How To Get Started In N Scale
If you have not yet got track can I share with you my personal experience of N scale track ? I first used Flexi-track which one gets in yard lengths and bends to whatever curves you need. It's cheap and easy to use. BUT I soon found that the geometry I created was not the geometry my coaches wanted to go round!
So I then turned to Atlas set track and Peco set track. These were more reliable than the flex track BUT I soon found this make of loco and that make of coach didn't like Peco and others didn't like Atlas. I spent a year or more fighting with the tiny "fish-plates" that connect the track sections, I hardly ever seemed to get time to run the trains! At that point a friend and I were out in a model shop and we saw some "Kato-Unitrack" It has ballast molded in with the sleepers and is a very positive clip-fit although it still uses fish-plates these are not the primary means of joining track sections together. To cut a long story short we decided there and then to change over to this system. That was now over 4 years ago. I have lifted and re-laid my layout 3 times since then and I am still useing the same track!
Points {Turnouts} are more expensive to Peco or Atlas BUT ALL Kato-Unitrack points have built-in motors! All others one needs to buy separately and the total cost of the others is often higher than Kato.
Also if you were to get more locomotives like on the Hong Kong Set which are overhead electric then Kato sells over head electric catenary that clip fits to their track. Of course it is not live and fails to actually power the train but it looks a very fine set up indeed.
So my advice would be to only use Kato track. It may take longer to buy what you need as the stuff id more costly BUT you will SAVE many many more times the cost of the track by not needing to re-place it!
The same goes for model trains. Without question there are two makers that are supreme... Kato is the top of all ready to run N Scale makers up to now. Micro-Ace are just as good but a little more difficult to get spare parts for. If you stick to these makers you will not be disappointed. Modern Kato coaches all have fitted interiors which will look 100% better if you carefully paint them in contrasting colours and add people to them . {When adding people you will find it easier if you use "Z" Scale figures that you can buy from an E-Bay shop called "We Honest" For manufacturing reasons the interiors are at a smaller scale and "We Honest" sell pre-painted Z Scale and N Scale people.} Further you'll find that almost all modern Kato coaches {Made after 2001} will take light fitments to illuminate them. These kits are easy to install and add a great deal to the appearance of the models when running. {Sadly I do not think the Hong Kong Set takes the lighting kit as it was built in 1998 but I cannot be sure about that}
These standards {of interiors and ease of illuminating} are NOT universal. Con-Cor are perhaps the WORST maker. Only their "Pioneer Zephyr, Aero-train and M10,000" Trains sets are reliable and almost all their earlier product are Poor "toy-like" excuses for models! Bachmann are not much better in as far as no lights no interiors but are better exteriors to Con-Cor but that's not saying much as Con-Cor are so poor!
Bachmann locomotives are some ok some poor some not worth bothering with! But be warned Con-Cor locos are good matches to con-cor coaches!!!!!! Model Power are some excellent some terrible, again very low quality coaches.
Intermountain are generally very good indeed.
Athern N Scale are as good if not better than Kato. They only make a few locomotives {Two of which are sound equipped and state of the art masterpieces ie Challenger & Big Boy Articulated steam locomotives}
In general terms "Brass" locomotives are much better detailed but cost a fortune and are not always well powered.
Today the new thing is DCC Sound. Now here again if I may suggest a course of action I think you would be thankful a we way down the line....
Start off getting a DCC system! I did not and now its costing me a fortune to change over and you WILL change over in time!
I know the Hong Kong unit is not DCC but I think you could get it retro-fitted. DCC is a system where by the power is fed consistently to the track and each loco has a micro-chip in it that you call up on a controller and then order the loco to move forward or backwards. If fitted you can also control sound in the loco as well.
The old system was that you fed more power to the track to make the one loco go faster or slower. This means you either create many complex block sections on the layout or only ever run one train at a time.
I chose the Gaugemaster Prodigy2 system and am very pleased with it.
An important fact is that non dcc locos {like the Hong Kong one you have now MUST NOT be run on DCC until they are micro-chipped {A silent Micro-chip costs no more than £15}
So in a nut-shell my advice is to first get Kato Track {BUT BEWARE you will find your Hong Kong coaches are "close coupled" so will not be happy on the tightest radius bends Kato make.} this will give you a lop of track and a passing place if you wish. Then To start with I'd get a VERY CHEAP {£10} basic DC controller. That will run what you have nicely for the short term.
Then BEFORE you get any more stock decided on which DCC system you are going for {Personally I'd go for sound its great fun and makes the whole experience far more enjoyable and in years to come is the way all good makers will go.}
From there you can start to look at what use our layout is for...
I mean do you want to watch your trains run round in a loop all the time ? Or do you want to shunt coaches and wagons or perhaps a mix of both?
That will help you decide the shape of the layout. Then of course the question of "Where" your model is set...? UK? Japan? China? America ? Canada? Australia? you can get models of all these railway systems with varying degrees of ease.
And lastly I would strongly suggest you decide on an actual physical location or a fictional location. From there you either follow exactly the buildings and history of the real place OR you create your own fictional history to justify why you run what trains you do on your railway. This can be great fun and can take much research and can open a whole new world to you!
So I then turned to Atlas set track and Peco set track. These were more reliable than the flex track BUT I soon found this make of loco and that make of coach didn't like Peco and others didn't like Atlas. I spent a year or more fighting with the tiny "fish-plates" that connect the track sections, I hardly ever seemed to get time to run the trains! At that point a friend and I were out in a model shop and we saw some "Kato-Unitrack" It has ballast molded in with the sleepers and is a very positive clip-fit although it still uses fish-plates these are not the primary means of joining track sections together. To cut a long story short we decided there and then to change over to this system. That was now over 4 years ago. I have lifted and re-laid my layout 3 times since then and I am still useing the same track!
Points {Turnouts} are more expensive to Peco or Atlas BUT ALL Kato-Unitrack points have built-in motors! All others one needs to buy separately and the total cost of the others is often higher than Kato.
Also if you were to get more locomotives like on the Hong Kong Set which are overhead electric then Kato sells over head electric catenary that clip fits to their track. Of course it is not live and fails to actually power the train but it looks a very fine set up indeed.
So my advice would be to only use Kato track. It may take longer to buy what you need as the stuff id more costly BUT you will SAVE many many more times the cost of the track by not needing to re-place it!
The same goes for model trains. Without question there are two makers that are supreme... Kato is the top of all ready to run N Scale makers up to now. Micro-Ace are just as good but a little more difficult to get spare parts for. If you stick to these makers you will not be disappointed. Modern Kato coaches all have fitted interiors which will look 100% better if you carefully paint them in contrasting colours and add people to them . {When adding people you will find it easier if you use "Z" Scale figures that you can buy from an E-Bay shop called "We Honest" For manufacturing reasons the interiors are at a smaller scale and "We Honest" sell pre-painted Z Scale and N Scale people.} Further you'll find that almost all modern Kato coaches {Made after 2001} will take light fitments to illuminate them. These kits are easy to install and add a great deal to the appearance of the models when running. {Sadly I do not think the Hong Kong Set takes the lighting kit as it was built in 1998 but I cannot be sure about that}
These standards {of interiors and ease of illuminating} are NOT universal. Con-Cor are perhaps the WORST maker. Only their "Pioneer Zephyr, Aero-train and M10,000" Trains sets are reliable and almost all their earlier product are Poor "toy-like" excuses for models! Bachmann are not much better in as far as no lights no interiors but are better exteriors to Con-Cor but that's not saying much as Con-Cor are so poor!
Bachmann locomotives are some ok some poor some not worth bothering with! But be warned Con-Cor locos are good matches to con-cor coaches!!!!!! Model Power are some excellent some terrible, again very low quality coaches.
Intermountain are generally very good indeed.
Athern N Scale are as good if not better than Kato. They only make a few locomotives {Two of which are sound equipped and state of the art masterpieces ie Challenger & Big Boy Articulated steam locomotives}
In general terms "Brass" locomotives are much better detailed but cost a fortune and are not always well powered.
Today the new thing is DCC Sound. Now here again if I may suggest a course of action I think you would be thankful a we way down the line....
Start off getting a DCC system! I did not and now its costing me a fortune to change over and you WILL change over in time!
I know the Hong Kong unit is not DCC but I think you could get it retro-fitted. DCC is a system where by the power is fed consistently to the track and each loco has a micro-chip in it that you call up on a controller and then order the loco to move forward or backwards. If fitted you can also control sound in the loco as well.
The old system was that you fed more power to the track to make the one loco go faster or slower. This means you either create many complex block sections on the layout or only ever run one train at a time.
I chose the Gaugemaster Prodigy2 system and am very pleased with it.
An important fact is that non dcc locos {like the Hong Kong one you have now MUST NOT be run on DCC until they are micro-chipped {A silent Micro-chip costs no more than £15}
So in a nut-shell my advice is to first get Kato Track {BUT BEWARE you will find your Hong Kong coaches are "close coupled" so will not be happy on the tightest radius bends Kato make.} this will give you a lop of track and a passing place if you wish. Then To start with I'd get a VERY CHEAP {£10} basic DC controller. That will run what you have nicely for the short term.
Then BEFORE you get any more stock decided on which DCC system you are going for {Personally I'd go for sound its great fun and makes the whole experience far more enjoyable and in years to come is the way all good makers will go.}
From there you can start to look at what use our layout is for...
I mean do you want to watch your trains run round in a loop all the time ? Or do you want to shunt coaches and wagons or perhaps a mix of both?
That will help you decide the shape of the layout. Then of course the question of "Where" your model is set...? UK? Japan? China? America ? Canada? Australia? you can get models of all these railway systems with varying degrees of ease.
And lastly I would strongly suggest you decide on an actual physical location or a fictional location. From there you either follow exactly the buildings and history of the real place OR you create your own fictional history to justify why you run what trains you do on your railway. This can be great fun and can take much research and can open a whole new world to you!
Morganth An American Modern Day Intermodal Layout
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Morganth N Scale railroad