Model Railway Forum

Hope this is the right section, due to limited space i am thinking of going N gauge who do you think make the best N gauge locos

Hi, i have about 20, but mixed, dapol, farish, lima, arnold and bachmann. For me, i like bachmann, and arnold, but also delighted with Dapol, flying scotsman. Its really, personal choice.

I think it is more a case of who makes models of the locos you want.

the only one i wanted was flying scotsman. The rest were bought on price/ sales. Must be the Banker, in me, cos thats how 90% of my collection were bought. I did buy Arnold Brighton belle, by selection, but in the Hornby sale. Bought TTS, P2, by choice, and Hornby oo Brighton Belle. Here again , though, bought the blue one, cos it was in a sale. My 2 lima n gauge locos, came in sets, 50% off. I suppose thats the difference between era people, who must have, to conform, and chancers like me, who simply look at the price offered, and think, yup, good price.

The are quite a few makes some only doing UK models and dome only doing continental models, so recommendations would be based on what the individual models.

I only do UK models so my recommendation would be for Farish Late China models

I have Farish, Dapol and one Arnold

The Arnold is new but worked out of The box

95% of the Farish models have been faultless

Probably 70% of the Dapol models have had issues out of the box.

I have personally now made the decision to no longer buy Dapol Locos because of my own personal experience, their rolling stock has been fine though

Most of the issues have been the result of sub standard assembly, a few had blown electrical components, mainly diodes and LED's.

Sorry I know some have no issue or think it's ok to have to repair a brand new item but I am not one of them.

Paul

I tend to agree, Dapol quality can be patchy but it’s not as bad as many make out. Farish are good out of the box but I have had a couple that quickly developed valvegear issues.

My main concern is that new models in N appear to be a bit thin on the ground compared with larger scales - I suspect the manufacturers have seen the way the model market has contracted in these uncertain times and have chosen to make their savings in N gauge.

I’ve not bought a new N gauge loco for at least a couple of years (fortunately I have plenty of spares) and if I were starting in the hobby now I probably wouldn’t bother with N at all.

Starting to think the same myself, if only I had room for 00, better made locos for more detail, a much larger range and often at a lower cost or cat least no more cost than n-gauge.

I can see n-gauge being forgotten by the big 2, especially as they find new customers with deeper pockets in their ever expanding forays into 0 gauge, there have been more new 0 gauge models announced or available this year than n-gauge has got in the last 5 (or it seems like it)

Paul

There is of course, a compromise, with TT scale. I run, triang stuff, mainly, on peco flexi track, but the Tillig range is very big, and affordable. Kernows in uk keep it.