Do You Remember Your First Z Year?

For me it was 2004, the year I moved from Texas to Georgia. Actually started in late 2003 when I saw an AZL SD45 on ebay. Wow!!! Using the ebay listing I was able to locate American Z Line and Ztrack as key words. That brought me to Ztrack magazine. Just before Christmas I did the Newbie thing and bid on every MTL rollingstock I could get my hands on. Stupid Newbie thing, why didn't you old timers in Z warn me. Once the New wore off I wound up selling most all of it back on ebay. I think I have maybe 3 out of 40 car from that initial Z desire!

Being a Santa Fe/BNSF guy I longed to have one of those AZL C44-9's in BNSF H2. Only found 1 left within the list of Ztrack distributors. Snagged it for $600+ bucks, delivered!!! That was it. Hooked!!!!! Later that year purchased a second C44-9 in Santa Fe colors!!! Modern Power!!!! Yeah Baby, Yeah!!!

Well, this is what I remember of 2004.
Harald Freudenreich was selling his 48' Gunderson Husky's. MTL announced they too were going to release 48' Gunderson Husky's later that year. The Yahoo group "Z_Scale" was a very Hot place to talk about Z scale. Met lots of new friends their, most notably was Bill Kronenberger from Houston, Texas!!! The father of the Z_Bend Track system. Great guy. Z_Scale group was great!! Lots of good topics and discussions and then their was the MTL vs. Marklin discussions. Usually had 2 of them a year. Pretty heated discussions they were. Haven't heard any MTL vs. Marklin rants in a few years. Seems like it is all AZL vs. MTL now.

Searails had their version of the Mi-Jack container crane, Victoria Car & Foundry wanted to produce a 60' flat car with a prototypical metal frame body and a laser cut wood deck. Everyone longed for the day they released it, but it never came. Something about not being able to create the desired detail reason I heard they never made the car.

Scratchbuilding was a hit. I even got sucked into it myself. First thing I ever created was a 3 bay PS2 rib side covered hopper. All styrene construction. Lots of people wanted one. Because of this want I looked into casting. Making RTV molds and mixing up batches of resin. Also home etching of brass. Then Micro-Mark came out with their home etching kit that year too. Man was I busy. Never perfected the molds like I wanted, too many bubbles in the castings. Had very limited experience making them. Then Harald Freudenreich made mention he was going to make them in Nickel silver so I stopped playing with the idea. Instead I made grain elevators, farm equipment, and 53' smooth & corrugated hi-cube containers.

My second scratch building project was a BP gas station that I took photos of right down from my apartment. Was a fun project. Stupid me sold it on ebay. That's ok, I plan on making another one or two. Third project was my famed Mi-Jack Translift Crane. I wanted one more prototypical than what Searails had to offer and not pay as much so I bought a N scale Walthers model of one and using my N and Z scale rulers down sized one into Z scale using styrene. Still have this one. One of a kind. Have built about 50 of a near same design but nothing like the original.

2004 was the year I first remember in Z scale. The years between then and now seem to all blend together, well except for the 2005 NTS. That was Great!!!

What do you remember of your first year in Z scale???

Hobo Tim

My first Marklin year actually goes back to the late 1950s. My grandmother used to take me on a Grand Expedition to the Big City a couple of times every year (we lived in the suburbs), and our last stop was in front of Searle's Toy and Hobby Shop in Pitt Street. The big attraction for me was a working Marklin layout in the window. It included working signals, that changed from green to red as a train passed. How cool was that!

Strictly on topic, my first Z year was a bit over 12 months ago when I bought my first Marklin Z scale item - an 8856 Crocodile. At the time I thought it might have been a bargain, but now I know for certain it was the biggest bargain I've seen so far in this hobby. I find it hard to believe that my fellow Sydneysiders had left an iconic model sit there for so long that the price tag had faded.

Since then I've built a temporary layout, recently dismantled for renovations. In a week or two, when all the work is finally completed, that dream layout can be started. Vive La Z!

I don't remember what year it was. I'm in a multi scale club and we had layouts or modules in G, O, HO, and N, but no Z layout. Kenny Crouch had a couple of Marklin sets and some MTL. I started on a mission to add a z scale layout to our clubs roster.
The only MTL locomotive was the F7. MTL was pushing their PRR green and SF blue liveries.
Kenny had ran a loop of Z for a year or two prior to this at our Christmas shows. Then I put up a double loop on a green table cloth. I suscribed to Ztrack an seen the specs for the ZMOD standard. I was looking back at that DAllas Mesquite and Garland issue today!! WOAH!! I'M HAVING 2 FLASHBACKS IN ONE DAY...
I started on 4 ZMOD's in a 180 dogbone.
Today I have 6 ZMOD"S and working on a ZMOD/ ZBEND conversion board. Thanks to Billy Roden for the help in the beginning."bh

It was 1975. I was working at a small-town model railroad shop called the Switching Point. Mini-Club was just starting to trickle in, and it wasn't long before I simply had to make something with it, so I built a layout for the shop's display window:



1) spring; 2) bottling plant; 3) enginehouse; 4 & 5) stations; 6) arched truss bridge. Except for 6, everything was scratchbuilt.

I wrote an article on the layout's construction, and folks with a healthy supply of old Model Railroader magazines will find it in the October 1975 issue. I believe it was the first Z scale article MR ever published, and possibly the first one published in any US model magazine.

My first Marklin year was 1985. I was getting into war gaming and thought it would be very interesting to have a working steam train on the game board. At the same time, Smithsonian Magazine had ads for Marklin Z with trains at actual size. These looked close enough to work. That summer, I took a trip to Germany and found a shop in Heidelberg that catered to the US military. I purchased a Marklin Z catalog, the largest Marklin steam starter set with 2-6-0 and three freight cars. I also purchased three flat cars and a crane car. All of this... $185.00 You had to love 3 Marks to the Dollar.

I just plain wore out the catalog. I still have it here in the office as a reminder. I knew every page. This was a good year for. This was the same year Marklin introduced US Z with such sets as the Amtrak passenger sets. After returning the the states, I joined the Marklin club (which I received a free beer car for joining), bought a 0-6-0 steam loco at a local shop and started on this incredible adventure.

So, 24 years and going!

Rob

This IS my first year. Actually my first 10 months and aside from being broke due to my new adiction I am having a ball.

I have connected with some super nice people in the Z hobby and plan to stick around for awhile.

My first year was 2008! I started collecting Z last summer but I also have N scale (both US and German) and HO that has had most of my focus. I decided that I had spread myself too thin so time to make a decision and stick with it. After much thought I have decided to liquidate most of my other scales and go forward with Z.

I had run across an N scale layout with main line running, an industrial park, and hidden staging from David Popp that I really like so with a little modification I will build it in Z. Once my other stuff is sold I will be investing it all in Z. Hopefully I can find a pair of SP GP-35's at some brick & mortar hobby shop as the online stores are sold out. But I did manage to find an F7 Black Widow on feeBay and had a custom painted GP-9 in Black Widow (of course MTL has them now but not with my rd #).

Lot's of exciting releases coming up but I'm also looking forward to trying my hand at scratchbuilding. Isn't that the way John Allen did it?

Yes- John Allen is the man to follow. I'd recommend his book to all modelers in all scales. He was a pioneer and had some great ideas.
I started about the same Time as Rob--1985 24 years--- time flies when you are having phunn.
Fredd

I was so hoping that more of my fellow Z scalers, that I have known for several years now, would have taken this opportunity to archive some history for all of us to read. What year did you get started in Z scale!!!

Hobo Tim:(

I started in Model Railroading in my preteen years, back in the mid to late 50s with American Flyer and HO scale, with the old Plasticville houses and scratch builds.

It has been a little more then a year that I have been in Z scale. I opted for Z scale because of the size, not that I wanted small, I wanted more in my limited space. I started scratch building immediately after placing my first order while I waited for months for it to arrive.

It has only been since I joined the web site that I acquired a full appreciation for what can be done with Z scale. I have designed many layouts so far but yet have to come up with one that I am satisfied with. I am close, just working out terrain details, hopefully.

Everyone on this site has contributed something to my mindset, for which I am very grateful. Thanks for sharing.

TerryH

That was 1977-78. Don't remember much of it except from the actual buying of the starter set which was a shopping trip with some difficulties. Funny now but rather frustrating then. From the look of my catalogue of that year I must have spend much time browsing it and dreaming of more.

I recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of catching the nicest diZeaZe on earth. Obviously I had the early symptoms long before, but life in the communism had different priorities. Living in the US only four years made a huge difference, my family surpriZed me the default starter set for my 38th birthday in 1989. The little 8805 steamer proven to be the best "mind opener". As you know, I'm a 0-6-0 "maniac", and well over two hundred of the poor little guyZ ended up on my chopping board, but the first one is still alive and well.

Lajos:cheer:

Lajos, That is a great story! Cheers, Jim CCRR:)

This is my first year as a MRRer as well as my first year in Z. I'll only ever work in Z I'm having fun and am being physically and mentally challenged. While researching topics related to Z, I find I'm learning at least one new thing a day, though not always connected to Z. It's a great hobby with great people

Spring 1997. I purchased a MTL UP F7 (soon followed by a Red Warbonnet ATSF sample), a few MTL boxcars and a bunch of Peco flextrack. But most remained boxed or on display on a board, until I started a (now abandonned) functional diorama followed by a small layout (140 x 100 cm) still under construction.

And meanwhile I continued purchasing... I'm now owning ~40 locos (all diesels from MTL and AZL, except one AZL GS4) and ~400 freightcars (MTL, Uncle Will, AZL and FR Models).

But my main project is still for the future...

Dom

This is what I looked like when I saw my first Z train. And I still look this good!!
Signed,
Nope- Not gonna do it

This topic is starting to pick up!! Great reading all the entries!!!! Z scale is Fun!!!

Let'Z Read More Stories!!!!!


Hobo Tim

I feel like i've typed this out before on a similar topic/forum, but i can't seam to find what i wrote in the archives. So for Tim's sake and as he says to archive my story, i'll type it out again.

My First Year In Z Scale;
My father took me into New York City with him to pick up a vintage car from one of his clients, and while there we went to a International Toy Fair that was showing in the city that week. This was the fall of 1980, and one of the exibitors was the Marklin Company. They had all their models on display, and numerous running layouts with all the bells and wistles. In among the other layouts was a small Mini-Club layout with three trains running simultaniously controlled with the semiphore signals. I loved it!!! I was facinated by its small size, and the German scenry made me daydream of far away places i had never scene, but looked so perfectly at home with the tiny little trains.

I spent the entire length of the two hour drive home from the city trying to convince my dad to buy me some of the cool German trains i had just seen. Being a smooth talker from an early age (a trait a picked up from my dad) i worked the angle on my dad that i could get rid of the current HO trains i had at the time from off the family ping-pong table, and setup a much smaller layout elsewhere. The infamous ping-pong table in our familys house had always been hottly contested space among my older brother and sister and myself. I setup my HO Silver Streek set on it, and my siblings would play ping-pong over it and smash it to pieces. So this argument i was using on my dad had some leverage to it, and luckly it worked. With in a week of further pestering from me to now both of my parents, and of course multiple itmes circled in the cataloge i brought home from the show, and the deal was set.

As quickly as we located a hobby shop that stocked Mini Club Z my parents placed an oreder, and i vacated the ping-pong table, never to return to it for the rest of my childhood. A week later, the UPS guy brought the box to our front door, and inside was a spanking new Marklin 8222 German electric loco, several cars, track and a transformer. Lucky for me my parents supported my creative hobbies and i was able to talk them into buying the specific loco and cars i wanted, instead of getting a starter set like most folks. I still have the loco and cars, and they are part of my collection that i will never part with. I eventually built my first layout later that year as well as my first atempt at a brief case layout..... both never turned out very well. They both ran fine, but my scenery skills were very basic at 10 years old.

Tony B...
Wasatch Z ClubB)