Hello all-
I need advice because I have put myself into a funk trying to figure out the future of O gauge in our home.
We are a family of small layout (4'x8') runners (boys age 2 - 18), who like the bells, whistles, buzzes, sparks, flipping of switches, things going wrong, fast trains going off of the track, etc. of conventional O gauge, Pure boy enjoyment. We run Marx, K-Line, and Lionel. We do plan on having a larger layout in the future.
Over the years our track types have gone from O27 to something of a mix of O27, Fastrack from starter sets that my wife bought me, Atlas to investigate/play with, etc.. The largest track requirement is our Hogwarts with O36.
We mainly focus on starter sets, as they are usually cheaper and give us the bang for the buck that we need with all of the little guys. But, now, most of the starter sets are LionChief.
What track type recommendations would you give? I actually like tubular, but it seems to be getting phased out by everyone except Gargraves and switches are hard to find in the smaller sizes. Fastrack is nice, but pricey in comparison. The Atlas was nice to play with, but not made for young boys to work with, and it also seems to have supply issues.
What would your take on locomotives for the future be? The LioneChief starter sets look nice, but I get concerned with the technology being just something more to loose/break. Also, after watching videos of the canned sounds I immediately thought of how nice the plain clickety clack of the track is. I can stick to older conventional sets that are still here and there, or I can bite the bullet and go LioneChief, or build my own "set" with LioneChief + so I can get conventional running.
I don't mind spending more (within reason!) to get better, even if it means getting less to start with.
Thank you for any input that you have, I really appreciate it.
