Things You Don't Realize About N Scale: Vehicular Slim Pickins

What does every vehicle in this photo

have in common? German prototypes,

including the Siemens ACS-64. That

might work for the contemporary North-

east Corridor Region, but probably not
for Appalachia or the rural midwest. 

Vehicle modeling is an important hobby-within-a-hobby in model railroading, and I'm learning fast that vehicles might be among the final frontiers of successful N scale modeling.

Last summer, while wandering around Chicagoland, I visited Desplaines Hobbies, which has a large selection of S scale and also die cast vehicles in 1/64 scale. It occurred to me that the selection S scale vehicles must be one of the attractions of that comparatively rare scale. My favorite S scaler, Trevor Marshall, confirmed to me that vehicle modeling is part of the fun of that scale, and that vehicles provide an excellent visual queue for setting the era and mood of a layout.

That's better--a railroad police Ford SUV--that most American
of vehicles--prowling the right-of-way for trespassers.

A few months later I visited John Sethian's O scale Pennsy layout. I raved about his catenary and fleet of O scale electrics on this blog, but another feature of his layout that impressed was the vast population of era-specific trucks and automobiles.

The importance of vehicles to a visually engaging layout isn't really new news to me--I have already put more than a few hours into finishing HO vehicles for my Dunes Junction layout, and I'll also point out that era- and region-specific vehicles in realistic poses were one of the impressive elements of Tim Nicholson's modeling, which I covered in a recent post.

* * *

With the Old Line Corridor nearly fully scenicked, I've arrived at the detailing stage. I've been thinking about signage, wayside details, weeds, and yes, vehicles. A recent visit to a New York area hobby shop with what counts as a deep stock of N scale vehicles yielded just under a dozen or so vehicles, which I immediately placed around the Old Line Corridor.

The long distance bus is a UK model with the steering on the

wrong side, but it represents one of the ways I casually railfan

the New Jersey portion of the Northeast Corridor,  which

is through the windowz of one of the cheap buses Rachel and I

often ride into New York and Connecticut. Also, that white
Rover Defender is something that would likely only ever be
seen in the Tri-State area, or maybe somewhere in Northern
California.

In the process of researching and then accumulating my small fleet of N scale vehicles, I came to realize that the overall smaller array of N scale products in comparison to HO is particularly exaggerated in the model vehicle space. The selection of N scale vehicles is small and focused on European and Japanese prototypes. For modelers of anything other than the modern era, there are precious few automobiles, with the late 70s through mid 90s particularly poorly represented. And for modelers who are focused on the rural midwest or the south--where foreign cars are still comparatively scarce--creating an accurate representation of the population of typical vehicles would be particularly problematic, with unpainted white metal and 3D printed offerings being the fallback options for most late 20th century North American vehicles in N scale.

Atlas markets some of the only 60s/70s era

vehicles, seen here in the lower part of the

photo, while that 70s/80s Herpa VW Golf

in the upper part of the photo hasn't been on

the market for some 15 or 20 years

About those white metal, 3D printed, and commercially available N scale vehicle models: assembling a fleet of N cars and trucks for even a modestly-sized layout like the Old Line Corridor requires a significant investment. I am loathe to hear and particularly make complaints about the high prices of model railroad products, but N scale vehicles indeed seem rather pricey to me. They are quite tiny, which creates, at some level, a preconception that they should cost correspondingly less than their HO counterparts. However, the German-manufactured N scale vehicles are particularly detailed and well finished, and probably require as much or more manufacturing effort as larger scale models, thus explaining the high prices. While the effect and appearance of vehicles on the layout adds significantly to the layout, I would ultimately be more pleased to spend that effort and money on something that adds even more to my hobby enjoyment. For the moment, however, I appreciate the life that my little cars and trucks add to the Old Line Corridor.