Hi modellers,
as a new member I just want to introduce me a little bit:
50 years old and living in Germany, livelong nearly interested in Train moddeling, H0 as a child up to 16 … than the " Disco and Studies " time without Modelling … and starting 1972 I started with Z modelling ( I still keep the first Starterset in Z = 1 :220. Our Z Friends - Europe - community ist still based in Msn Groups, but soon will move to a free Server!
Most of us are based in Gemany and most of us do both: collecting and moddeling! As an example I would like to introduce my friend Joachim … who has a lot of experience and on his homepage every Z Fan can take profit for his hobby pay a visit to: www.schwellenhopser.de !
Me myself I had to stop for nearly one year with modelling as I had to reconstruct my old house and then movved in that house… !
Currently we there are in a state: The chaos ruled the family … but now family is starting to rule the chaos more and more!
Most of us are still friends of moddeling the good old Steam Loco Time… !
Regards
Hermann F. Becker
Please do not worry about my bad writing in english…
I have never seen a z-scale layout in “real life”, only in pictures. I live in the Midwestern part of the U.S., state of Illinois and I, too, am 50 years old.
Z-scale is a bit pricey here, as I understand it. HO is the most popular by far with n-scale a close second. As I said, I would like a look at more z-scale as it it barely mentioned, let alone covered in our model magazines here. So do you have any links to layouts in Z you could share with us from your part of the world?
Thanks for posting the link to your friend’s site: I looked it over, and I simply cannot believe that he is modeling in such a small scale! His layouts, while small, are crammed full of European detail, (which because I am American I surely do not appreciate as much as you do), and they seem much larger, especially in photographs. Great job!
What I would love to see modeled in Z is a “normal”-sized American-style shelf layout, one which places the tiny trains into a really big world, with expansive scenery. Real railroads, even in Europe, cross great distances and deal with large topographic features, which could plausibly be modeled in Z scale. I model in N, the next bigger size, and this is what I’m trying to do. I want to avoid having to compress model towns into too small a space.
Hermann,
Welcome to the forum! I’m very fond of Germany having been stationed in Heidelberg 1968-1971. Many happy memories! I’m also into N scale but have always had an interest in Z scale and European modeling. I hope you continue to post here and keep us informed about your activities.