I am just starting out (well...renewing a childhood passion) with model railroading and am looking for advice on going with O versus the more popular HO. My plans are to build a first class model railroad with a city etc. Anyone care to give their perspectives?
Welcome to TrainBoard! O scale requires more space and costs are higher. But nothing legitimate can be said against it- If that's what you want, go for it. Boxcab E50
The O scale came into play because my wife and I bought the North Pole Central set for under the Christmas tree. Being honest, I am mostly interested in the creation of the models themselves. So does HO (or some other scale) have the widest variety of models to put together when building a cityscape around your trains? I am really excited about this and am planning on taking things slow.
Yes. HO offers the greatest variety- Not even counting the HO narrow gauges. I began my model railroading as a child with Lionel and later also added Marx O-27 and American Flyer S gauge. I later also spent time with TCA and TTOS, collecting and running tinplate. It was glorious fun, and I can see how you'd be excited. I have experience in HO and HOn30, along with On30. But my longest tenure has been N scale. Which is second largest to HO scale, and my wife is blame as she gave me my first N 39 Christmases ago. There is a lot available in N as well. Your best course is to read, ask questions. Doing so allows enthusiasm to remain high. All the while avoiding making learning mistakes which can frustrate, waste both time and money. There are excellent magazines and booklets or books available through most better train outlets and also on-line. Check out such as Kalmbach Publishing and Carstens Publications. Boxcab E50
I believe that HO will offer you the greater market, no two ways about it, but it remains to be seen how well you get on with the much smaller details and detailing that it takes to generate credible and good looking structures and scenery on either a layout or a diorama. As we age, we tend to find it harder to see and to manipulate tiny items. So, we can't really appreciate them, even if we manage to get them together. At about the 55-65 age range, many people find themselves wishing they had either better hands and eyes, or bigger objects to handle and to look at. So, the trend is to upscale from HO to O if HO is where the launch took place earlier. It' something to think about...spend a bit of money in HO and soon find you really would have been better off in O, or start in O at the outset. A bit of a crap shoot until you get at it, either way.
I've had several home layouts in HO scale -- 40+ years on and off in the hobby -- several small to medium sized layouts, but nothing that survived a move to a new home. Recently I made two decisions: (1) anything I build from now on will be portable (easy to move), and (2) it's time to switch to On30 while I still have the eyes and fine motor skills to accomplish something. It's true that much more stuff is available in HO, but there are plenty of RTR On30 locos and rolling stock, plus lots of O scale structure kits and detail parts -- enough to work for anyone who isn't trying to faithfully model a specific prototype. O scale items cost more on a per-item basis, but less on a per square foot of layout space basis. For me, the issue with On30 was not cost or even minimum radius (24" is fine, even tighter is OK); it's having enough overall layout space to produce decent operating possibilities. FWIW, in 2010 I sold most everything from a 12'x14' HO layout that was about 75% complete, and I'm now working in the same room on a Downeast (Maine, 1930s) layout in On30. I'm currently working on just a pair of 30" x 80" hollow core doors arranged in an L in one corner and along most of one wall. That's plenty of room for 4-5 uncrowded industries, a wharf, two streets with a couple of commercial buildings, etc., but I'll need a third door for a 3 track yard and an engine terminal, and the entire room for a decent length run to another town and an relatively uncrowded continuous loop. I'm new to Trainboard, but I'll eventually figure out how to post a couple of pics of both my old HO layout and my new ON30 doors. Welcome to the hobby!
First of all, Welcome, both of you, to the TrainBoard, we're happy to have you on board. To NewModelRailroader...I suggest that you visit clubs in your area to see what is being done with both scales, and what it's like to work on equipment and structures. A chat with your Local Hobby Shop (LHS) owner(s) would be a good source for club locations and schedules. Of course, if you live in the Boonies like Ken (BoxCabE50) and me, that would be difficult at best. Another way to locate a club is a Google search for "Model Train Club {insert word(s) to narrow your geographical search area somehow}". I was amazed to find clubs within 100 miles of my locale that I never knew existed.....worth a shot.
G= Gee, that looks neet O= OH WOW! S=SWEET! HO=Horibley Oversized N=Normal joking aside, IF I had all the room and money, I would by running an O Scale (not Lionel) layout
As others have said, there are a number of different factors. Each scale has its pluses and minuses. One way of getting a good overview is to go to a few train shows. If you google "train show <your state>," you will get some links to various shows and schedules around where you live. These shows are a combination flea market and display, with local clubs displaying their traveling layouts. I had Lionels as a kid, and went to HO as a young teen. I'm 63 now, and pulled my HO trains out of the boxes where they had been for 40 years. Many are back on my layout now. I'm very happy in HO. I also model an urban environment, complete with subways below the streets. And, I enjoy making the models most of all. Contrary to what happens to some, my own manual dexterity has actually improved with practice, and I can paint finer details and assemble models better than I could a few years back. You should, though, evaluate your available space. You can put more "city" into an HO layout, and even more into the same space in N scale. There is no shortage of fine models in both HO and N, but I'd imagine that the high cost of O scale reduces the demand and therefore the availability of those items.
Scale preference I agree with the esteemed members that the beauty of size is in the eye of the beholder. With that said unless you have coke bottle glasses for lenses, :tb-wink: then HO would probably be a better fit for budget and space. given you question, O or HO. Any way that you go I think you will enjoy it. Happy to have you onboard. By the way Z = ZOWIE how do they make it that small.:tb-shocked:
Yeah, eyesight is a big factor. I work in N, but a few years ago I put together a small oval of HO for a Christmas present. It felt positively huge. I was at a train show today. HO stuff still dominates. You could round up a whole lot of neat stuff cheap if you were in HO. There was quite a bit of O as well, but cheap is not one of the adjectives I would use... You can fit more layout in a given space in HO versus O, too. Then again, as a beginner, you don't want to get too ambitious, lest you get burned out before you get finished ballasting.
