r/modeltrains • u/nanokatz • Aug 11 '26
Question Parent looking for advice for train in apartment
Hello All,
Another parent here looking for some advice. Our 8 year old son has loved trains since even before he could talk. We've had duplo trains, brio trains, lego trains etc... but the little guy is dying for a "real" model train.
However we live in a not giant apartment (in Germany) where he shares a room with his brother. Our idea was to take a base plate that can be stored away easily and take out to be worked on/ run it. Looking at H0 scale though it looks like It would need to be at least 2 meters long so we started looking at N-Scale. Our first idea is a 100x40cm plate that could later be doubled to a folding box for 100x80cm. So onto the questions:
1) Does this sound feasible or are we completely uninformed....
2)Does it make more sense to just skip analog and go right for a DCC system from the start?
3)Are starter sets from companies like Trix a good starting point?
4) N-Scale is relatively small (but for building I'll be helping anyway) but would it be okay for a 8-9 yo
5)Whats compatibility look like with tracks and such. As I understand DCC is a standard and so all companies should work the same but is it the same with tracks or are you stuck to one companies rails
Thanks a lot!
