Hello everyone, my name is shane
I have loved trains ever since I can remeber and now I am 31 yrs old and ready to get into this hobby. I have been involved in many hobbies in my life including a fairly descent 4x8 HO layout that me and my father built when I was 10. I have approximately 24x 20 ft of space to fill with something in my basemenet and have been trying to plan something for the last year but nothing has manifested yet. I have some N scale stuff, loco, about 20 cars, some track, cheap controller etc that I inherited from my father in law and 1 HO backman 2-6-2 that I bought last year for 40 bucks just to mess around with. I have done quite a bit of reading and and have a subscribtion for MR that I read all the time. I am down to the big question…which guage? I can’t make up my mind and wish I had some friends that were into this hobby that I could bounce ideas off of. Here is my delima, I have enough space to build even a descent O scale layout, but it wouldn’t be big. I absolutely love steam locomotives but I will run anything and I am not particular to any time period at all. N scale would make for an incredible layout but its so small I think I would get frustrated with it’s difficulty and the steam engines don’t look real. HO is a nice happy medium but I am not sure if my space would be satisified with HO scale. I also bought a couple pieces of atlas code 80 HO and code 55 N and the cheap stuff I have now does not work with it, in other words everything I have would not work with the “good track” that I would want to use so either way I would be starting from scratch. I have so many questions but I am patient and I just hope to get something started this winter, thanks.
It reads to me like you’ve already made your choice so I’ll give you a little pu***oward the HO side… Especially as you age, N will become harder to work with… I’m not knocking N scale here but even at 41, I need a magnifier to see and work with some of the detail in HO scale… Here’s a little write-up I’ve done to save myself some typing… It’s a short read but maybe it’ll give you some useful thinking material…
http://www.rolleiman.com/trains/clinic2p1.html
Good luck,
Jeff
with the space you have you could build a great HO layout , but whatever scale you decide on you still have a lot of work to do . designing a layout that size takes time , and you haven’t even decided if you’re going to do freelance , prototype or what era or area you’re going to model . you have to decide some of those things soon , or you’ll just end up buying things that you decide later are inappropriate for what you’re modelling
welcome to the forum …I like N scale but like you said…I can’t work with stuff that small and I can’t see the parts either…i’ve been in HO since 1977 and really have enjoyed it…it’s big enough to work with yet small enough to make a fairly large RR with …one other aspect is that it’s the most popular scale and has the most stuff available for it…I’ve heard over the years all the moaning and growning by the O, S, and N scalers pretaining to things not available to them like they are in HO scale …you can’t go wrong with HO scale…chuck
Are you planning to play trains for some time? Do you have (/want) a partner? Do you have kids… all can play a part… it’s a bit like “love me, love my dog”. At least you don’t (usually) have to clear up after the trains.
OK. Whatever the answers above are.
You can change your mind even while you’re sticking in the hobby.
Don’t get stuff on the basis that it might be good and/or "I can always sell it later… the standard of readily available models is advancing so fast that you will not get your cash back.
If you’re involving kids or planning to go H0 Bachmann and oick up stuff cheap… then you won’t have fits when they drop it, decide to repaint it or see how well it goes in a head-on crash with a housebrick.
If you’re not involving kids TAKE your time and decide on a standard… I would go as high as you can afford… also a little excellent stuff is usually better than a pile of reasonable… because with rising standards you won’t take long to see the reasonable as junk.
READ, READ, READ, READ…
Get to meets… the cost of time, fuel and maybe even a hotel now will pay off in lessons learnt much better than getting a whole load of stuff, spending time and effort and ending up dissatisfied. someone here might suggest a good meet to get to. Where are you? Then again… some meets would put off even the longest standing veteran fan… be warned.
When you get to a meet / hget your mags… DON’T be impressed by a fantastic layout and think “That’s what I want to do”!.. Someone else has already done it… and they may have thirty or forty years experience ahead of you.
When looking at what you want to do make a real assessment of the space you have. Read the stuff in other threads about baseboard height and board depth (how far you can reach). Draw your space on square paper (just like planning the bathroom) and work out what space you can have for track. then take off three inches all round…'c
great advice guys! I haven’t made any financial mistakes yet, what I have now I pretty much got for nothing and I doubt it will have any effect on which direction I go, its more of a learning tool. HO seems to make the most sense, and although N scale is really cool and has more possibilities it sounds like I will regret it in the long run and the most important thing to me is steam engines, I love them, If I could I would have one big enough to ride on and drive it around in my back yard but that isn’t going to happen any time soon. If I go with HO scale I have one main question, what track do I use and does it matter? I really like the way code 83 looks to 100 and I want this layout to look realistic, especially since it will primarily be steam engines. btw great website rolleiman I think I will eventually do something like you have. I have a cheap locomotive and the wheels seem very loose on a piece of code 83. Should I not use the 83 for some reason or is another brand better, do i have to buy special rolling stock and/or locos to use this track? thanks
Microscale code 83 track looks the best and is pretty much correct. Sadly they only do no.6 switches but you can use Shinohara. If you want steam and you think the look of the track is important this is the way to go.
The problem is not correct track but incorrect wheels.
If you can look safely at rail wheels on rail you will see a huge difference between the real thing and the model. If you have the time and patience you could go for code83 standards… but you’d have to build your own track as well as re-wheel everything. Looks good… but is it that important?
All the major manufacturers make their track to take “model” wheels with their massively incorrect flanges and back-to-back measurements (The over wide wheel treads pu***he flanges in making the distance back of wheel to back of wheel too short)… but they work… they’re designed to.
All you have to decide now is what road, what period and where…
have fun!
I model N scale because of lack of space. With the amount of space you have available, if I were you, I’d go with HO. You said that you absolutely love steam. Well HO has at least three major advantages over N scale when you are talking steam: 1.) N scale steam has gotten more available but is still pretty slim pickens compared to HO; 2.) An Ho scale steam engine is going to pull more HO scale cars than an N scale steam engine will pull N scale cars. If you take the Bachmann 2-6-6-2 and identical cars and caboose, except for scale, and you take both the N scale 2-6-6-2 and the HO 2-6-6-2, the HO train will be several cars longer; 3.) changing DC into DCC engines will be much easier in HO scale than it will be in N scale. This is also true with general maintenance . I hope this helps you make a good decision.
O scale is really nice “IF” you can afford the frustrations with it. It is more toy like hence the toy trains called o scale. Ho is more realistic of running a real railroad and I can almost still see the details without my glasses. N scale layouts are really neat, but I can’t see them. I went through several large financial screwings with o scale, and gave it up. I have had some disappointments in HO, but financially no where near that of o scale. When the hobby is more headaches than fun, it is time to move on. So I left o scale, sold it all, and went into HO. Your finances and space usually determine what scale you will model. If you are talented at scenery, HO and N scale produce really nice results, O scale could also do this “IF” you could find what you want or need.
Financially I can do any scale I wish, and after it is all said and done HO is where I am.
If you purchase QUALITY cars and QUALITY Locomotives, your results will always be better. Use as wide a radius as you can regardless of scale. You will be much happier!
Glad to see you getting started in the hobby, I’m on my 6th layout now and the biggest one I have ever taken on! Going on my 4th year of work now and am 80% done with the main work and scene! I have a very small N 4 by 4 setup in our home that wife and I built, it cute and highly detailed, but being in my 40’s it hard to work with! Like everyone else said that you have made your choice in HO already. HO has tons of items you can buy and there are a hoste of engine manufatures out there. I would do allot of reading first and move forward then, and remember that know one is perfect, your going to make mistakes. Thats how you learn in the hobby, ive made my share of them!
The next step is to determine your givens and druthers. You already told us the druther of steam. What else are you interested in. What are your givens?
A good place to start is John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation. This will give you an idea of possibilities.
Welcome to the hobby! Too bad you don’t live near me. Not many people interested in my area, although there is a fantastic hobby shop. Take your time as you get started, and plan where everything (okay, most things) will go before you start building. Otherwise, you will have to rip out alot. That is how I started, and I can tell you, it’s not what you want to do. If you do choose to go the cheap route, you should still get a goo controller and locomotive. The loco doesn’t have to be real expensive, but it should be good. There is nothing more frustrating than watching your train jerk down the track and then stall in a tunnel, or have the power pack overheat. I’ve learned all this from experience, and I’ve still got a long way to go. These forums are the best place to learn the answers to any questions you may have. Good luck! [8D][tup]
Yes, Go code 83 HO. I wouldn’t try to salvage your 20 year old track.
another nice thing about HO is you can put sound decoders in most of the engines , some are a lot more work to do it than others , but most you buy brand new should be easy . they’ll be marked DCC ready . that means you have to buy the decoder (with sound or not) and install it . some brands even come with dcc sound decoders installed , and they tend to be pretty good quality locos too so they’re worth the investment