Mid-1970s, got myself an Atlas train set with the GP30 (what a piece of crap it was). I later got the Minitrix Fairbanks-Morse switcher to go with the set. Even had a layout in my dorm room for two years.
A Bachmann Rock Island U36B... six freight cars and a RI w/v caboose (early to mid 80s). I ran it on a friend's N scale layout and it actually outperformed his Atlas GP9s and Model Power GP40s. My first 'quality' item was an Atlas GP35... and Microtrains freight cars. I was hooked after that and sold off all my HO-scale equipment.
D&H I'm not 100% sure but I think it was Atlas MFG#3271 which is D&H Hopper #1199. :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin: :tb-biggrin:
When I was 5 my parents got me a Life-Like set with a 0-6-0 steam engine, I do not think it lasted to long. When I got back to N scale when I was 13 I bought a B-man SD40-2, what a pile of crap, a life-like NP GP18 quickly replaced it and lasted me a long time. Kevin
As a new member it wasn't that long ago, I had given up trains for a while being bored with HO and the prices that some of the manifactures were charging for a boxcar. Out of the hobby for 18 months and now back in. First time on the forum and switched to N scale as the detail is getting to the standard where I think I can live with it. First purchase a Micro Trains ATSF boxcar.
Welcome aboard !! Great bunch of guys here. Myself...I have only been in N about a year...and on TB since April. These guys are top notch...and have some awesome info floating about. :tb-cool:
I had a fair-sized HO layout in the 6's-70's as a kid, shared with my Dad's wood shop. After he retired and went into the shop almost every day, the fine sawdust storm couldn't be fixed with filters or even a partition. "Either you move your shop, or I'm going to have to leave"...and huh, I lost.... and sold all the HO and demolished the layout. About a year later (1972) I bought a friends USED Aurora (Trix) F7 with , an oval of track, and about six cars for $20.00. Set it up in my room where I had space for N on a 3x6 table. Three months after that I took a cross-country trip on Santa Fe and washed up at the Whistle Stop Hobby Shop in Pasadena, and I was INSTANTLY HOOKED on N. That poor used F7 has been stripped and repainted twice, the motor burned out and replaced with a Sagami, redetailed, reweathered, and finally...retired to the display case when IM came out with the F7's. But I can still put it on the track and it does a good job. If it hadn't been for that Trix F7 unit, I would have quit. The next three locomotives were duds, a shock to an HO guy that had never really seen that in AHM and Mantua. Then I got a Trix U28C and finally caught on to the 'look under the hood in N scale' concept and the rest is history. Oh, and my Dad and I did eventually make peace with the wood shop. He built me a BEAUTIFUL custom cherry glass display case, glass shelves, and a glass front hinged door, to display my best N scale, and that's still very much on my wall today.
1968. A Bachmann GP-40, one of the original hunks o' cr@p. But it got me through my first small layout in the early 70s. God I was happy to get rid of that thing.
I bought an Atlas set in 1976 at a store called Swallen's in Cincinnati Ohio. The set included a C-Liner, a caboose and two freight cars. It was my last day working at the factory before I went into the Air Force and I think I had already had a few beers that day. The store had a huge selection of freight cars and they were something like $1.99 each. I think I bought one of everything, and a little bit of track. I set them up on the floor the next day and ran them for awhile. They got packed away until 1983. I still have most of the boxcars, most of them since been repainted and upgraded with MTL trucks and couplers. Like many of you, I also had a Bachmann GP-40. It is long gone. Nothing ran very well, but I kind of miss the tinplate feel of everything back in the day. Ahh, The innocence of youth. Now that my knowledge has grown, I sometimes catch myself counting rivets...
A Bachmann "Thunder Valley" set: 1 circle of EZ-Track with a controller A Santa Fe GP-40 (blue/yellow scheme) A white Lehigh Valley reefer A yellow Penn Salt tanker A red Santa Fe caboose That was.... December 2009? I think I paid $75. Not that I know any better (except for YouTube), but the Geep runs just fine. Maybe a little noisy, but I've since expanded to about a dozen cars, and it will pull them all around my little loop. I've got a secondhand Spectrum 2-8-0 on the way, and I have my eye on an Atlas L&N SW-1500 at the LHS. I'm a fairly sentimental guy. I'll probably never get rid of that GP-40. I'm planning to repaint it in the colors of my (fictional) CH&FR Railroad. Edit: As proof, I still have my 30 year old TYCO HO GP-20 that doesn't even run...
Postage Stamp Trains B&O Passenger set. I urged my dad to buy it. He had the PRR freight set from the year before. I still have a few of the carcasses- I managed to mangle the cars during my teen years. Sometime in the sixties. You remember, Peace-Love, Plum colored bell bottoms, Beatles, body counts, Pettycoat Junction, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Matt Dillon, Frank Rizzo. All the good things. Oh yeah- best thing- all happened in the basement of a Woolworth's store in Philly. 8-O Mark
When we came to the U.S. legally in 83' we where poor I was 13yrs old and I was amazed at all the stuff you could purchase in the U.S. (I came form a poor communist country). So one day my uncle took me to a toy store Kay Bee and he said I could have any toy in the store he didn't care what it was as long as it was just one toy. Well I saw this nice atlas U.P. N scale train set it had an SD9 and a couple of box cars and a caboose. Man for years I loved to set this set up and play with it.
I'd been into British OO for many years, but didn't have the room for what I wanted to do. I bought a Lima N loco, tender drive and traction tyres, and a couple of wagons. Lima's OO stuff was quite good, now produced by Hornby since Lima died, but their N was dreadful - the gauge was the constant feature. Length height and width of any locos or cars varied, so you never knew what scale it was. It just had to fit the box. It put me off tender drive and traction tyres for years, until I found Union Mills. Farish, now owned by Bach . . . . was wonderful in comparison, and most folk say how bad their locomotives were! Regards, Pete
