O 3-rail vs. S

[spankybird]

Welcome to the CTT part of the Forum



If you check the radius of ‘S’ gage and ‘O’ gage track, you will see that there isn’t that much difference in it. So you will need about the same amount of room to turn the train around or to make a loop. So the difference is the scale length of a run. In 12 feet, it isn’t that much either, ‘O’ gage being 1:48 and ‘S’ gage being 1:64.

Hope this helps some
tom

[flick]

Hi all. This is my first posting to this particular forum, although I've posted to others on this site. I'm having a heckuva time trying to figure out what scale to do my layout in, and I thought I'd throw it out here and see if anyone can help me chop up my mental block! I've been reading and researching for months now, and I'm just totally confused on what to do. I know I don't want to do HO because I did that years ago and just want to try something different.

I had originally thought N because I like seeing trains run through scenery. But after buying a few items I discovered that N is, well, small! Next was On30. Nice, but it's pretty limited to narrow gauge railroads [:O], and that's not where my interests lie.

O is very intriguing because the other thing I love about model railroading is detailing scenes, and you certainly can do that well in O! But it takes up a lot of room. I'll have an approximately 12-foot square area in the basement to work with, and I'll probably get pre-fab benchwork of 2 1/2 to 3 feet wide for the layout. (Don't have the power tools or the skill to build my own!)

Then I came around to S. To be honest, I hadn't considered it much at first because I didn't think there was much out there, but now I know that's not the case--there are plenty of places to get track, locomotives, etc. And we were an American Flyer household growing up, so there is some nostalgic appeal as well.

If you've been kind enough to read this far without dozing off, please help me decide which scale would be best for me. I like the size of O, the simplicity of wiring that comes with 3 rail, and how many figures and details are available for it. I also like S because it's a nice size without being as big as O, but I am concerned about how many detail items are available. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Peter