I am new to this forum. A quick background on me. I have had train layouts for many years. And when I was young my dad had O gauge and HO. I started with N scale. Then went to O and HO. That is what I have now. A 12 x 8 L O gauge in the basement. And a 4 x 6 1/2 HO in my sons room. I am not pleased with the HO. I am considering seling most of my HO stuff and going to N scale. A 4 x 6 in ho is not much running to be done. Like a dog chasing his tail. But a 4 x 6 in N scale would be pretty good size. But I can’t seem to decide for sure to sell my HO stuff. The only way I could do this is by selling them. I am disabled and have a wife and two kids, so money does not live here. I figured I could get about $700 for my HO stuff. I know I would not have as much in N scale, but that is the price to change. Any advice on this? If money was no object, I would pack away my ho and buy the n scale without hesitation. Any thoughts?
How did you arrive at the $700.00 you might get for your HO equipment. FYI it is probably not worth as much as you think. And of course it depends upon what you might have for sale. High quality Atlas, Kato and perhaps Athearn Genesis models would sell for more that older Athearn “blue box” models; Tyco and such toy train stuff actually has very little value.
Do eBay searches on completed auctions for some of your stuff to see what people are actually paying for it. How did you intend to sell off the HO stuff? Locally? eBay?
The value is whatever it is to someone interested in buying it. Like antiques, it depends on the buyer being there. I read recently that oak furniture, for instance, has really dropped in value regardless the quality because the buying market has moved to other woods.
Adding to an n-scale layout over time spreads out the cost. That’s what I did on my first n-scale layout. I gave the old HO stuff to my sons. It was worth more to them than it would have been to anyone else. Even so, one son is into n-scale, and the other doesn’t have a layout now.
Thanks for the response. What I did , is what you suggested. Searched ebay for them in the COMLETED auctions. I have some Broadway Limited’s, LifeLike Proto 2000’s, a bunch of Accurail cars, and a stack of track with switches. I took the lowest price that people paid for on ebay from compleated auctions to come up with that ballpark figure.
You are correct that a small space for HO doesn’t leave much.
I have space restrictons and forced a 3.5 x 5’ HO layout in DCC. {A 15"R inside oval connected to 18"R outside oval with a small spur yard and spur engine facility inside the inner oval}. Can only run small locos. I had O/O27 as a kid but always always wanted HO so I did it!
I also have a bunch of DC N scale stuff from teenhood I used to “play with”, and have thought about converting it {the HO layout} to N acale…{maybe I should have stayed with N scale?!}…but would want to start over again with DCC N scale. I like DCC.
On my budget, N scale DCC equipement is very expensive, and I am about as electronical as a butternut squash, so converting the DC stuff is not for me. N scale can also be hard to deal with. It’s hard to deal with if you have large fingers, I heard. I have a 4-4-0 that’s about all but imposible to get on the tracks, and it doesn’t like switches. But it IS a “cute” little thing that runs great on an oval by itself under the xmas tree!
The decision is up to you.
Dave Vollmer, as you noted in another post, has done fine things in N sacle, including building/kitbashing his own locos.
There are many factors in selling use equipment to include the rarity of a given road name.
I buy,sell trade locally and know some items is worth a very nice sum while others won’t bring very much.
A old AHM GG1 still goes between $75.00- $100.00…Some of the Athearn special road names locomotives goes for $50-70.00…The Special Additions can bring up to $100.00.
Sadly Accurail cars doesn’t seem to fetch all that much $3.50-5.00 tops.
BLI locomotives is all over the price range from extremely low to ridiculously high.
Best would be to join a forum that has a buy,sell trade section.
Changing scale is certainly a way to get more railroad in the same footprint.Or the same amount of railroad in a smaller footprint.
But just for safety’s sake : you have already considered doing an around the walls narrow shelf style H0 (or N) layout instead of a 4x6 island style layout ? Or doing an dogbone shaped loop-to-loop layout instead of a rectangular layout ?
My kids love watching a layout where they stand in the middle and the train is running around them, so they have to turn to watch it run - makes it look a lot bigger.
Couple of illustrations:
Byron Henderson (Cuyama on these forums) has a web page that shows a few other options to fit a longer H0 layout into a room that currently fit a 4x8 layout (I know your layout is 4x6, not 4x8 - but same principle) : http://www.layoutvision.com/id28.html
By all means - your layout, your descission. If you want 4x6, you do 4x6.
Or if you go N scale and still want a straight table, you can at least take the widt
