I model the Milwaukee Road,and have been in HO Scale since 1988 when I was in N Scale at the time that N Scale didn’t have good running engines and rolling stock.I model early version SD40-2’s and MP15AC’s that are available in HO Scale but not in N Scale,if I modeled the Milwaukee Road in N Scale I would have to find SD 40-2’s for early version for Milwaukee Road and have the fuel tanks shortened and kitbash the MP15AC’s from the Atlas MP15DC and try to decal the numberboards in the front and back with decale where the numbers are very small in N Scale.Other than that,N Scale has the advantage of being able to fit alot more railroading in a smaller spsace,run longer trains and have broader curves.The scenery can be more realistic in a smaller area also.The engines and rolling stock are much better than 20 yrars ago as is the track,and structures.N Scale has come a long way comared to 20 years ago and is getting better and better all the time.I hope as more people discover N Scale more products will be available.Also of it wan’t for N Scale,there would not be as many model railroadrers today as there are due to N Scale.
The only reason why i’d switch to N scale is to save space since i’m very limited.
I switched in 1969. Primarily due to the space issues. As time progressed I became more interested in true “scale” models. The pizza cutter flanges and truck mounted couplers started getting on my nervers. In 1981 I wanted to make a scale EMD E5. When I researched what size of wire I would need to model a correct N-scale 3/4" hand rail - I switched. I tried to model in both scales for a while. I remained in N because the quality of equipment began to improve. For a while I had every brass N-scale that was made. Then the prices started rising and I noticed the same SD9 in N was always a few bucks higher than its HO equivalent. I finally gave up on N-scale about four years ago and razed the layout. Most of the brass fleet was sold, some traded for HO equipment, most was converted to Christmas Tree ornament duty.
The other nail in the coffin for N-scale was the electronics. When I started in command control it was hard enough to fit the decoders into HO locomotives let alone the N-scale ones. Then sound. HO models sound tinny enough. N borders on not tollerable.
Would I switch back - no as I am way too embedded (having rosters that most people don’t believe). However; If I were starting over from scratch today, I would consider the new tiny DCC decoders. The available tiny lamps & LEDs. The Soundtraxx off-board sound system (expensive but hey). Now if they could only get to body mounted couplers on the rolling stock I might head in that direction. The only thing I would have to tollerate is the gianormous hand rails.