The Future of N Scale

C&O_MountainMan Jan 23, 2023

  1. Many Trains

    Many Trains TrainBoard Member

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    This is a very good point. I am finding lately that there just isn't as much that I am compelled to buy. It's not a reflection on the future of the hobby, it's just the reality that I am recognizing there is only so much I can use, only so much I can run. I have locomotives that I really like - and they haven't been run in over a year! And that is simply due to the fact that I operate alone, and with a switching layout, only run one locomotive at a time/per session. I take my time on those sessions too. So the more I buy at this point, the more there will be that just sits.

    It has to be really compelling and really tightly focused on my layout theme now for me to buy it.
     
  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I find myself to be in the same situation. When I first started in N, fifty one years ago, I bought almost anything and everything. I became involved in the first collecting of M/T. I was getting those cars automatically every release. Fast forward to senior years and living in quarters much smaller than a five bedroom home, my interest in a favorite company has narrowed to a specific time frame and activity. I have only bought new Unitrack track in the past couple of years, as I completely rebuilt my T-Trak mini-empire. I keep hoping that before my time is through, someone will make a phIII GP9, which would likely be my last purchase.
     
  3. MK

    MK TrainBoard Member

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    We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy! :notworthy::notworthy::notworthy:
     
  4. BigJake

    BigJake TrainBoard Member

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    There may come a time when the N scale market, in units sold, exceeds that in HO scale at that time.

    But I don't think N or HO will surpass the latter's peak in variety either. Let's face it, there is a whole lot less variety in 1:1 than there used to be. Future modelers will model what they see and remember, and it won't be much steam.

    Steam was the source of most of the past locomotive variety. Because steam locomotives were not capable of lashing up multiple units, with a single crew over all, they had to have more variety in terms of power available in single units, so a single crew could handle the job regardless of the train size. The concept of temporary, local helper locomotives did not survive into the diesel era. Extra diesel 'helpers' are assigned at the outset for the duration of the trip, and are simply powered down when not needed.

    Also, the number of diesel locomotive manufacturers, and the different locomotives they make, has shrunk due to economies of scale. Larger manufacturers are more efficient than smaller ones, with the former manufacturers either purchasing or forcing the latter out of business. Likewise, manufacturing fewer locomotive types, in higher volumes of each, is also more efficient. This all results in less variety of locomotives at both the 1:1 scale and the modeling scales that mimic it.

    However, fewer different types of locomotives does not necessarily bode for fewer model locomotives sold. The latter still need to be bought and run in multiple quantities.
     
  5. Burlington Bob

    Burlington Bob TrainBoard Member

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    I made the bulk of my purchases over the last dozen or so years before retiring. I am pretty much situated for locos and rolling stock, but I still go to train shows two or three times a year. I never go home empty handed, but I only buy if the price is right and it's something I really want or need. The main items I buy now are decoders and scenery supplies.

    My first N scale train was bought in 1970 when I was a freshman in high school. I was in and out over the years but got serious about buying most of what I needed while I was still working. Now it's time to sit back and PLAY!
     
  6. DCESharkman

    DCESharkman TrainBoard Member

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    While I am not retired, I am doing a similar thing. I have all the cars and locomotives I will ever need, it is just time for decoders and fun!
    I am not sure when I will retire, my job as an Engineer/Physicist/Mathematician is still too much fun and excitement to stop. I hope to have a finished layout to pull up to before I retire. Right now I participate in train shows with the local NTrak club, when they will resume shows, will I do not know. In the meantime there are decoders to install, program and speed match! Only problem is finding enough decoders to have a decoder party where they will get installed, programmed and speed matched according to my chart of speeds for the various locomotives. Some will be a part of consists and some will be free agents to be used however the feeling moves me. Then there is the lighting of passenger cars using the ESU lighting products. I like those because they include a decoder so the light can be varied for different times of the day or night.

    The super fun consist I am working on now is matching a pairs of GS-4's to be consisted to pull the full DayLight set. Not just speed, but chuff etc too.
     
  7. BigJake

    BigJake TrainBoard Member

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    Like most things financial, planning is key to success. And then of course, execution. Well planned (and executed), Bob!
     
  8. BigJake

    BigJake TrainBoard Member

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    (Emphasis mine)

    What's need got to with it?!

    On a different tack, as I understand it, steam engines never had the ability to "consist" themselves to/with another loco (like diesels do), and still needed a crew (engineer and fireman) in each locomotive. How did the locomotives' engineers communicate to coordinate their locomotives' throttles? Flags? Hand signals? Vulcan mind-melding? Or did the second (slaved) engineer just have a "feel" for it?
     
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  9. DCESharkman

    DCESharkman TrainBoard Member

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    I have still to build a storage system for my train inventory. Right now it mostly resides in about 60 Bankers Boxes and a few others while I finish the layout, which is mostly scenery at this point and haul all these boxes to join thier freinds at my place outside of Show Low AZ. That is where I will live when I retire. Need? Well I have no way of remembering all that I have already, so I really do not need any more for the time being. I am always a sucker for passenger trains. It is funny seeing my B&O Passenger train pull out of Barstow on its way to Winslow, and sometimes the Southern Crescent pays a visit too.

    As for the GS4 Consist, I saw that somewhere, but then they als used other diesels if I am not mistaken like PA units.
     
  10. Pfunk

    Pfunk TrainBoard Member

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    I have a thing for redheads, personally :love:

    Like a couple of others stated, it's a space thing for me - when I first decided to go ahead with the idea of a train layout I was going to do HO because it seemed like it had the best and most options. I had just moved from San Diego and having ridden the old teal and turquoise F59PHI Coaster up and down the state, that's what I wanted to do and Athearn made a really sweet one in HO. N scale still seemed a little chinsy to me, was like the light beer version of HO - it was ok, but not as good. Most models were just downscaled versions of the HO release.

    FF to last year when space was a much different issue and the crazy level of detail that N has taken on since then, and yeah - was totally excited to do N scale, which I wasn't before. Seemed like there was much more availability of scenery, buildings, etc that there was 12-15yrs ago, too, but I also liked the idea of scratch building structures. A 30-story HO structure would be almost 5ft and need insane amounts of details to even be moderately attractive. With N less = more, was a no-brainer for me.

    I wasn't sure I'd like N scale after planning so much in HO, but now I don't think I would have liked HO scale as much with the exception of cars and figures. N gets tricky with those, but otherwise I prefer it. In many ways it makes you use your imagination more, both in how you go about creating a scene and in how you have to look at it.

    I just feel like N has more to offer now, which absolutely was not the case even a short while ago.
     
  11. Calzephyr

    Calzephyr TrainBoard Supporter

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    Sad news for me that spun retrospective thoughts about my model railroading.
    A lifelong friend past away recently and suddenly. We were born 6 days apart... both of us 65 years old. I've been very sick for years but fight on to try to get better.
    I have about 1000 locomotives and upwards of 15000 rolling stock. I recently migrated my collection from dozens of bankers boxes and many storage bins into watertight and bug proof totes (some are huge). I stopped buying analog (DC only) several years ago... opting instead DCC/Sound equipped models. I have hundreds of DC models which need DCC boards. I don't buy much anymore... why should I. It's like an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) illness which keeps me looking for more stuff I don't need. I've mentioned often that these models are like works of living art. They draw me to them like a moth to a candle.
    I no longer earn the 6 figure income which funded the last 20 years of excessive purchases... now I must be much more careful on my drastically lower income level. It would not surprise me if there are others in the same OCD bind.
    N scale will thrive because it is a near perfect sized scale for the future of the model railroading world. I just hope I can enjoy it in the future.
     
  12. umtrr-author

    umtrr-author TrainBoard Member

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    Although I think that pricing, for numerous reasons that are too long to discuss here (and potentially in violation of this board's guidelines!) is going to become a more and more serious issue in the coming years, there is another advantage that N Scale has over larger sized models...

    Shipping Costs.

    The USPS is going to raise rates twice a year for the foreseeable future. They are also tossing in gotchas like zone changes, which will have the net effect of making the shipment of even a simple freight car approaching what used to be the cost of that freight car. Other carriers will follow suit, or even lead the march Onward and Upward.

    And don't get me started about "dimensional weight." I would think just about every single HO and larger starter train set must blow through that number these days.
     
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  13. C&O_MountainMan

    C&O_MountainMan TrainBoard Member

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    Model manufacturers produce the variety they do, because they can sell them and make money on them. And that won’t necessary parallel what is out on the rails in life-size use today. Model railroaders, collectively, encompass many eras (and many areas). Individually, modelers mostly cover just one, or a few.

    Manufacturers will cover the the large variety as long as there are enough sales of the various segments to keep each segment profitable.

    I’m not so sure about “remembering” being a limitation on what will draw modelers, or limits enthusiasts of any pursuit:

    I was born in 1963. Remembering and seeing steam in operation, even if I had perfect memory, is not an option for me, yet from ten years old I wanted steam for a model railroad. Didn’t see steam in operation until later. I have no desire to model the 60s, 70’s, 80s, or 90s motive power I did see. The nifty exhaust hoods of AC6000s, ES4400-types, and Dash 9’s however, are visually striking to me, and I’ve latched on to a couple.

    (But I gotta tell ya, I have no desire to shell out for seven of them because I saw a Youtube video of seven CSX pieces lugging a train over the mountains.)

    Maybe I’m odd. But beyond me:

    The Beatles still sell. Heck, the 50th anniversary re-release of Sergeant Pepper actually made the popular music charts. In 2017. Two highly publicized movies made about them in the last decade. Went to a McCartney concert last year. Most people there were younger ‘n me. Ringo was too dern sold out to get tickets for.

    1962-1963 Ferrari 250 GTOs routinely set the record at auction for highest price ever paid for a car. Last I know of was $70,000,000. In the 1970s one needing work could be picked up for less than ten grand. The pool of people attending 1960s European road races (the pool of those who directly saw or remember a small-volume, briefly competed car) was bigger then, than it is now.

    Clint Eastwood made a run of commercially successful western gunslinger movies from the Sixties through the Seventies, and a smaller number “For a Few Decades More,” decades after anyone who could remember the old West, died with their boots on.

    There aren’t many people left who can actually remember the Titanic (not many even 25 years ago), but that didn’t prevent a very successful movie from having been made (1997).

    My point is, some people, events, performers, machines, etc., capture the minds, hearts, imagination, what have you, and have appeal to generations beyond their own. Certain GIANTS among them can do so for a long time.

    I think steam engines have certain qualities to them that appeal in a non-generation-limited way - you SEE so much of how they work -the valve gear, (it’s like arms and legs people can identify with) the bleeds/steam traps, the “fire in the belly of the dragon,” (the glow of the firebox). You can both see and hear them “breathe”. The sound of the steam whistle evokes a bygone era, that you can’t hear otherwise (unless you work at or live near an industrial facility that is over70 years old, or maybe a seaport)

    You can’t beat diesels (the real ones) for ground-pounding fun, but there’s no visual identification with what they’re doing - engine speed isn’t tied to wheel speed. You have to look right at the rails and the trucks to actually see the wheels turn.

    Of course, there’s no doubt the “see” part is a big factor, as you’ve noted. I think, though, with excursions, museums, & static displays, videos, youtube (heck, even RFD-TV’s “Trains & Locomotives”) that steam engines will get enough eye time to be deeply ingrained (and not appreciably diminished)in modelers minds and layouts for a long time yet.

    You could be right, though. If so, it’ll become apparent before long if memory (from in service days) is a major driver… it’s over sixty years since steam went away…so there would be a major sea change in steam availability over the next ten years. More on the secondary market, then less on the primary.
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
  14. C&O_MountainMan

    C&O_MountainMan TrainBoard Member

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    A really attractive redhead is hard to beat. Dern hard.

    Presume you’re talking females, and not some railroading slang term I haven’t heard.
     
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  15. BigJake

    BigJake TrainBoard Member

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    Oh, I don't think they'll vanish completely. They'll just fail to statistically significantly contribute to the market.

    I think the UP's touring their restored Big Boy has re-ignited some interest among model manufacturers (and customers, apparently.) We'll see if it lasts more than a few years. Folks have been restoring and running old steamers on small scenic railroads for a long time, but UP has gotten a lot of attention by touring the country with theirs. I'm glad I got to see it while it was in Fort Worth, even though I was disappointed that it was powered down cold for maintenance for the day, rather than living and breathing for us. The variety of ages present to see it, from young families to old-timers, was reassuring too.

    Although the planning and safety at the event was not what I expected. Pedestrians had to cross live tracks to walk from parking facilities to the viewing area, and I cautioned a young family posing for pictures on the rails of a switch next to the grade crossing we were using. Somebody could easily lose a foot if that remote switch was thrown while their foot was in the wrong place. They had no earthly idea of the hazard...

    Just like the wood-burning 4-4-0's, their models are still around, but not in any volume that would lend to updating them with DCC built-in, better molding detail, etc. like that offered for the Big Boy.
     
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  16. mtntrainman

    mtntrainman TrainBoard Supporter

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    To me...steam with all the moving parts conjures up nightmares of wheels out of quarter and bent or missing linkage let alone lost pins so tiny they get lost once they hit the floor. I'll take my diesels all day long. 16 10" pistons pounding out 3000+ HP...ya baby !!!!! Models are easier them steamers to work on and since I am a retired long haul driver...diesel fuel runs through my veins !!!! JMO :D
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2023
  17. BigJake

    BigJake TrainBoard Member

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    Yep, I'm a big fan of diesels too, in autos and trains. But they've gotten too expensive to purchase and run in automobiles/light trucks (e.g. DEF, let alone the insaneness of diesel fuel costing more than gasoline.) I still drive my '02 Ford F-250 crew cab short bed with the venerable 7.3L Powerstroke diesel. 196K miles and still going strong! It was built when turbodiesels were big, simple and bulletproof, before the manufacturers started shrinking them, while also pushing them to insane power levels, and emission limits got stupid. It was my daily driver to work and back for 17 years before I retired. My mechanic, who also services several bucket bucket-truck, etc. fleets, has seen most of them replacing their diesel trucks with gasoline ones because the ownership & operation of gasoline engines for their trucks is more cost effective. I most likely won't replace my pickup with another diesel, whenever that time comes; they are now just too expensive to own and run. Gas-electric hybrid? Perhaps...

    But the diesel-electric combination in locomotives allows tremendous benefits in traction control, maximizing the tractive effort while minimizing wheel slip, not to mention dynamic braking. Pure (including battery) electric locos have the same benefits, but with higher infrastructure costs and/or shorter range. I think combined hybrid battery/diesel electric locos/consists could make a significant impact on the industry going forward, allowing using both diesel power and dynamic braking to recharge the batteries at maximum efficiency.
     
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  18. C&O_MountainMan

    C&O_MountainMan TrainBoard Member

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    Sounds like art imitating life.:ROFLMAO:
     
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  19. SPsteam

    SPsteam TrainBoard Member

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    N scale appears to be thriving based on what I saw at Amherst this weekend. I wish there were more Steam offerings than USRA and UP. However there seem to be some quality players in the market now with BLI stepping up their offerings as well as Kato expanding their steam line.
     
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  20. C&O_MountainMan

    C&O_MountainMan TrainBoard Member

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    Yeah, at one time, if you were a fan of Eastern N steam (with tastes beyond the PRR and NYC), Bachmann was the best friend you could have, with their light & heavy 4-8-2, 2-6-6-2, 2-8-4, 2-8-8-4, and N&W J-Class. The 4-8-2 and 2-8-4 were particularly nice in that they had road-specific details.

    They still put out out the J Class, the 2-8-4s (still with road-specific details), 2-8-8-4s, and some light 4-8-2s.

    In recent years, they, too, have jumped on the PRR/NYC prototype bandwagon.

    Athearn puts out a Clinchfield-liveried Challenger once every few runs, I got one to satisfy my need for Eastern BIG articulated steam.

    But, you’re right, BLI has done well to bring in the N&W Y6b, the Reading T-1, Big Boy.

    I’d like to see some non-streamlined 4-8-4s come to the fore.

    Would like to see Bachmann blow the dust off their discontinued lines, bring them back with some sound capability.

    And an Allegheny. Always an Allegheny.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2023
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