I would like to know how hard it would be to swich ho to n scale and n to ho.
Simple. You throw one away and start over. I have no idea how “hard” that sounds.
If you go from N to HO you have track for narrow gauge and some stuff for forced perpective on top of a mountian. You might also be able to see what you are doing again.
Having switched from HO to O to S, I can tell you it is very easy. You just start buying stuff in the new scale. Of course if you need to sell the old scale to finance the new, then it’s a little more involved. Personally, I kept all my HO and O just in case I switch again - not likely, but always possible.
If you have a layout, you’re starting a new layout. You might be able to reuse benchwork depending on your new trackplan and how much glue you used. Track, scenery, roadbed, etc are probably not salvageable.
Enjoy
Paul
No, don’t throw them away, or even give them away, or sell them. Put them away in a safe place. If you need to raise capital to fund your new layout, sell the engines. 20 or 30 years from now, you may want them again. I still wish I had those Lionels that I sold 45 years ago.
I boxed up my HO’s, and basically left MR completely in my college years. In my late 50’s, I pulled the old boxes out. The old brass track was useless, of course, and I found the old locos weren’t worth the trouble. Old rolling stock and a few old buildings, on the other hand, have withstood the test of time. With Kadees and, in some cases new wheelsets or trucks, I’m pulling those same cars around again.
How attached are you to what you already have? Little if any of it will be useful in the new scale. It either goes on the shelves, swap meets, or e-bay. There are advantages and disadvantages with each scale. The smaller the scale, the more railroading you can pack into the same space but smaller scales becoming increasingly difficult to work with especially when it comes to the fine details. My first exposure to model trains was Lionel and American Flyer so when I first saw HO, it looked small to me. It still looks small to me even 40 years later. That’s why I always get a chuckle when I hear the N scale guys refer to HO as large scale. Everything is relative I guess. Personally, I’d never consider N scale simply because I find working in HO frustrating enough when it comes to working with the fine detail. I know some great work is being done in N scale but I know I could never do it. If I were to ever switch scales, it would be to go to S but that’s unlikely. I’ve got too much invested in time and money to give up on HO.
It all depends how hard it is for you to open your wallet. The harder it is for you to open your wallet, the harder it is to switch scales…it’s that simple.
It’s only a matter of money- nothing else, not desire, not ambition, not anything else, the ONLY restriction is the amount of capital (or lack of) that you put into the hobby.
How hard it is depends upon how far down the road you are with your layout. As Mr B. stated, if you have already bought HO or N, SAVE what you have , box them up carefully with moisture tablets to keep the moisture out of the boxes for possible futire use or sale if you need the $$.
If you have already done a layout, the job is much harder because you need to pull up the tracks, N and HO are mutually exclusive ( one does not run on the other track system. ). It sounds like you have NOT started yet, and also have not decided if you have enough room for HO, so you are thinking of N scale.
Or, you may be over 60 and are finding out that large hands and fingers, in concert with aging eyes, ( to be politically and socially correct, AGE CHALLENGED ) LOL, is a bad mix for Z and N scale. Now just watch all the old timers jump on this and say they have Z or N scale and have no problems whatsoever… they lie alot too !!!
This is truly scary because Philip’s response is word-for-word what mine was when I first read the initial question.
You might be able to keep much of your bench and scenery if you have it, and if you are prepared do modify the roadbed. Otherwise, think of what it took to get to where you are now. Just re-do all that…learning, spending, building…you have to do it all over again.
I did it last fall, from HO to N. Basically:
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I dismantled my layout. Anything that was salvageable (unballasted track, structures, trees, figures, etc) was saved; tiny items were grouped and put into Ziploc bags.
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If you want and if you can, you can re-use your old benchwork for your new layout. I was able to re-use some sections of wood for this.
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Slowly start acquiring things in the new scale, this helps on a mental level, as you need to get used to the size and handling of your new scale.
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You can hold on to your old scale items, or sell them. Train shows/swap meets are the fastest way to get rid of them, eBayis the slowest (time-consuming). Or you can do both. The choice is up to you. You can also post flyers at LHSes.
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Plan your new layout and start building. Take your time. Do your research. Read books and online forums on your new scale. Certain things are universal to model railroading, other things are scale-specific.
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Get an NMRA gauge and scale ruler for your new gauge. This also helps you get a better perspective of your new scale. If you are moving to the smaller scales, tools like tweezers and magnifying aids are a necessity.
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No matter what scale you’re moving to, it’s going to be more expensive. What cost $5 years ago is over $10 now. If you really want to stock up on a rolling stock collection, again, Train Shows/Swap Meets can’t be beat - you might run into another person switching from your new scale into another scale. eBay is good too. You might even stumble into a seller who is local to you. Online forums also have for scale/wanted sections, you’ll run into people who are giving up the hobby, switching scales or must sell their collection for financial reasons. I found modern Kato N scale locos for $50 this way!
My father and I were thinking of going to N scale from HO, before christmas. Well my nephew wanted to get an N scale trainset so we picked up a life like set because we didnt know if he was serious. Christmas came he took it out I loked at it my dad looked at it and well lets just say it stopped us. Its to small, big fingers and putting track togther in that size doesnt exactly whistle my dixie. But we still went out and priced things and figured its about the same cost as HO. But then we added up what we had in HO track, accessories, freight, passanger, steam and diesels and figured we invested more than $4,000 into the layout and HO scale. Now try getting what its worth at a swap meet or train show. Maybe get 1200 for it all even tho half the stuff hasnt been on a layout. So now instead of doint a full blown N scale layout we want to build an N scale coffee table layout.
A number of posters here have suggested boxing up what you have and storing it for future sale when the need arises to raise some MR capital. I have to disagree. My advice is, if you are going to switch scales, sell what you have now. It is unlikely it will ever be worth more than what it is now. It doens’t matter if what you have is 20 years old now or the latest and greatest. Very little if any of it will appreciate in value. Most model railroad equipment does not end up becoming collectible which is the only way something would appreciate in value. Trying to guess what might be a collectible in the future is an excercise in folly. In 10 years, what you have now is going to just be 10 years older and when compared to what will be available 10 years from now, might be considered just old junk. I have a whole fleet of Athearn BB diesels and Rivarossi steamers that I accumulated from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s. I spent thousands on that stuff, most of it in 1980s dollars. Most of it still runs well but would be a chore to upgrade to DCC. I doubt I could get $200 for the whole collection now. If it was me and I was changing scales, I’d sell what I have now for whatever I could get for it, probably through e-bay and put the money in the bank where it will grow.
I’ve switched scales several times in my 40 years of model railroading. I went from Lionel to HO to N back to HO to On3 to On30 and decided (for the time being) on Large Scale (indoors). Despite all the supplies I had from the previous scales, I found it was easy and exciting to change scales. Since I was brought up with Lionel, I found HO to be to small and fragile to work with and N scale (this is the early 70s) extremely unreliable and finickey. There has been many vast improvements in N scale since then but since I love the steam era, detailing, and robustness, it wasn’t the best choice for me. I believe if you think another scale will give you more enjoyment, you should first build a small diorama to see if it’s really what you want. If it is, switch. If you discover you like two or more scales, why not model in more than one as it’s better to have two smaller layouts that give you the maximum pleasure with your hobby than one large layout that’s not satisfying.
I would tend to agree. Tooling technology has advanced over time and manufacturers are putting out new versions of stuff they or others put out in the past. Its is moreso in N scale than HO, where anything older than 15 years in N scale is pretty much worthless. HO holds up the test of time a little better, but DCC is a huge factor and will likely be the standard within 10 years.
The difficulty of changing scales is directly proportional to the amount of emotional and financial capital one has tied up in the model railroad. The last time I changed scales it was rather like separating from a casual girlfriend. A similar change today would rather more closly resemble a contested divorce.
Back then, I had no layout. The rolling stock collection was meager and rather non-cohesive, and the few buildings I owned were classic examples of either cardboard kits or unskilled scratchbuilding.
Today the layout is slowly engulfing the floor space of a double garage, the (much larger) rolling stock collection is appropriate to my chosen prototype and includes quite a few pieces of considerable sentimental value, the buildings are unique to the place I model, and the entire theme revolves around a time of great happiness in my life. Giving all that up, and starting over, would be traumatic!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)