Going back to HO........

Kno whow you feel, I have recently unearthed some of my N guage stuff. Ntrack modules, 32 feet of them, rolling stock, engines,, they sure are fragile!  and... tough to see

same here cheaper the O gauge.....miss my bli prr Q2....loved it..but went threw 3 of them do to falt smoke units that can short out and can cause problems with electriconics....was a good puller..pulled 40 cars with ease...

I recently seriously considered it myself. But O scale has one thing going for it that HO does not have..........................O is PONDEROUS!!!

Malcolm

Gee, when I was in HO, there was no electronics in it...think that is true for all the

brass locos I could get in that scale then of models not yet available in three rail O.  And the enticing plethora of structure kits, too.  Not going back, though...not going to fool with the track and lack of heft.

I'm kind of going in the opposite direction. I'm finishing up my first  N scale layout, a 28"x78" layout that sits on a counter next to the desk in my office. I was able to buy two Kato locomotives, rolling stock, Unitrack and a Digitrax controller for less than it would cost for me to buy a single O gauge locomotive and DCS/TMCC controller system! I can go out and buy 3 high quality Kato locomotives for less than a single Lionel or MTH locomotive. Of course N gauge is WAY more delicate and derailments are more common. The quality seems to be higher - I've had no problems with any N scale equipment (knocks on wood) whereas I've had to repair 75% of my Lionel operating accessories and 50% of my operating cars due to poor build quality. For me the biggest downside of N scale is the lack of sound effects. I upgraded one of my locomotives to include a sound decoder/speaker. It was a really tedious process and the resulting sounds were pretty underwhelming. I decided it wasn't worth the effort to add sound to my remaining engines. Guess that's to be expected from a speaker smaller than a dime! I also miss the reliable couplers and uncoupling tracks of O gauge. The magnetic couplers in N scale are pretty finicky at times. I think the biggest difference is that with N scale there's one standard for digital control. You can buy any engine, put in a decoder and run it with just about any digital controller. There's none of this DCS vs TMCC stuff to worry about and most modern locomotives are easily and cheaply upgraded to digital unlike conventional O gauge engines. Really wish the O gauge side of the hobby would get it together and agree on a single standard. They both have their pros and cons which is why I have both!

I've built up a small collection of HO locomotives that aren't made or I can't afford in O scale, or just thought were neat.  O is definitely my favorite scale, but it's tough to beat a full scale HO 3 truck climax (mostly metal) with DCC for around $100.  That would be at least a $700 locomotive in O scale.  It's amazing how much detail they managed to include on such a small locomotive.

I also have an HO Pere Marquette 1225, a custom painted GE 45 tonner that resembles the one that operates on the railroad I work on, and a couple other steam locomotives.

I have enough HO to sink a battleship. Will not be going back, will save some brass Northern Pacific Z4, Z5, A2,A4, and my stream line passenger set with F9s.

The rest I need to start listing on Ebay.

Unless somebody could suggest a better sight like OGR to sell HO?

MTH just put out their new HO catalog 61 pages of engines at prices us O Gauge folks can only dream about.  But like most of us into O to stay.

Jack

Nothing wrong with being AC/DC. I have HO GP40X, SD45-2, B23-7, B30-7, U36C, CF7, F45, SDP45, GP50, Decent SD45T-2 (with HT-C Dash 2 trucks) SD40T-2 & SD40-2 Snoot - Basically models that do not exist in O gauge.

O gauge needs to Quit rehashing U25B, RS3, FM if they want to stay relevant.

Lionel made a sharp O scale SD40T-2 in DRGW: https://www.lionel.com/Product...76E19&PageID=784  .  I won one of the Trainz auctions, got mine for a ridiculous $125 last year.  The F45 might not be commonplace in O, but Williams and MTH produce some outstanding examples in the FP45.

N scale has lots of compatibility issues too.....(I hate to admit I still have my 1969 Revell set)

Atlas track doesn't work with Bachamnn EZ which looks like but doesn't work with Kato. And there are just as many couplers today too.....my favorite were MDC which I don't think they make any more....They do have DCC but since I'm conventional....don't matter!!

BTW....finally finished the surgery on my BLI to remove it's dead brain. Removing it went quick....but decoding the 7 wire plug was tough....took lots of trail and error with my digital ohm meter. Runs fine but waiting on a 12 volt LED to replace the headlight which did not survive a 12 volt test!

I do run a loop of H0, but it's all tinplate H0.

Steve

You know what the real crime is? Most of the costs are in designing and assembling these things. Materials make up very little of the production cost.

If anything HO and smaller gauges should be MORE expensive, due to the extra work and finer motor skills required to assemble them.

At the very least they should cost nearly the same for the same level of detail.

Unfortunately, we have been conditioned to judge the value of things based purely on size (i.e. bigger = more expensive), and the O gauge manufacturers are taking full advantage!

For cripes' sake, working on an O locomotive is like wrenching on a small block Chevy engine compared to an N...

I have pondered scale versus scale basically because I like them all but when it comes down to cost, it seems like a half dozen or the other..this is less expensive but the cost of this or that is equal to or or just a tad less expensive. After decades in the hobby I think it comes down to size versus space available as well as ease of use on a equal footing. 

Before retirement, I had a large out of state project going on and I built a N scale layout on a door in temporary living and soon I got tired of fumbling around with the small size..

When electronics etc started to ramp up in O and with three failures on my hands, I went to tinplate and conventional control with the other stuff, so I came to the conclusion that ease of use also means reliability..and less fussing around versus running trains. A push button versus a lever is not a big deal. So smaller scales and command control are out the window...

The secondary market for tinplate is more stable and while some folks have an exaggerated sense of the value of the stuff ( I wish I had a dime for every time someone lists an item as rare when its common ) there are excellent bargains to be had.

The older I get the more I see a train is a train is a train..outside of space, cost and ease of use. That matrix has worked for me. O has more variety in that it has command control, all the way to tinplate and conventional...a whole spectrum of choices. 

HO, N etc...the smaller you go the less choices there seem to be..again, all in that matrix.

I know all about the siren song of HO: the locos and everything else look really good and you can get sooooo much more into any given space.  Prices are nice, too.  It's all very appealing.  

But, I agree completely on the "magnifying glass" stuff.  A lot of the pleasure I get from O gauge is entirely because the locos, etc., are large enough that I can work on them comfortably.  I never enjoyed working on N gauge stuff at all and too often HO was closer to that in difficulty/tediousness than to O.  I really enjoy repairing/bashing/scratch building and it is just a pleasure in O, but often less so in HO.

I can tell you one thing from my experiences in HO, it's really not less expensive than O when you get down to it for a relative space.  So a 4x8 HO layout will run about the same as a 4x8 O layout because with the HO you put more in it because of the extra space.

Now if you compare scale to scale with a 4x8 layout in HO to a 8x16 in O, the costs for O will certainly be higher.

I get the temptation for HO, been in it myself heavily.  My issue is that with kids it's just not near as fun as O and much more delicate.  The selection is nice, but then becomes cumbersome as well.

Maybe when the kids are older I will take a gander back at the smaller scales more seriously but until that point O will remain king in my house.  We do however love setting up the Kato N Scale track on a table and running the Athearn Challenger around every now and then.

Slightly off topic and sort of a delve into trivia..Older heads might remember the gauge that vanished? Remember TT gauge? I think it was 1:20 or thereabouts..I wonder why it evaporated?

Actually, it was 1:120, somewhere between HO and N.  I've never seen it anywhere, so I can attest to the fact that it either evaporated or never existed in the first place.

Thanks for the correction..I got my own curiosity going and found that folks collect it and still run it..and I thought tinplate was a small niche of the hobby Kinda reminds me of Lionel's misfired OO..I had completely forgotten about TT.

I found a large box of TT at a flea market one day. At first I could not tell the scale until the owner told me.......thus part of the problem. They were very nice and expensive

when new per the owner.

Another thing I noted as I was testing my now brainless HO scale BLI loco.......I've said before that if the electronics in my O scale equipment start failing....I'll do the same thing I did here.....it kinda nice knowing each time I hit that throttle the loco moves forward.......

TT is alive and well, and living mainly in eastern Germany. It was popular in England for a while, but faded a lot in the 1960's-70's. There is still quite a strong following for TT, and it is easy to obtain new products from Roco or Tillig and various other makes. In the USA you can get quite a selection from Reynaulds or Euro Rail 

ho NO!

Sometimes I think we'd be better off if the two dominant scales were TT and S scale.  

Jeff C

I think S scale has a number of positives.....the biggest is the amount of cheap vehicles, farm equipment and farm structures. Also most of the Plasticville stuff is usable. And with very nice stuff out there and coming from MTH it's a bright future. Now...just fix those couplers!!

I just like trains - any scale - and have some of everything.  (Except the tiny new T.  Why did they have to name it T, and invite confusion with TT?)

TT stands for 'Table Top' but 'T' stands for 'Three'. The track gauge of 'T' is 3mm. 

TT really stands for Table Top?  I had heard that, years ago, but thought it was somebody's idea of cute.

Yes, believe it or not, but 'TT' really does mean 'Table Top'. 

A man after my own heart. That's a very nice family portrait you posted there by the way!

Bob

I too have no resistance to trains. Since I was a kid I went from HO, O-27, HO, N, HO, G, O 3 rail......and I have the vast majority of the trains still....can't seem to part with them ever. Oh....and On30 too.....I am weak....

I am a member of a large HO club and a crew member on a very large HO home layout.  The new HO products, including MTH's, are just as reliable as any O gauge product in my experience.

DCC command control is wonderful and very reliable.  The nice part about DCC is that new decoders are not very expensive.  Some basic HO decoders cost less than $20.  Therefore, it is easy and inexpensive to fix an HO engine if a decoder is blown.  I can also go to the local hobby shop and pick up a pack of HO decoders.  None of the local hobby shops carry TMCC or MTH electronics.  

Kadee HO couplers work much better than any of the O gauge claw couplers.  Most new HO trains come equipped with Kadee or Kadee compatible couplers right out of the box.  I wish that Kadee would make an O gauge coupler that could be easily attached to an O gauge 3-rail truck (not body mounted). 

The detail on most new HO equipment is equal to or better than the O gauge equivalent.

I would guess that the cost of designing, manufacturing, and importing an HO engine or car is about the same as the equivalent O gauge engine or car.   The reason that HO equipment is less expensive, in my opinion, is that the HO production runs are much larger than O gauge production runs.  Thus the per unit cost is much lower for a piece of HO equipment.

What is the advantage of O gauge?  Size if you like more massive trains is one advantage.  The second advantage is that you can operate most 3-rail equipment on very sharp curves.  No serious HO modeler operates trains on O-36 (18 inch radius) unless they are running logging, mining, or narrow gauge.  The minimum radius on both my club's HO layout and my friend's HO home layout is 40 inches (O-80).   

The third advantage of O gauge is the ease of wiring 3-rail track for reverse loops, etc.  

Another advantage of O gauge is that you can reliably run it outdoors.

Joe  

Agreed......but the BLI DCC unit that fried in mine was a quasi sound speed unit that only works in DC power. An odd duck that to replace is over $100......and why I did a brain removal.  But yes....standard DCC is great and not costly....but I'm still conventional....so not an issue either way.

Personally, I like to install Timko can motors in old Flyer steamers and add G-scale decoders in the tender. Combined with a couple of relays triggered by the function outputs on the decoder, I can turn the lights and smoke unit on and off while running. They look good on S-Helper (now MTH I guess) track.

Link to T gauge: http://t-gauge.net/available-2.htm

http://www.tgauge.com/

I have a loop of Z and 3 locos and a few cars, inside my desk drawer at home.   I don't think I am ready for T gauge. 

Dave, when I read your thread topic, I was in shock. 

Glad you quickly came to your senses.

I have some T-gauge, and it really is minute. But it's amazing to watch and to play with. I'm thinking of using it as a 'garden railway' for a house on my O-gauge layout. 

I Thought 'TT' means "Tiffany's Trains"  Smile.  I been in H.O. for years and had enough.

The woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678

Tiffany

I'm not at all familiar with N scale. Do they have operating accessories and operating cars in N scale? That is pretty amazing if they do at such a small scale.

It doesn't excuse poor build quality in O gauge, but if they don't make comparable equipment in N gauge, you are comparing apples to oranges.