This may sound fooli***o a lot of you, but I am doing some diorama work for my sons school project. It is on the Wild West and includes some miniatures. I would like to include a train in this diorama. I put together a lot of models including plastics, resins, and even wooden ships. This will be my first foray into model trains though. I would like everything to be as close to scale as possible. I am using 25-28 mm figures for this diorama. Is there any train scale that comes close to this? From my research it seems that O scale (which seems to be 1:48) is the best, but I can find very little info on that scale. Can anyone help?
Lionel and MTH both fall roughly into that scale. There are numerous building kits available as well as cars and people. To get some idea, take a look at http://www.walthers.com
You did say Wild West and that will limit your choices somewhat. A good hobby shop should be alble to help.
Good hunting.
Roger
Roger Hensley – madisonrails@railfan.net
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While O scale is probably the closest match to the scale you have chosen for your son’s diorama, I’m afraid including a (Wild West) train into the scene would be a very expensive proposition. Most O scale locomotives run into the hundreds of dollars. There are, to my knowledge, no readily available O scale, unpowered, plastic, old-time locomotive kits in this scale. My advice, if you really want to follow your idea, would be to obtain just an old-time freight car or two in O scale (still in the $30 to $50 a piece range)for the display.
John
Pictcelt; Using 25-28mm figures means that the closest model railroad scale for these figures is S scale. which is 64:1. The figures then scale out at 5 to 6 feet tall. Using O scale means the figures are about 4 feet tall.
The bad news is that S scale is even more difficult to find reasonably priced equipment for.
Old tinplate S equipment, ( American Flyer) is a collectors’ item, but ‘old time western’ equipment in AF would be almost impossible to find. Actual S scale trains are expensive, and most hobby shops do not carry this size.
There’s a very large availability of 64:1 British farm, military and related plastic toys, and also a huge North American diecast metal farm equipment selection.Sorry for the bad news. regards / Mike
I wonder if there might not be something in the toy department that could be modified with a little work? I know there used to be soft plastic trains very close to HO scale that were cheap. Also don’t overlook some wood craft kits in well stocked hobby shops – I have seen some very creditable sailboats and a covered wagon (horse drawn not an F Unit!) that were reasonably priced. With luck there might be an old time train as well. And what about building a small 4-4-0? A small metal juice can is a good start on a boiler …
Dave Nelson
Dave Nelson
Dave has a good point…there are some variety and department store low cost “Christmas” trains around, that are plastic, battery powered, that run on plastic track. I have seen some that are ‘old-time’, colorful, balloon stacks etc…can be detailed & weathered…and right now they are really low-cost, on sale at 50-60% off.Most of these are closer to S scale than O or H0, and that’s what you need . Good luck/ regards / Mike
Thanks a million for all of your help guys, I will look at S scale ( I really would like to get into the train game) and see. I also have thought about scratch building, but I don’t know a whole lot about dimensions for the train, and it could be a very daunting task. I will look for the “Christmas” trains also. Thanks again.
Just in case anyone is interested, I found a plastic battery operated toy train at Toy’s R Us that is perfect for what I wanted. It is as close to scale for my figures as I could construct myself and is entitled Old Western Express. It came with a coal car, a passenger coach, a cattle car, and a petrolium tank (I just won’t use that car). Plus it only cost me $10.00. So thanks for all your help.