Z Newbie From TX

Greetings,

I am BRAND NEW to Z-Scale. As in, less than a week! Even as recently as two weeks ago I went through the thought process of "what if Z" and decide against it. I have had this sort of internalized debate over the years...always been interested in Z but it always boiled down to hobby dollars and I decided I did not want to take anything away from my N-scale world.

The catalyst was the salvage sale on the AZL F59PHI/Bombardier sets. But even then I resisted at first glance. But it did prompt me to take a look at the "state of the union" in Z, and that was positive. Also, I learned that the F59PHI locomotives were among the best in Z-scale and that pushed me over the edge. I want to model a segment of a joint commuter/freight line and having the commuter sets that run good was a key decision point. Another big find was the fact that AZL announced the 11k Corn Syrup cars, which were very prevalent cars being switched along the line I am depicting.

So, I now have in my hands two of the F59PHI/Bombardier sets, and two other orders of Z-scale items on the way including an AZL GP38-2 (Union Pacific), some Rokuhan track, an assorted handful of freight cars, and an undec AZL RDC-1, which was another part of the commuter fleet on the line I model. Exciting stuff!

I'm not going full-bore into Z just yet. The above items will pretty much be it for awhile. I have limited myself to ten freight cars for starters so I'll get a few more (likely corn syrup cars when they come out) and I will almost surely buy one more RDC-1 since they ran in sets of 2-4. AND, I want to get the feel for how things run. I admit I have not seen a lot of Z-Scale in action so I want to make sure I can achieve my goals in Z.

Interested in learning more, and hopefully sharing my experiences in Z. I am still going to be an avid N-Scaler, and I will still spend the majority of time there. So progress will be slow. But assuming all of my assumptions are true, it will be "slowly but surely".

"DAZed" is a play on my initials (Doug A.) and the letter Z (or Zed) for Z-scale. I also participate on other forums as either Doug A., "Denver Road Doug", or DRD. (and also DAZed on the AZL forum as well.) Well, looking forward to interacting with everyone!

Regards,

Doug A.

Hello Doug -

Welcome. The AZL commuter sets were among the first Z items I ever bought - back when their price was set, and, we were promised, would never come down. So, financially, you're joining Z at a good time.

Feel free to join us in ZCS chat (several of us there as I write this).

Again, welcome.

Mike

Welcome Doug,

Look forward to seeing your progress. My main scale is Z but dabble in N. Working part time at a local train store I am becoming familiar with all of the scales.

My online name is also a play on my name. cra (first 3 letters of my last name) Z and 13 (birthday).
On other forums 13 is replaced with 3474 (on a telephone pad 3474 = fish). As I have worked with tropical fish for many years crazy fish seems appropriate.


Welcome again,
Jerry

I was perusing the forums and came across this post and noticed that--hard to believe--I am approaching my 1 year anniversary as a Z-scaler. MUCH has changed in my life since then. But from the model railroading perspective, Z-scale has become a much greater part of my hobby spend than I ever imagined.

Two weeks into my little experiment below and I was sold on Rokuhan being as reliable as their Unitrack cousin in n-scale. The AZL GP38-2 was an absolutely awesome little locomotive...until I accidentally destroyed it while trying to install a decoder. But that was just a small speed bump on the way through year one, as I've watched the corn syrup cars come to fruition (and reefers and coil cars....all three beautiful models), planned and begun a fun little layout, and have developed some great camaraderie through chats with the GuyZ and LadyZ here on ZCS. I have even dined with THE Stony Smith, 3D printing extraordinaire.

While a restructuring of my N-Scale collection was already in the works, the above has prompted an even larger scale reduction in my collection and a narrowing of my era to whittle down what N equipment is still relevant. So, that has permitted me to make some purchases in Z that are a bit accelerated from my original plans.

So anyway, now I am very excited to take the next step, get my wiring finished, get some decoders done without breaking anything, and get some trains running. I typically post updates to our chat sessions, but I've also created a blog to cover some random things I'm doing so you can check that out here if you want: mockindz.blogspot.com