Hope everyone is having a good holiday season. During the down time I have been working on designing my own home layout. While looking for inspiration I came across the idea of using HO scale layouts as a starting point for layout out design. This got me thinking, what would popular 4x8 HO layouts look like as 4x8 O gauge layouts. This would offer a happy medium for both prototype modeling and toy train collecting while still being easy to build. Here are two of the track plans I have transposed to O gauge so far.
Here is the Black River Junction in O gauge. This track plan features an O42 outer loop and an O31 inner siding. It still has enough room for industries, a town scene, and a connection to an off layout extension just like the HO version. Track is Gargraves Flex with Ross Switches. Berkshires and Hudsons would be right at home on the outer loop, while and 0-8-0 or RS-3 switch the industries, though an off layout extension would be needed to provide enough off a switching lead.
Turtle Creek in O gauge would make a great starting point for someone who has any of the Pennsy themed starter sets from Lionel as it draws inspiration from an Appalachian prototype. All curves and switches are O36 and this plan was designed using Fastrack. Some of the track connections had to be forced in Anyrail, but the Fastrack system should have enough tolerance to make this plan possible. The outer yard tracks can be done away with to allow for a longer run if one would like.
These layouts seem to be good combination of realistic operation and the O gauge charm we all love. Let me know what you guys think, I have a few more I plan on doing this week.
