably would have bailed
on N Scale.

[kornellred]

In 1983, my sister bought my 3 year old son a Model Power N Scale train set for his birthday.   He had, and still has, absolutely no interest in trains of either the prototype or model variety.  I appropriated the set for myself and soon decided that a simple loop of track was not enough.  A 30 year buying spree of N Scale models abruptly ended in October 2013 when the apartment house that I was living in burned to the ground (arson) and destroyed all of my material possessions, including 17 big Sterilite containers with my N Scale collection stored within them.

At age 65, I am starting again with a hollow core door layout running a Kato P42 with Superliner cars on Unitrack.  As I run the train around the loop, I try not to resent the poor misguided woman who burned the apartment building down, but mostly I lament not having cataloged and insured my N-Scale collection.
N Scale is just too good to give up.

[Catt]

What got me started in N scale was being in a club that thought we could not model railroad because we did not have space for a layout.So myself a few of the other members talked the club into NTRAK. My first three locos were a ATLAS/KATO GP30,GP35 &b a U25-B.This was in 1993 I still have the locos and if anything they run even better now than they did then. 

[railnerd]

Bought an Atlas (Kato mech) RS3 back in 1989... ran like a swiss watch, I was hooked.

[JSL]

Had Horrible Oversized as a kid. Saw a Bachmann set in K & B toys around 89. Told the GF that was cool looking, ended getting it for birthday. Kato GP 38-2 and GP 50 in BN sealed the deal for N scale - and the obsession has not stopped.

[ChristianJDavis1]

Well, like many I started out in HO scale, and while I enjoyed it, a multitude of reasons prompted my change to N scale:

1. Limited Space - HO takes up a lot more space than N, and even an oval of track was difficult to did space for.
2. Price - HO engines and rolling stock just got too expensive.
3. Clubs - I joined an HO and N scale club about three years ago, with most members preferring N. I quickly became a minority, and eventually took the plunge and joined the "Nice" scalers. I later joined an N-Trak club and never regretted the decision.

My first "real" N scale model was a Kato Amtrak Bookcase shelf with a P42DC. I do not really model Amtrak, but the set was just so shiny... And affordable. I then began amassing a collection of CSX engines, and eventually expanded to PRR. I have also been dabbling in Japanese railroads... Now that I think of it, I really just buy whatever I want and enjoy it. Looking back, I think I made the right decision.

[unittrain]

I used to be HO but started wanting more travel distance and broader curves as HO looked way unrealistic with 30" curves I also model large structures that dominate an already compressed scene in HO, and N has just the right amount of detail in my opinion I don't need every nut bolt to be accurate to me that reduces my enjoyment of the hobby. To me N scale meets my needs just about right.

[Baronjutter]

Sounds like most everyone started out with HO as a kid when grew up and refined their tastes (and as the technology refined) to N

[wm3798]

My brother had a big HO scale Christmas garden layout.  It left only a small corner of the basement for me to run trains, so my dad got me an N scale set.  The good news was that when Christmas was over, his had to come down, mine was small enough to keep in the corner, so it stayed all year round!

Lee

[Puddington]

December 24, 1968 - OO Triang set

May 1974 - HO layout - The Great Blue Northern w/ older neighbourhood kid - it sucked.

November. 1976 - Father buys me a Life Like N scale set complete with really crappy CP Rail SD 45 (road number 4242 - a C424 but I digress) i build 4x6 layiut that lasts, albeit poorly used once cars and girls entered my life, until 1981

October 1984 - best friend is diagonised with cancer while we are attending Trent University - to keep our minds off the trips to Toronto for his chemo and the agony he was in we built an N scale set up in his residence room.... he made it; the layout died.

August 1993 - Having moved to Vancouver to take over a packaging plant; knowing no one and wanting to avoid going to bars each night my buddy ( same guy from University) brings old N scale stuff out; we hit Pacifuc Scale Rail ; buy track, Tech 2 pack and tge then uber awesome Atlas RS3 and build the first version of the Puddington Valley.... Rest is history....

It all started the night Borman, Lovell and Anders changed the way we saw our world and ourselves......

[oakcreekco]

Started back in '97, when Kato released the ATSF -9's.

The Superfleet power always interested me, and the Kato's looked good, and ran very well in the shop.

My mind went..........??Hmmmm..................and I bought every one that I could.

My "N" scale love started.

[mmagliaro]

At the risk of derailing this, I think the commonplace transition from a larger scale to N, for myself and for many of us, happened because:
1. it took less space
2. when we were kids and teenagers, there either was no such thing as N, or at least it wasn't viable for reliable operation and good looks. 

In other words, I don't see it as a refinement or change of taste.  If N had been this good in 1970, I may well
have started that way.  And if N weren't so much smaller than HO, I may well have stayed in HO.
To this day, if I had the room for HO, I would probably have stayed there.  It's not evil.   HO scale
equipment is beautiful.  It's just too darn space-consuming for me to have a steam-based layout with reasonable
curves and scenery in a 9x12 room, and I don't have a full basement or garage to devote to it.

[muktown128]

Started with an HO layout for Christmas in 72 or 73.  Saw N scale in a toy store (Tiny Tots in Toms River, NJ) a couple of years later and realized I could do more with less space.  Got a Bachmann N Santa Fe scale set for Christmas in 74 or 75 to get me started.  The Clinchfield layout in MR in 78 showed me what could be done in N scale with some kitbashing.  Model trains went on the back burner when I was in high school and college.  After college in late 88/early 89, I picked up an Atlas/Kato Jersey Central RS-3 based on reviews in MR and the BLW newsletter.  This loco was a game changer for N scale and brought me back for good.

Scott

[mecgp7]

Dear ol' Mom granted my wish for a train set some 40 years ago. I was maybe 10. It was an Atlas N set. I still have the caboose and display it proudly. Mom was great in support of the hobby and even helped out. I was frustrated with the sectional track not staying put. She gave me double sided carpet tape. Problem solved. Later she bought my first 4x8 piece of plywood.
Dad never got involved.
Later the Bachmann GP40 became my workhorse. It was BN. My innocence and ignorance had me believing that the Burlington was in Vermont. Later I expanded to the CB&Q. Chicago, Burlington (VT) and Quincy which I thought was in Massachusetts! Ignorance was bliss.

[davefoxx]

It all started the night Borman, Lovell and Anders changed the way we saw our world and ourselves......

There's a beautiful Earth out tonight...

-Bugs Bunny