So here I am … “pre-layout”… planning stages. Still cleaning track. And my Dad mentions he has a box of trains upstairs. It turns out it’s full of O-Track (I have super-O) and it also has 12 HO locos (mostly diesels), 3 tyco transformers, and a Lionel KW Transformer, and odds and ends (two whistle houses, one with a guy that pops out, a tower, plasticville diner, etc)
Too bad there wasn’t any O-trains in the lot, but I’m not complaining.
Here’s what I am thinking now… I was thinking how cool it would be to have an O layout, with an HO layout high and at the back of it, so it looked like a train in the distance. Like run it up along the edge near the backdrop, with trees slightly obscuring it. The track would wrap around the back of the backdrop for the “return” and it would just be a single pass through the back of the layout. I wonder if this would look cool or just be a plain bad idea, but I figure worse case scenario, I take out the HO and throw down grass or trees, IE, something I can change my mind about later and not have it cause any problems.
I’m just curious if anyone has ever tried such a thing?
Many people do the HO in the distance thing. My kids and I have a growing collection of HO trains, and will be starting an HO layout in the fall. The only thing I know for certain is that it will include a viaduct and a tunnel.
Befor I moved and my room drasticly took a downsize that I can use for my things (11’ X 13’ old room( 7’ X 7’ New room) I was going to do O gauge with a mountain in the back rear corner and on top wwas going to have a n scale train set going around towards the top of the mountain like it really was in the distance. By the way my layout would of been 7’ X 13’ so you would of been about 12 feet to the left of the mountain and 4 feet out at least.
It works if you locate the HO below as well. One of the guys in our modular club has a module with the O guage crossing a canyon on a trestle and an HO train running around at the base of the canyon. Besides the visual appeal to adults it also brings the action closer to the kids.
O in the foreground and HO in the distance has been done, and can be effective if the area surrounding the HO also has HO scale buildings. An S-scale building or two in the “between” can both ease and emphasize the size difference.
The formal name for this sort of thing is, “Forced perspective.” Museum diorama builders do it all the time. For it to be effective, the smaller scale items in the background should be elevated above the larger scale things in the foreground.
If the H.O. don’t work out as well as you are hoping maybe you can put a Trolley line in on the mountain top with 027 track.
Just so that you know about H.O. track there are at least three curve radius you can buy; 15 inch, 18 inch and 22 inch. I know that Atlas makes different size straight track and sectional curves without the roadbed underneath. I don’t care much for flextrack in H.O.
[2c]You could have a dual scale line in the back ground by going with ho track as you plan by running ho trains or if you want to be an all O scale layout you can run some On30 also known as On2 1/2 which runs on ho scale track[2c] by the way On3 is NOT the same gauge as On30[%-)]
it wont work, first mixing two rail and three rail track = bad, wont look right. even on 30 wont look right conventianal o scale track is 5ft in scale insted of the 4’ 8.5" so everything is scaled up a bit. second, super o is what, o-31. or 31 inches in diamater, unless you use 15" radi curves (not recomended 18" is better) your going to end up with ho scale curves that are biger then your o-scale curves, which will leave you ad your geusts saying…WTF!!!
15"=30" diamater
18"=36" diamater the same as lionel fastrack
22"=44" diamater the most widely used curve in good looking layouts
Actually, the O31 radius is even smaller, about 14 1/8 inches. (O27 is 12 1/2 inches.)
But the 16.5-millimeter HO track works out to 31.18 inches in O (1/48) scale, which is about 4 percent too wide, whereas the 1 1/4-inch O track is about 6 percent too wide. I think that that 2 percent difference would be very hard to see.
On the other hand, 30 inches was almost unknown in the US. Three feet was much more popular, with some 2-foot also used. So On30 is both too large and too small!
It’s the Smalspår (narrow-gauge) Kecskemét-Kiskunmajsa railroad. The first words of the text, “Söder om Budapest…”, have nothing at all to do with another current topic, Thomas the Tank Engine–they mean “South of Budapest…”.