Starting out in Model Railways [N Gauge]

[Ayman Ilham]

Personally I’d get a starter track set and buy something I actually wanted if I was in your position. I know the 800 is a nice model but it strikes me that there’s probably a loco out there that’s made you think “I’d love a model like that” hence asking on here?
If you’re spending that kind of money I reckon it’s got to be better buying something that’s going to be making up a part of your eventual required fleet - like an era 8/9 class 37 or 47 for example.

I'm hovering around the 2000s era mainly; maybe a bit of 80s/90s mixed in. I'm talking Sprinters, Turbostars and Class 47/50 (or other diesel loco I like the look of) hauled Mk3 coaches (or Mk2D-F as they look similar) for that "modern-ish but not too modern" vibe I want for regional-style running. I feel like the Class 800 is a bit overkill for the sort of layout I eventually want to achieve.

 

[Ayman Ilham]

Okay, so I bought my first loco (a Merchant Navy off eBay 2nd hand) which looks rather solid and was an amazing deal given it's a good runner (according to the seller as I'm yet to test it myself); plan to buy a few diesels too and definitely some coaches. Currently, it makes a good display piece on my shelf until I buy the tracks and power supply. Never thought I'd like steam but these types of locos really do look attractive in model form.



As for the layout, since the prices were a bit steep (upwards of £150-180) for my desired Kato M2 starter set, I thought of ideas from buying individual Unitrack pieces, which ended up being better value compared to what the sets offer: basically, a simple but long loop making full use of my floorspace without points to keep things simple. Purchasing the individual track pieces would mean 4 packs of S248 + 2 packs of R282-45 + feeder track + 1 pack of S62 (in case the feeder track doesn't provide an extra S62 piece to close the loop), giving a total of £48 for the track alone which seems alright. Now for the controller to go with it, would you recommend the Gaugemaster Combi or the Kato Standard SX? @Cowley @TheEdge Total price will probably be just below £100 (deffo with Gaugemaster Combi, but it depends with the Kato SX cos that one sometimes has the adapter sold separately, thus prices vary greatly from £40-£65), which is a little bit more than the Kato M1 starter set, but with pretty much double the track distance.

 

[TheEdge]

@Ayman Ilham for your controller I'd probably go with the Kato one in your case. The Kato system is very proprietary so if you try and connect the Gaugemaster controller you'll need to do a bit of cable bodging, not hard but just an added layer of annoyance. I know this from bodging a Roco z21 and Hornby controller to work with Kato track. The track is a good layout for you to just run trains, pretty much the same as I use to give my stuff a run.

I'd caution against buying too many locos of that age in the future if I were you. The fidelity of N scale models has come and leaps and bounds, probably more so than in OO in some ways. What that means is even moderately aged stock, let alone stuff that age, just cant negotiate the newer much finer track and it'll just derail. You may be ok for now as you don't have points but as soon as you add those in you'll find that loco will want to derail all the time. You may come across the term "pizza cutter wheels" referring to the huge flange depth older models have and the problems it can cause.

 

[43301]

I'd caution against buying too many locos of that age in the future if I were you. The fidelity of N scale models has come and leaps and bounds, probably more so than in OO in some ways. What that means is even moderately aged stock, let alone stuff that age, just cant negotiate the newer much finer track and it'll just derail. You may be ok for now as you don't have points but as soon as you add those in you'll find that loco will want to derail all the time. You may come across the term "pizza cutter wheels" referring to the huge flange depth older models have and the problems it can cause.

Plus you might want to try DCC in future, and old models are difficult to do that with, to one degree or another. Nearly everything in production now has a decoder socket - Dapol hasn't produced anything without one for quite a while. With Farish it's more recent - only the latest batches of 08 shunters have one, for example, and some relatively modern models (Class 170 being one) don't have them.

Don't know anything about steam locos, but as regards diesels some of the best recent models are the Class 68 and 50 (Dapol), and Class 40 and 55 (Farish).

 

[Ayman Ilham]

@Ayman Ilham for your controller I'd probably go with the Kato one in your case. The Kato system is very proprietary so if you try and connect the Gaugemaster controller you'll need to do a bit of cable bodging, not hard but just an added layer of annoyance. I know this from bodging a Roco z21 and Hornby controller to work with Kato track. The track is a good layout for you to just run trains, pretty much the same as I use to give my stuff a run.

I'd caution against buying too many locos of that age in the future if I were you. The fidelity of N scale models has come and leaps and bounds, probably more so than in OO in some ways. What that means is even moderately aged stock, let alone stuff that age, just cant negotiate the newer much finer track and it'll just derail. You may be ok for now as you don't have points but as soon as you add those in you'll find that loco will want to derail all the time. You may come across the term "pizza cutter wheels" referring to the huge flange depth older models have and the problems it can cause.

Thanks for the tips would it be possible to combine Peco Setrack turnouts with Kato Unitrack if I do incorporate points in my layout in the future? I might just stick to putting multiple stations for different villages/towns along the loop to make things a bit more interesting. Also, if I were to use Peco Setrack overall instead, would that be any better for these types of locos? For that, I'm thinking of using flattened cardboard boxes as a baseboard and storing it under my bed or wardrobe when not in use; would you recommend that?

Plus you might want to try DCC in future, and old models are difficult to do that with, to one degree or another. Nearly everything in production now has a decoder socket - Dapol hasn't produced anything without one for quite a while. With Farish it's more recent - only the latest batches of 08 shunters have one, for example, and some relatively modern models (Class 170 being one) don't have them.

Don't know anything about steam locos, but as regards diesels some of the best recent models are the Class 68 and 50 (Dapol), and Class 40 and 55 (Farish).

Luckily, I don't really have plans to incorporate DCC; it'll just make everything much more expensive for me and I'd rather keep things simple.

 

[43301]

Luckily, I don't really have plans to incorporate DCC; it'll just make everything much more expensive for me and I'd rather keep things simple.

Always useful to have the option in future though!

 

[takno]

Thanks for the tips would it be possible to combine Peco Setrack turnouts with Kato Unitrack if I do incorporate points in my layout in the future? I might just stick to putting multiple stations for different villages/towns along the loop to make things a bit more interesting. Also, if I were to use Peco Setrack overall instead, would that be any better for these types of locos? For that, I'm thinking of using flattened cardboard boxes as a baseboard and storing it under my bed or wardrobe when not in use; would you recommend that?

I'd avoid that for n-gauge. You can get away with it for OO if you glue a couple of sheets of cardboard together, but the tolerances are lower for N so you're likely to find that stuff is constantly derailing. You'd probably be okay with a sheet of thinnish plywood or at a push hardboard, which isn't hugely expensive at Homebase or similar

 

[TheEdge]

Thanks for the tips would it be possible to combine Peco Setrack turnouts with Kato Unitrack if I do incorporate points in my layout in the future?

No, not really, the Kato system really wont mix with anything else due to the way its designed. I suppose it might be able to work with Fleischmann Profi with some bodging but I wouldn't ever suggest it as a good idea.

Also, if I were to use Peco Setrack overall instead, would that be any better for these types of locos?

Code 80 setrack will give you your best chance but you are still going to run into issues I think with stuff of that age, even if its just reliability issues. If I were you I'd save up a bit more and buy newer stock in the future. If you are new to modelling jumping in with stock of that age is really going to have a good go and putting you off the hobby.

For that, I'm thinking of using flattened cardboard boxes as a baseboard and storing it under my bed or wardrobe when not in use; would you recommend that?

No. Like @takno said it'll not be flat enough, same sort of issue as I mentioned with running N outside. Get a few bits of cheap wooden boards.

Luckily, I don't really have plans to incorporate DCC; it'll just make everything much more expensive for me and I'd rather keep things simple.

Its worth thinking about it incase you start to really get into it.

 

[Ayman Ilham]

Code 80 setrack will give you your best chance but you are still going to run into issues I think with stuff of that age, even if its just reliability issues. If I were you I'd save up a bit more and buy newer stock in the future. If you are new to modelling jumping in with stock of that age is really going to have a good go and putting you off the hobby.

Just did a quick bit of research on the particular Graham Farish model I have and it turns out it's from the 70s/80s; didn't even expect it to be THAT old! Honestly I was literally just looking for cheap runners on eBay and found one that looks nice, placed a bid and it now sits proudly on my shelf. The Class 35 and 47 models I'm about to buy off another seller on FB Marketplace (£100 total) are probably newer, as I saw them running on Kato Unitrack just fine (seller was nice enough to actually share videos of them running in both directions); they just have some hesitance moving in reverse (Class 47 has a split gear) but run just fine forwards, which is good enough for me.

 

[TheEdge]

Just did a quick bit of research on the particular Graham Farish model I have and it turns out it's from the 70s/80s; didn't even expect it to be THAT old! Honestly I was literally just looking for cheap runners on eBay and found one that looks nice, placed a bid and it now sits proudly on my shelf. The Class 35 and 47 models I'm about to buy off another seller on FB Marketplace (£100 total) are probably newer, as I saw them running on Kato Unitrack just fine (seller was nice enough to actually share videos of them running in both directions); they just have some hesitance moving in reverse (Class 47 has a split gear) but run just fine forwards, which is good enough for me.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record but don't buy them. Spend £100 on a single modern loco. Go to your local model shop and buy a second hand loco from them. You will get more fun from it, because it will work. You are new to the hobby and you are buying broken stock off FB Marketplace. If its got split gears its not a good runner, its broken, it needs repairs, you can't just run stock around with split gears, you'll do more and more damage to your loco.

 

[Ayman Ilham]

I don't mean to sound like a broken record but don't buy them. Spend £100 on a single modern loco. Go to your local model shop and buy a second hand loco from them. You will get more fun from it, because it will work. You are new to the hobby and you are buying broken stock off FB Marketplace. If its got split gears its not a good runner, its broken, it needs repairs, you can't just run stock around with split gears, you'll do more and more damage to your loco.

Thanks for the tip; still finding the time to visit another model shop, that's why I've been scouring online marketplaces for cheaper 'deals' to compensate for not being able to find a convenient time to travel to an actual shop. Visited Arcadia in Shaw & Crompton a few weeks back which is my local one (had a good N-Gauge selection but didn't buy anything at the time) as well as Harburn Hobbies while I was up in Edinburgh for a meeting (not satisfied as they were mostly focused on OO-Gauge, but I bought the Peco Setrack N-Gauge Planbook cos this was after you gave me advice); I'm definitely considering visiting The Locoshed in Whitefield (another one close to home) as they seem to have a sizeable amount of used stock as well as new in N-Gauge and they even sell layouts. It appears they also have a full layout to test drive trains on rather than just a short bit of straight track like Arcadia or Harburn, the latter doesn't even let customers drive it. I briefly visited the ones in Lincoln and Hereford while I was doing daytrips prior to this, but this was before I considered actually getting into the hobby myself and I wanted to spend more time exploring the cities back then. Definitely need to visit the Locoshed and revisit Arcadia, as the latter actually had a good selection of Kato Unitrack (first time I saw it).

@TheEdge UPDATE: Just been to the Locoshed to pick up some bits and bobs such as coaches, track and power; they didn't have the radii I wanted (either too big R316 or too small R216, I want R282) nor any S62 track to close a loop with, so I decided to settle for a long straight point-to-point for now using eight S248 pieces (2 packs) which is good enough to get started. I actually did manage the get a Gaugemaster Combi working with Kato Unitrack (guy in the shop told me how) so that saves me £20. The loco I have actually runs alright along the track, able to haul the two coaches (coupling is easier than I expected) I bought, although it does sometimes need a slight push to get going if it gets stuck on lower voltages, but that's not an issue cos I can always avoid idling on low voltages too long (power straight from 6V to 0V). Got a pretty good run out of that Merchant Navy for the money if you ask me! After a couple of back-and-forth runs however, I decided to give it a rest as I started smelling some slight burning coming out of the loco, although I didn't feel any heat coming from it nor was there any visible signs of issues. Is the motor supposed to smell like that after running a fair bit? EDIT: Turns out the metal the loco body is made of just happens to smell like that.

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UPDATE 2: My starter loop layout is finally a reality. Ended up with a spare S248 track pack (bought 4 packs [16 pieces] when I was supposed to have 3 [12 pieces]), which is actually convenient for future expansion since I just need to buy one turnout (probably a buffer piece too) and I'll have everything I'll need for a siding or branchline.


Done a couple of circuits round the loop and found 30-40% was the sweet spot for a continuous running speed. Anything higher than 50% feels a tad too unrealistic and the loco doesn't really run that well under 30% power, but that's to be expected from an old school model. Put the shorter Mk2 at the front of the rake as the longer Mk3 at the front derailed the carriages (locomotive itself doesn't derail though) on the curve. Occasionally the locomotive may have a tendency to detach from the tender but no derailment results from it and I got the hang of reattaching it.

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I also added some of the spare S62 track pieces in the middle of each curve to make the turn a tad bit smoother.


Done a couple of runs round the loop for about an hour and it was quite fun. Now I just need to buy a couple more locos and carriages so I can switch up the rolling stock whenever I please; might get some better runners out of the diesel locos I wanna buy. Maybe I'll make some platforms and buildings out of cardboard so I can get some more fun out of the layout.

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[Ayman Ilham]

UPDATE 3: Bought some turnouts to add sidings for operational variety and now it actually looks like a proper layout. Also, invested in a BR Green Class 47 (splashed £123 on a new model this time) so I get mixed steam and diesel traction.



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