O-Gauge Remorse??

[KEVINK22]

Well i have to say that i am with most of you who feel the size is alittle hard to deal with. I have been an o gauge fan since i can remember and now i am in my 30's, and a father of two boys. To me there is something about HO or smaller sizes that althought give you unlimited space to utilize, o gauge seems to be more scale.

Although MTH has done some interesting things with there HO trains in terms of sound and effects i still don't think that i would ever switch up. It's o gauge or nothing for me.

[mobilman44]

Hi!

Gotta get my 2 cents in here...........  

I started with Lionel in the 1950s, and have a sizeable collection today.  I put up a fairly large Christmas layout a couple years in a row, but it got to be a hassle.  I've also been in HO since the 1960s, and have an 11x15 two level layout which was started two years ago but replaced an older one that had been there for 14 years.  My point is, I have done a lot of "playtime" with both, and appreciate the plus/minus of each.

In my opinion, Lionel and Flyer "toy" (I mean that respectfully) trains are not better - or worse - than scale HO (or N or O or whatever).  They are different entities, typically giving the enthusiast their own type of enjoyment.  For me, those postwar Lionels bring me back to a happy time of my youth, while the scale Santa Fe and Illinois Central trains I run allow me to create my own model of a prototype world. 

Before I started the latest HO layout, I did a lot of soul searching.  Did I really want an HO world of class 1 trains, or did I want a narrow gauge road, or a Lionel layout?  Being older (I will be 67 too soon), I fully realized that this is probably my last layout, so I really took the decision seriously.  The HO world won out, but not by a heck of a lot.

To the OP I would say, enjoy your layout and make it the best you can.  Give it some time to either grow on you - or not.  At some point in the future you will be able to say, Yes, this layout / scale is what I want - or No, I really want to get the benefits of another.  If the later is the case, then go for it.  Otherwise, ENJOY what you have - and never look back again.

 

[LL675]

Mom and Dad gor me a couple HO sets growing up. Never cared for it. I liked O Gauge from the first tme I saw Dad's and my uncle's Lionels.

[overall]

I made a full conversion to HO 20 or so years ago, and came back to Lionel O gauge. I just missed my O gauge trains. I think the larger size has a greater emotional impact as others have said. I still have my HO equipment and still run it on an HO club layout, but my home layout is a 20 x 20 foot O gauge layout. Oh well,

George

[tailpipe62]

I have been buying Lionel for all the kids in my family for years.  For the last 25 years I have wanted my own, and a friend told me to buy just one thing.  I didn't understand, but I did.  And so it started...  I started out with HO because it was a little cheaper to get started.  Nothing fancy just middle of the road.

I have an area of 12X20 for the HO.  One other reason I started with HO, is I would like to set up my home town around 1930 showing the trains coming in to the local quarries, and then taking them to Lake Erie to the schooners for transport to Canada.

I also want a 12X12 for just Christamas with Lionel.  I just want to enjoy them, however being new, I am just learning.

Patrick

[nickaix]

I guess you have to decide what you really want.  If my main interest was modeling or scenery or creating a layout that evokes TRAINS magazine photos of long freights plying lonely mainlines through the wilderness... then I would probably be in HO.  But my main interest is the trains themselves; and in O, the trains are just more exciting, IMHO.  Like others, I like the heft. I like the noise, and the vibration of the table as they go by.

HO layouts I have seen, you feel like a mountain climber looking down on a railroad in the valley. O gauge trains are so much bigger, you feel more like a railfan sitting trackside. I like that; because at the end of the day, what I like is the trains.  And so, I am willing to sacrifice absolute scale fidelity in the equipment, and length in the consists, to get it.

BTW,  Is an HO train with 20 cars really "longer" than an O gauge train with 10 cars? Discuss.

 

[overall]

The larger the miniature train is, the closer it emulates the real trackside experience. If I didn't have such a large commitment to O, I would be in G.If I could afford it, I would be in live steam.

George

[BIGARTICULATED]

Hello, I thought I would chime in on this too. Unlike a lot of folks here, my first train set was HO. It was a Tyco set, with a big Illinois Central Alco Century, running on 18 inch radius track. I got it when I was five (I am now 35) I was hooked with model trains ever since. A few years later, probably when I was about eight or nine, I recieved a hand me down Lionel outfit. I don't know the number, because it didn't have boxes, but it had a 2025 steamer, and three cars, plus a 3656 cattle car and 154 crossing flasher. I was quick to notice how much better the Lionel set ran than the Tycos, Bachmanns and Life Likes I had accumulated by then. Unfortunately, this was the eighties, when Lionel train prices were outrageous, so, being a kid and not being able to afford to add to it,  the Lionel was put away.

As I got older, and started working, My HO collection grew, with Rivarossi, Broadway Limited, and Proto 2000 engines replacing my old toy stuff. I joined a local HO club, in which I made some lifelong friends and learned volumes about scenery, benchwork, and model railroading in general. Unfortunately, I also learned that sometimes HO scalers can take themselves a little too seriously. I sat in on my first prototypical operating session at a members house one day and found that out. 

Every time I would go into my local hobby shop, I remember I would always take notice of the gorgeous steam engines MTH and Lionel were putting out in O scale, but  with the $1000.00 plus price tags, they were well out of my reach, although the HO scale engines I was buying werent exactly cheap either!

Fast forward a few years, I began buying HO off Ebay. I also noticed in my surfing that you could buy used O Gauge trains fairly cheap. Just for nostalgias' sake, I bought a little Lionel 4-6-2 steamer and some new O gauge track to put around the Christmas Tree. It wasn't more than a couple of months before the track on my small 6X8 HO layout in the basement was removed and O gauge tubular track was in it's place. I was hooked! All those trains and accessories I wanted as a kid and young adult were now magically in reach (used ones at least!)

Now, when you go in my basement, you will find a 12 X 12 O gauge layout, with two loops of 072, and one loop of 031, and a yard with vintage and repro Lionel accessories. Right now, on the outer loops, are old Proto 1 MTH Scale C&O Allegheny and Scale N&W class A steamers, and on the inside loop a little Railking K4. I can turn on the throttles, and let these beauties run for long periods of time without worry of derailment, which was something I couldn't say about their HO counterparts (In a bit of irony, they also me cost me about the same as my HO scale versions of these same engines).

In closing, I can firmly say that I have no regrets and no temptations to switch back to HO. O simply runs better, and as of right now, seems to be a much better value. I too can't run long consists on my layout, and admit that maybe to a scale guy running a string of 6 or 7 postwar style cars behind a giant articulated steamer looks silly, but hey, I enjoy it, and it's my layout, so who cares. It's all about having fun!

(PS, I still have that 2025 set, and it often graces the inner loop of my layout, and runs just as good as ever!)