Newby seeking advise, direction, and wisdom

[Anonymous]

My son, who is 5 and I began building a layout with a Lionel set I bought him for his fourth christmas, and are now realizing how limiting the scale is in terms of space and also scenery and structures. He and I both like the scale realism route more than the toy train aspect. Kind of odd from a five year old. Anyway, I don't know much about HO engines. Do they all have plastic shell bodies? Is a particular brand preferred over another? Which perform the best, look the most realistic, durability etc. Please share some knowledge.

[simon1966]

Welcome to the forum!!!

I have a 5 and 7 year old and we are very much into HO scale. Some of the locomotives and rolling stock have very fine detail that requires careful handling, but there are many decent quality brands that are not overly expensive and with care can be handled by a 5 year old. Both my boys are quite skilled now at getting trains on the tracks and not causing damage.

Most of the brands have plastic bodies. Athearn make decent quality lower cost locomotives that are not so detailed as to be too fragile. LifeLike Proto 1000 line (Avoid LifeLikes non Proto line, they are cheap and of poor quality) is also a good, solid inexpensive line well suited to smaller hands. The LifeLike Proto2000 line gets a bit more detailed and fragile, but they are some of my favorite locomotives and often great deals can be had on them on the web and at train shows. Atlas makes excellent locomotives, the newer ones being perhaps above Proto 2000. Some of the older Atlas models, like the S-2 switchers are nice and sturdy and good for careful young ones. What you will find in HO is that most of the manufacturers are making the locomotives more detailed (=fragile) and have been pushing prices higher with integrated DCC decoders and sound.

This should get you started! HAve fun

[cwclark]

hello and welcome...I've been modeling in HO for over 25 years and have found that to get good quick in this hobby you're going to have to do some studying first...If i were you, i'd start out with a few books and read them ...The one's i'd read first are all kalmbach publications ...on my list would be a book about benchwork, wiring, scenery, and track plans...now to answer your question..there are a lot of HO locomotives out there...they nearly all have plastic shells (except for brass and that's way out of my pocket book range) but the frames are metal...here are some good locomotives to start off with....Athearn, and Athearn Genesis, Atlas, Proto 2000, and BLI to name a few..these are the most popular...I like Athearn and Athearn Genesis the best but try out a few of the other brands and see which one you prefer...also, a lot of it has to do with the power pack...I like MRC power packs but there are also a lot of other good ones out there..if you stay away from those toy train packs any choice you choose should perform well for you....Chuck

[Anonymous]

Good advice so far. Heres another tip, try to stay away from bachman, some of the engines look really nice but are very poor quality.
Since its a first layout I suggest taking an easy laid back apporach. Stay with things like roadbed and realistic rolling stock. But ultra realism should probably be attempted after you get the basics of layout building finished.

Good luck and have fun!

[Anonymous]

WELCOME ABOARD!

There are 15+ loco manufacturers out there and a lemon or two.
Athearn blue box, Trainline and P1K are not expensive and enjoy a reliable reputation.

[howmus]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JCtrain

Good advice so far. Heres another tip, try to stay away from bachman, some of the engines look really nice but are very poor quality.

Not completely true! I stay away from their Standard Line, but the Spectrum lines are excellent runners and have good detailing.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your advice, I do appreciate your comments on engines and am pleased. Concerning track, I am interested in the Bachman E-Z track after looking at the various types out there. Can you offer any pros and cons here?

[selector]

I can, JnM Lines. I recently completed an 11X8 layout with a mix of EZ Track and Flex-track. I have a substantial grade, tunnels. two bridges, and about five turnouts...only (the wiser, more experienced modelers are wincing. I clearly don't have enough staging track if I only have five turnouts).

The EZ track worked very well for me, including joining it to flextrak. However, I feel that the EZ track turnouts are not very good. There is a lot of wobble at the points, and each turnout varies from another in terms of the height of the point relative to the outer rails. I would stay away from them unless you are highly skilled at laying track or are running heavier On30 locos and rolling stock. My loco runs well on the line, but bounces through turnouts, despite my attempts to even them out.

If you were to press me for robust advice, now that I have some experience, I would use Flex-track and buy better turnouts. I will defer to others who have used those other makes to fill you in on their respective advantages and disadvantages.

[simon1966]

Take a look at the Atlas Trutrack. This is another track system using code 83 tracak that is mounted to plastic road bed. I was very happy with it when I came back into the hobby. One thing that is nice, is that you can remove the track from the roadbed and use it on a more permanent layout later.

[Anonymous]

Besides brass and plastic, there are a few die cast bodied locomotives out there. The detail of the ones I've seen is very good. Lionel's HO Challenger and Trix's Big Boy are two such examples. Several of the MDC kits I have seen also have die cast metal bodies (boilers and such). I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones that came immediately to mind for me.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JCtrain

Good advice so far. Heres another tip, try to stay away from bachman, some of the engines look really nice but are very poor quality.
Since its a first layout I suggest taking an easy laid back apporach. Stay with things like roadbed and realistic rolling stock. But ultra realism should probably be attempted after you get the basics of layout building finished.

Good luck and have fun!

Yes stay away from bachmann. Bachmann 5 and Bachmann Plus are low quality stuff. However, the Bachmann Spectrum line (black box with gold letters) are very good. Especially thier steam engines. I am happy with my Spectrum diesels as well, very low current draw, good detail and they pull great.

[TurboOne]

Jnm, [#welcome] to the forum. Lots of great folks here. I have a son 6 and a daughter 9 and I will kindly disagree with the above advice. Entry level while not high quality, is great for kids. The detail is not like a BLI but then most of these high end trains are over priced. The new trend is to make collectables not fun trains. While the details are awesome, and the sound and lights are great, paying $300 to $500 is nuts unless this fits in your budget.

We have all the cheap, low quality Thomas the trains from Bachmann. My son loves them. They are noisy, not powerful, but they are Thomas. He fills the cars with pigs, his favorite, and runs his bachmann desert storm train also.

The bottom line it is your railroad kingdom. Do what you want. While the quality is quite different between brands, Spacemouse and I are building trains for our kids. Look up spacemouse and see his bachmann hogwarts train. He does have some higher engines, and I am adding high end steam, but all trains are fun, just depends on what you want.

Bachmann is a good entry level product. Also there are entry level sets by many companies. Some better than others. Decide what level of money you want to spend. Take all the advice you have gotten here and have fun.

Also the bachmann EZ track grey is great track. We have both, as the black track comes with the sets. I didn't know it wasn't nickel silver at the time, but it works. We use it for a temp track. We also have regular track for our big layout. EZ is super easy, and you will have trains running in minutes instead of years. Have fun and enjoy playing with trains

Tim

[Anonymous]

my experience w/ HO, a 5 yr. old son and his 2.5 yr old assistant engineer....

E-Z track works great for us since our layout changes often. I have come home from work a few time to find a new layout. It takes about 5 minutes to go over it and fix a few connectors.

Bachmann kits loco is working OK for us and has absorbed one fairly nasty fall. Bought a cheap Bachmann steam loco that requires an occasional nudge but it doesn seem to bother the kids. We do have an Athearn Amtrak engine and it does run much better than the others.

My plan has been to stick with Bachmann or used stuff from train swaps whenever possible. My boys are great with their toys but things get broken. I can't see turning them loose with a few hundred dollars worth of trains at this age.

keep in mind, i'm not a model railroader. just a dad with boys that love trains.

Though I am starting to get hooked. We put together some buildings and I just go hit up to "build some hills, steams, roads and stuff like that". All in all it has been a lot of fun.

c

[Anonymous]

NOW is the time to investigate DCC... and despite previous comments, look very hard at the Bachmann offering. The kids will work it out before you do, but that should not be a problem!!!

[Anonymous]

[#welcome] Newbies! (Hint: click on highlighted words for links)

You may be tempted to buy used track on eBay but beware. AVOID BRASS TRACK. It takes a lot of work to clean and will not stay clean. The problem with all track is oxidation. With nichol-silver track, the oxidation conducts electricity. Not so with brass and steel track. Model Power makes their track from steel which will oxidize very slowly, but rust doesn't conduct electricity.
Atlas has discontinued making brass track but it's still around in stores and a lot of used track is sold on eBay. E-Z Track and Tru-Track are made with nichol-silver rail.

Brass and steel rail was the only scale rail available in the early days of model railroading. Old timer M.R.s used hair clipper oil to keep the brass to slow the oxidizing after polishing the rails. One thing you don't want on your track is oil. It attracts dust (another thing that affect conductivity on all track).

Although oxidation on nichol-silver is conductive, there is other gunk that collects on the rail. Dust is number one and crud from plastic wheel tread is another. Most experenced model railroaders replace wheel sets on all cars and dummy engines with metal wheel sets. Other contaminants are tobacco smoke, pet hair and overspray from all kinds of sources (hair, bug, air freshener ect..). Try to keep them away from the railroad.
Use a track cleaning bar such as a Bright Boy track cleaner. DO NOT USE SAND PAPER. The grit will get into the running gear of your locomotives.

A must have tool is a NMRA Standards gauge. Wheels on locomotives and rolling stock need to be checked for proper gauge. This will greatly help prevent derailments. It's also used to check track gauge, turnout points and flangeways. Very rarely is there a problem with the track being out of gauge (unless you bent or distorted the rail when installing track), but it needs to be checked if derailments are a problem. Another gauge that is a must have, if you are using knuckle couplers, is a Kadee coupler hight gauge. All couplers must be the same height.

Speaking of couplers, most likely your locomotives and rolling stock came with the old horn hook couplers. They work ok, but don't look anything like a real coupler and are not as reliable as knuckler couplers. Many new locos and cars come with knuckle couplers either installed or as an add on part.
Since you are just getting started, it would be eaiser to replace the couplers and wheel sets as you build up the numbers of rolling stock instead of doing it all at one time later. Kadee is the most popular brand and they have a huge assortment of coupler sizes to convert just about any equipment. Converting couplers on most cars and locos are a simple drop in instalation of a #5 coupler, so don't be concerned by the variety of couplers available.

A note about wheel sets. You will notice there are different diameter wheels available. The choices of brands, sizes and axle types can be overwhelming to a beginner. Don't worry, If you have any questions about what wheel size a locomotive or rail car has, ask us here in Forums or you at Local Hobby Shop (LHS). It won't take long for you to be experienced in identifing wheel size and axle type.
You might be thinking "Why would you need to change wheels on a locomotive if they already have metal wheels"? Well Athearn blue box locomotives, and some others, have something called sinthered metal wheels. It's a hard coating on the metal wheel to reduce wear. Nichol-silver plated wheels conduct electricity better and stay cleaner longer.

I hope I haven't caused any beginners to be confused or make your head hurt. If you have any questions, ask. We're here to help. A good place to start would be to buy the "Basic Model Railroading, Getting Started in the Hobby book.

[selector]

I will gladly take back my earlier advice against EZ Track in view of cnrobert's and Turbo one's experiences. I had not considered that young children might be avid road designers while you are at work. In that case, EZ Track makes sense....bad turnouts, and all.

However, if you ever want a more permanent or sophisticated layout, you will long since have learned that there is a better way.

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JnM Lines

Thank you all for your advice, I do appreciate your comments on engines and am pleased. Concerning track, I am interested in the Bachman E-Z track after looking at the various types out there. Can you offer any pros and cons here?

you may want to take a look at using flex track on cork, foam, or homasote roadbed...e-z track is very unforgiving..it's a set radius and if anything gets in the way of your track you can't change it...flextrack is very forgiving and can be fudged into any radii you want..it bends easily and is easy to lay...I use flextrack on cork road bed and my track is layed in such a way that the trains are allowed to meander anywhere i want them to ..e-z track will come out to be shaped in simetrical circles and ovals...Chuck

[Anonymous]

Again, all of you, thank you for your time and information. I have been given so many suggestions, and variants to consider it is fantastic, and perhaps a bit overwhelming. I am intrigued by the DCC elements available. As I mentioned prior, we do have a Lionel set that we both play with quite a bit. And my son, okay me too, has been playing with the Thomas wooden railway for about 4 years. He is a very capable of handling the O equipment and has more than a primer understanding and respect for all of his trains. We both, and our mom to a lesser degree, would enjoy operating individual trains within the same rail system. We aren't in a hurry and expenses aren't a primary restraint (within reason). So that being said... Would I in the forums opinion be making a grave mistake by py purchasing a Bachmann Spectrum DCC steam engine and a mess of Tru-track? I haven't even looked at a power supply so...

[simon1966]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JnM Lines

Would I in the forums opinion be making a grave mistake by py purchasing a Bachmann Spectrum DCC steam engine and a mess of Tru-track? I haven't even looked at a power supply so...

Not at all......This would be far from a grave mistake. Little hands might struggle getting it on the track, but it is a challenge that encourages patience and fine motor skills, so go for it!