What Are The General Errors With O Scale Model Trains
Many a beginner 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 seem easier to work with and just plain more fun they can also be a source of frustration to the inexperienced. Here are some usual 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 to understand that box cars and passenger vehicles aren’t the same length. If you’re recreating an 19th century freight route you might be fine but if you decide that instead you’d like to run a modern Amtrak passenger train you could be troubled with derailments with such a little turning radius. Besides the functionality of too small 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 foresee some kind 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’re working in smaller scale where you have room to build long inclines this isn’t sometimes an issue . Not so with O scale. Given the height required to clear another train track your O scale layout will require a long incline indeed especially if you have created a long train to start with. You are not going to go from ground level to train clearing bridge height in just two feet. If you don’t have big layout, a possible solution is to send your lower track a little 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 not forget that in actuality 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 folks. 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 proper scale.
Does your train match your track? Unlike Ho scale where everything pretty much works alongside everything else, O scale modeling can actually be confusing when it comes to matching the right track to your train. Since the early days when these toy trains were run on shiny three 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 have selected a track, you are stuck with it or will be doing a major overall down the road.
Keep these common mistakes in mind when planning 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 ho scale model train, visit http://www.modeltrainsguide-emil.com/history-of-atlas-model-trains/.
