Many a newbie model railroader will decide that, rather than HO, they like to build their railroad empire using O scale model trains. While the bigger trains may appear easier to work with and just plain more fun they may also be a source of frustration to the inexperienced. These are some typical mistakes made with O scale trains.
Is your turning radius too tight? While the minimum turning radius for an O scale train is 24 inches you have got to realize that box automobiles and passenger cars aren’t the same length. If you are recreating an 19th century freight route you could be alright but if you decide that instead you’d like to run a modern Amtrak passenger train you may be plagued with derailments with such a tiny turning radius. Besides the functionality of too little a turn radius you also have the glaring fact that it just doesn’t look that practical.
Are your inclines too steep? Most new model railroaders envisage some type of tunnel or bridge in their layout where the trains will run underneath its own track or up over the roads the cars travel. When you are working in smaller scale where you have room to build long inclines this is not usually a problem. Not so with O scale. Given the height needed to clear another train track your O scale layout will need a long incline indeed especially if you’ve created a long train to begin with. You are not going to go from ground level to train clearing bridge height in only two feet. If you do not have large layout, a possible answer is to send your lower track a touch underground so that your upper track does not need to rise as much.
Is your landscape out of scale? Even though a locomotive is higher than an one story house we must recollect that in the real world trees still tower over trains. No where is this single mistake made more than with O scale train layouts. The same scaling mistake is common with outbuildings and people. When buying any accessories or buildings for your layout make sure that you know it is to scale and not that it just looks to be the right scale.
Does your train match your track? Unlike Ho scale where everything pretty much works with everything else, O scale modeling can truly be confusing when it comes to matching the proper track to your train. Since the early days when these toy trains were run on shiny 3 rail tracks there were some major discoveries that include 2 rail systems, more authentic O gauges and the choice of running O scale trains on narrow tracks. Do your research before purchasing even your first train set, because once you’ve chose a track, you are stuck with it or will be doing a major overall down the road.
Keep these usual mistakes in mind when arranging your layout and it should make building your O scale train layout much more pleasurable.
Emil Sudhakaran is a model train expert. For more great information on g scale model trains, visit http://www.modeltrainsguide-emil.com/n-scale-model-trains/.
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