Thank you for the welcome to the forum. I will be in Dallas for the month of February and, as many enjoy doing, I would like to visit railroad hobby shops near by. What can you recommend for Z and N scale especially? (I am staying in Plano). Are there any 7inch (?) live steam sites near by I could visit? Also, I would be pleased to 'chew the fat' with anyone local with a Z or N layout if possible too. Thanks in advance Adrian Whiteman
Discount Model Trains in Plano, Texas. Large Model Train Store that carries O, HO, N and Z. Open 10:00 to 6:00 everyday except Sunday. Voted the best Model Train Store by Cowcatcher Magazine. Large supply of everything to build a layout.
https://mrdavez.com/ The Golden~Blackhawk & Central City is a 160 square foot z-scale model railroad housed in the Train Depot at Tomball, Texas USA “Best of Show” (ALL scales) at NMRA NATIONAL shows 7 or so times!!!
FYI, Tomball is not close to Plano/Dallas. It is in the Houston area about 3-1/2 to 4 hours south. DMT is a great shop, but no longer has any Z. For a long time they had a case full of MTL freight cars but that went away about 3 years ago. Model Train Crossing in the mid-cities area toward Fort Worth has a very scant few MTL Z items and some MTL track. Aside from that, I'm not aware of any other place to get Z in D/FW. Both of those aforementioned shop have a great selection of N. There is another shop in north Fort Worth, Angelo Hobbies, that is worth a stop if you make it over that way. In far west Fort Worth there is a shop called HobbyWorld that has been going out of business...not sure exactly where they stand though...likely closed already but maybe worth a phone call if you are up for the drive. There are also some HobbyTownUSA stores around...two of them in Plano and Northeast Dallas near my home are pretty well stocked...probably slight edge to the one in Plano although I haven't been to that one in quite awhile. I can almost assure you no Marklin or Arnold around, but of course I'm sure I could be proven wrong about that too. There are plenty of N layouts around. I know of one gent who has some Z modules, another with a couple of micro-layouts, but I think that's it. I only know of a handful of Z-scalers, and maybe another handful of N-Scalers who also dabble in Z. (I sort of fall in that category, probably more Z dabbling in N but heading the N direction slowly.) I'm not aware of any live-steam setups around but that doesn't mean there aren't any. I'm not sure of my availability but here are my thoughts... 1. Would love to meet up and "chew the fat" 2. Could maybe setup a lunch with the Z guys. 3. Likely could arrange a layout tour or two for the N layouts.
Last I was in Model Train Crossing (Hurst) there was no Z. What little was there disappeared during the change in ownership sale. Angelo Hobbies (North Richland Hills) has never had Z. Both are close enough that if you come for one you should check the other.
Angelo tends to buy collections (or at least they used to, when they were at their old location) so I figured if anyone would have Z or Marklin/Arnold it might be them.
