What Are The Regular Errors With O Scale Model Trains
Many a newbie model railroader will decide that, instead of HO, they prefer 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 green. These are some common mistakes made with O scale trains.
Is your turning radius too tight? While the minimum turning radius for an O scale train is twenty-four inches you have got to notice that box autos and passenger automobiles are not the same length. If you are recreating an 19th century freight route you could be ok 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 tiny a turn radius you also have the noticeable fact that it just doesn’t look that realistic.
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 autos travel. When you’re working in smaller scale where you have room to build long inclines this is not sometimes an issue . Not so with O scale. Given the height needed to clear another train track your O scale layout will require 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 coach clearing bridge height in only 2 feet. If you don’t have big layout, a possible answer is to send your lower track a touch underground so that your higher track does not need to rise as much.
Is your landscape out of scale? Although a locomotive is higher than an one story house we must remember that in real life 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 right scale.
Does your train match your track? Unlike Ho scale where everything pretty much works with the rest, O scale modeling can truly be confusing when it comes to matching the proper track to your train. Way back to the early days when these toy trains were run on glossy 3 rail tracks there were some major breakthroughs that include two rail systems, more authentic O gauges and the option of running O scale trains on narrow tracks. Do the research before purchasing even your first train set, because once you have chose a track, you’re stuck with it or will be doing a major overall down the road.
Keep these typical mistakes under consideration when planning your layout and it should make building your O scale train layout much more enjoyable.
Emil Sudhakaran is a model train expert. For more great information on k line model trains, visit http://www.modeltrainsguide-emil.com/tank-engine-model-trains/.
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 5:37 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.