Hello, My name is Ken and I am new to model trains. I am wonder what is the best track and trains to get started with. I also don’t want to by a starter kit and be limited down the road. I am confused a little on the Athearn trains. what track to they fun on. Also what is the best track to use EZ track ?
Hi Ken,
If what you want is a little train set, an HO version of the old Lionel idea, go to a local hobby shop and let them help you decide. Athearn makes models of a variety of quality. EZ track is just that. You get a circle of track in a hurry. If what you want is a modle railroad layout, you need to do some more study to get to the starting questions. Most of us have some Athearn equipment and few of us have EZtrack.
This forum is good at helping people get started in the hobby and planning a layout. Let us know how we can help.
I personally would buy an Atlas or Athearn set. The track inside can be removed from the trackbed and used as normal track if you move onto a full layout. The locomotives are quality and will do just fine for a beginner. Also, they shouldn’t be too hard to convert to DCC if you were to get into that.
[#welcome] Ken, I like that name.[:D]
Far as Athearn IMO there Ready To Run engines are OK for the money if you are going to use DC. I have 4 and they do not seem to like DCC. There motors draw more power than the other DCC engines that I have and two have ate decoders. Plus there drive shafts are pretty weak, I have broke around 5 of them.
I personally like Proto engines. There two versions, Proto 1000 lack detail parts but still look good. Proto 2000’s have a lot of small detail parts but cost more than the 1000’s. Both run and pull great and will take a beating. Some of my Proto’s have well over 400 hours of run time.
On track, I don’t like any track with built on roadbed. While it is easy, it seems to make more racket with it be hollow.
My self I like Atlas code 100 flex track. You get 3 feet of track for around $3.50. Plus you can make any sizes (with in reason) turn. Takes awhile to learn how to work with it, but not that hard.
Feel free to ask more questions and have fun.
Cuda Ken
[#welcome]
To answer our question we need to know what you are planning to build in the near term.
If you just want a circle of track and a train to begin, and you have nothing now, buy a starter set. It will have everything you need to get started. There is nothing wrong with EZTrack, it is just not realistic looking. It is also not expensive, so if a year from now you decide to throw it out and build something more realistic, you have not wasted much money. The rest of the train set will work just fine on the new, better, more realistic track. Understand the difference between DCC, and DCC Ready. DCC ready is wired for DCC but does not have a decoder. Decoders are easy to add to a DCC ready locomotive when the time comes. Bachmann has a simple DCC starter set using their EZCommand system if you are going to go that route. For a small circle of track, there is no advantage to DCC. If you are eventually going to go bigger,
If you are going to build a layout, then you have to build bench work and some scenic components before you need any trains at all.
Do you know someone near you who can help you get started?
Welcome to the forums and to model railroading.
In a word the best thing to do first is READ. There are many aspects to the hobby and techiniques, new and old, which work well. Go to your library and see if they have any model railroading books. Your local hobby shop should carry or be able to get you books also. If you do not have easy access to either of those, go to the top of this page to SHOP. There you will find books, there are beginner books on several topics and many other handy books to have. Once you begin to have a more focused idea of what you want to do, you are in a great place to ask questions. There are many very knowledgable folks here willing to share their experiences with you. You will ofter find that you will get several “right” answers. What you have to do then is experiment and see which works best for you. You will also find that some techiniques work better in one place and a different one in another.
As Art said, if you want to get a little something rolling to fire up your interest, do it. You can either get a complete set, that comes will all you need to get started or you can buy individual pieces to reach the same end. If you do this you will probably end up with a little better quality locos and power pack, but you will spend more. E-Z track is good if you plan to run on the rug or have to take the track apart and put it away fairly often. Some folks do use it for their layouts, but it does have the limitations of only certain radius curves being available and it is a little more expensice than flex track and cork or other roadbed.
Before you purchase sets, track or rolling stock, the first thing you will want to do in decide on what scale you want to have. HO is the most prominant, many products are available in kit and ready to run, N is smaller, gives you a lot more in a given space, but like any thing smaller, it takes
Hi Ken, I, like many of the “ole timers” on this Forum, who started our railroads long before DCC was available. I waited for DCC to become affordable and reliable and after eight years have completely converted to DCC. If you are serious about getting into model railroading, I suggest that you start with DCC, and if you can afford it, start with the radio controlled version from the beginning. As suggested by others, "read up, plan, and ask for help, before buying anything. I,personally, use code 83 flex track exclusively, with electrically controlled turnouts. I built my 24’x24’ HO railroad in four phases, over an eight year period. I had a self prepared plan of what I wanted the finished model layout would to entail, and installed dead switches to accommodate the progressive expansion. Old HO locos, from previous layouts, draw too much amperage, and should be discarded. It is getting so that one can buy “DCC equipped” locos at fairly reasonable prices. If you buy "DCC Ready locos, it means that you will have to install the decoder, to run DCC. Ask questions and provide us with Posted diagrams of available space and location, era, and desires, so that we can be of utmost help. I happen to be a "scenery buff, and do not care to run “formal operations”. Bob Hahn
I would like to first start out by saying thank you for all the help and input.
My idea was to start a layout 4 ft x 16 ft (N scale). I have a 2 car garage but can only talk my better half in to using the 1/2 the garage. So I have on stall of the garage dedicated to this great hobby. I am planing the bench work as we speak and I want to get an idea of what brand train and track to get so that I am not limited down the road. I would like to be able to expanded later. I know myself and once I get started I will keep on going.
How does the cork board work with the track. Does it come pre cut or do you have to cut it yourself ?
How do you hide the cork board later with rocks ? Also turn outs why do people us pecos turnouts and not the name brand like bachmanns or atlas ?
Here are my thoughts on getting started
4 ft x 16 ft area
n scale
atlas engine or athearns
I want to use code 80 track with cork
Let me know you input on this.
First there is no such thing as “best”. That is because best can mean many different things, best price, best selection of pieces, best availability, best durability, best performance, and so on.
Track - There are several brands that come with the plastic road bed built on. Bachmann EZ-Track, Life Like - PowerLoc, Atlas TrueTrack, and Kato UniTrack come to mind. Of those I believe EZ-Track has the best selection of different types of track pieces. I have never used it but I would guess the UniTrack is the best performance. The problem with all of it is that one cannot easily mix it with the other brands.
There are many vendors who make track sections that do not have the built on road bed. Atlas Custom Line, Walthers/Shinohara, and Peco come to mind. MicroEngineering to a lesser degree. The advantage of this type of track is that one can mix them together fairly easily. In my opinion it is hard to beat Atlas Custom Line stuff for price vs. performance. Peco has good performance. Walther’s makes some pieces that the other companies don’t. MicroEngineering only makes a few turnouts not a full range of sectional track.
Because of National Model Railroading Association (NMRA) practices Athearn locomotives and trains will run on ANY of the above brands of track. Depending on the exact loco or car there might be issues with the tightness of curves, but that has nothing to do with branding.
Hi and welcome to the forum! [#welcome]
Any Nscale train will run on ANy Nscale track! I would , however steer clear of the Bachmann Eztrack, and others like it, including Atlas “true track” with built in road beds. We found their switches {turnouts to be a hassle to work with to get to work right and stay working right.
I have a regular HO layout and an Under-teh-xmas-tree-layout {utxtl} that has N scale on it. I use Atlas track exclusively on both. We tried the EZ track on the “utxtl” but it failed. Atlas also has “flex track” that can be flexed into any curve or any shape on the layout. ALso you can use these electrified rail joiners to “hiddenly” power your atlas track:
http://www.wholesaletrains.com/Detail.asp?ID=20012096 here for code 80 and here:
http://www.wholesaletrains.com/Detail.asp?ID=200420463 for code 55. The difference in teh two is the railhead heigth. Older N scale had something called “pizza cutter” wheels that have deep flanges that bump along on top of code 55 ties, rather than ride the rails. Also, code 55 has a wider variety of premade curves if you need them, and a widerselection of switches {turnouts}. We use code 55 for the “utxtl” fo the wider curves to run long passenger coaches. ALso code 55 has brown ties which to many look more realistic than the black ties on code 80. Though you say you want code 80, study both before you buy so you won’t have a bunch of unseable track later.The choice is yours, the prices at www.wholesaletrains.com is about the same for either or.
4x 16 FOOT is HUGE in Nscale…I wish I had that much for my HO scale layout! But bear one thing in mind: you cannot exceed your comfortable reaching length to get to the middle of or other side of the layout unless you: put in a liftout in the cen ter, or put it on
Welcome!
The best advice has already been given: READ READ READ.
And keep three things firmly in mind:
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No matter what you read, remember that in this hobby there is almost never a right and wrong or better and worse. There are a lot of individual preferences. We can give you advice, but we can’t tell you what you will like.
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There is no shame or harm in screwing up and doing over. We’ve all done it.
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It’s your layout. It has to please / entertain you and only you, and no one else can tell you how to do it. If it’s not fun, you’re doing something wrong (a rare exception to rule #1 above).
Well, are you throughly confused yet? You should be from reading some of these posts.
To answer your main question, if you want to use some sort of easy track I’d suggest the Kato brand, top notch stuff there.
Personally though I’d use the flex track if you have the patience to “start” with it, it does offer a lot more flexability, pardon the pun. If you do use flex track I’d take a very close look at the Peco switches as they are also about tops as far as realism and trouble free operation.
Atlas and Athearn both make good engines but so do some of the others and for freight cars again Atlas and Athearn are very good but Micro-Trains are tops by far.
You didn’t ask about how you are planning to control your trains but I see the DCC group is already beating their drums, my suggestion would be to just take your time and go with what “you” feel comfortable with whatever that may be, ignore both sides and do a little research and/or reading before you make a decision there.
I won’t interject my opinions on the subject as it just starts another round of arguements where nothing gets settled and you’d probably just end up being confused and disgusted.
There are a couple of excellent N Scale publications on the market which would probably give you a lot of good information as well as ideas for what you want to do. If you can, talk to some other N Scalers to get their take on the subject as here you will get mostly HO responses and their are some significent differences between the two groups.
Welcome to model railroading and I wish you many hours of enjoyment and relaxation with your new hobby.
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My son was about 4 when he could start understanding a little of what he was seeing–wow has time flown by. I think what got him the most interested at that age was seeing trains in action. Later it was building kits–as boys tend to like to build things(like Legos). So, again I would say joining the NMRA and visiting some clubs is a good thing in that you can ask questions and they can answer verbally as well as with the physical products many times. My son liked going to shows where they had products he could see in action as well as buy. I would only buy something for him if he could grab it (not too much detail) and it stood out as something he wanted, ie if there were one or two items that by the end of the 2-3 hours of show walking he still wanted. When he was about 6, I started getting him to buy his own products out of his birthday or Christmas money, that way he started to learn that if he broke it, it was out of his pocket. Through that and early careful reminding, we had VERY few situations where he broke things. Personally I think that him gaining respect for the models and other people’s property has paid off in many areas, even beyond MRR.
Seeing real trains in action were also exciting to him. He actually got to ride in the cab of a Southern F unit during a rail celebration. So, taking him to a few yards, museums, rail celebrations, tourist lines, etc exposed him to the prototypes in a way most boys don’t get unless they live next to the tracks. He liked hearing the big sound of those diesels(yes, I did too), so (back then before sound locos) I put an old stereo system under the layout and played a few CDs of big train sounds(bought at train shows) to make it more real. I also bought some VHS tapes(again back then) from Greenfrog, Pentrex, others to wa
I highly recommend that you start reading the forums that have N scale as well as the N scale only forums There are 5 that I subscribe to. Do a web search for N scale forums and you will find them.
Those are the best places to ask questions and get answers as I have found. And as others have said, read, read, read. I spent almost two years reading the N scale magazines, Model Railroader magazine, the forums, and Kalmbach publishing how to books before I started my current layout in 2007. This is even though I had started a small N scale layout in the late 70’s. It only lasted for under two years so I had a lot of new technology to catch up on.