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Hi, So I've been doing a lot of reading on model railroading again after being out of the hobby for nearly 10 years (those HS-college years). I live the apartment life now, so no layout building for me yet, but I'm thinking about what I'd like to do once I have a place of my own. I could also start to make purchases of rolling stock and other bits for that day when I do have a layout. Problem is, I'm not getting very far because of one big problem: I can't choose a scale. So I'm hoping I can lay out my needs, expectations and current thoughts and get the viewpoints of some of you more experienced modelers. My dilemma is choosing between O scale and HO scale; I have equipment in both these scales already and I can't deal with the smaller stuff so N and Z are out. As I see it now, both have their advantages and disadvantages: HO- Good: -By far most common scale, high availibility -smaller space requirement -scale-wide standards (especially for control) -I have more HO equipment currently than O, by a large margin -less expensive, high quality, scale equipment Bad: -2 rail DC wiring is significantly more complex than 3 rail AC -small size/weight mean HO lacks the "heft" of O -HO (may) lack the railfan goodies of O (impressive smoke/sounds/effects) O scale- Good: -3 rail AC means easy wiring -detailed scale O pieces with full lights and sound put on a heck of a show -can navigate (relatively) smaller radius curves, partially negating space usage issues -I feel O just looks and feels more impressive than HO Bad: -expense; a scale "O" steam locomotive is at least 2-3X the cost of a scale HO steam loco -lack of standard control system -space usage is large(r) To be honest, the electrical side of things is a big issue for me. I hate wiring, am not an electrical engineer, and don't want to become one just to be able to run a couple trains on a layout. Basically I want to minimize the time I spend dealing with wiries. The thought of having to figure out where to, and where not to, put polarity boxes alone is almost enough to make me shy away from HO. 3-rail O is simple in comparison due to the center rail. On the other hand, the lack of standards for control of 3-rail O may more than make up for the ease of track wiring. With O, I'd have to figure out how to set up a DCS/TMCC hybrid in order to run locos from all manufacturers, or just choose not to buy MTH, in which case TMCC would be fine. In HO, unless I'm mistaken, DCC from any company will run any DCC equipped loco, regardless of who made it. As far as the operating experience, my interest is not hardcore prototypical operation, and includes simply enjoying watching the trains run. Because of this I want a layout where I can still set up trains to just run continuously for "railfanning" purposes. I'd still like ot model SOME kind of industry though, I was thinking something along the line of a continuous mainline with a few sidings and a small yard. This would connect to a branchline serving a major industry (like a coal mine or oil refinery). This would not be a basement empire, but something smaller, more along the lines of Dave Frary's Pennsy Middle Division that was in MR years ago. I think I could do that in either scale, so that doesn't really help me choose. For railfanning purposes, I think it's clear that O has HO beat. Seeing an O scale engine working away, chuffing at a prototypically correct rate blowing clouds of synchronized smoke and the sound varying with engine load is an amazing and awesome thing that I've never seen in HO modeling. Maybe I just haven't seen the latest HO has to offer, but what I've seen just doesn't compare at all. I'm not a rivet counter or anything, but I am interested in a scale look and sound. The downside is that impressive display all comes at a price. A scale-size O steam locomotive with all those goodies can cost upwards of a kilobuck from virtually any of the O scale manufacturers. In contrast, a high-quality, scale HO lcomotive (say from BLI) is about $300 + whatever it costs to add sound and DCC. Rolling stock is similarly priced, with O scale cars runing ~$30 each; I remember buying Athern HO blue-box kits for under $10 each, I can't imagine they're much more than that now. Partially compensating for that though is the fact that I would need less O scale equipment to occupy a similarly sized layout, it being bigger and all. The final factor is what I already own; most of it being HO. I have at least 3 reasonable quality steam locomtives (Rivarossi, Mantua), and 2 or 3 Athern diesel locos (though none are set up for DCC) already, as well as probably 50 pieces of rolling stock and 2 full passenger train sets in HO from when was growing up. For O, I have some post and pre war Lionel (some of which is very nice, but they're still toy trains), so as far as scale model railroading I'd be starting from scratch. Sorry that was so long, but I really cannot decide. For almost every point I can give to one scale, there's a compensating factor for the other, or other disadvantage to weigh in. From a space and financial point of view, I'm not going to be able to split the difference and built layouts for both, so I'm going to have to choose before I can really proceed. I know there might be an HO "bias" in here, but I'm hoping for some insights, corrections, or things I haven't considered to help me make the choice. Thanks, -PK
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