Must a HO Layout have Scenery/Buildings?

I think there is a Federal statute that requires all HO layouts to be sceniced. 

Of course not......it is your railroad. Detail (or not) as much as pleases you!

Donald

why bother cluttering up the view?

GVDobler posted:

I think there is a Federal statute that requires all HO layouts to be sceniced. 

I pretty sure he's correct.  Someone will be knocking on your door.

You can always add scenery if the mood ever strikes.

Rusty

I had a friend with a 30' x 60' HO railroad with three levels of track.  He ran 50-100 car Pennsylvania RR Coal trains.  It was affectionately know as the Plywood Central as he had no scenery.  He was also the president of the local HO Rivet Counter and Stickler railroad club.

HO model railroaders are just as diverse in their layout scenery requirements as O gauge people are. If you look at layout postings on the Model Railroader or Model Train Forum, you will see all types of scenery and track. Some layouts are super detailed, while others are less so and have a toy train charm to them. Others never get past the plywood stage. All of them have merit and it appears that their owners get a great deal of fun and satisfaction from them. It all comes down to what you like. 

Jim

Yes, there seems to be some perception that HO layouts have to be superdetailed in every respect, up to and including HO scale cat-tail reeds in a track-side swamp. (Saw that described in a mag once) This is probably due to a whole generation of model railroad magazine articles on "perfect" layouts.

By contrast, an HO rivet-counter friend of mine builds superdetailed models of railcars and other self-propelled rail vehicles, but he runs them in circles on a loop of track on a sheet of plywood. For him it's the model-building and not the realistic sidewalk cracks.

Do whatever turns your crank, and run that HO loop. I have fun debating my O gauge "live electric" locomotives with HO rivet-counters. "Those HO diesels and steamers are nowhere near prototypical with those little electric motors in them," I say. "Now this electric locomotive, on the other hand..." 

I tend to focus more on the train itself rather than the scenery it's traveling through.

I myself would rather see a decent detailed HO train on a raw slab of plywood than a mediocre train on a fully scened layout.

What I call decent details is Kadee couplers, cut levers, air lines and maybe some weathering from time to time.

I run a 100 foot O and HO ceiling/shelf layout with no scenery so I focus more on how the trains look.

No, HO layouts are as varied as O scale, Standard Gauge, G, etc. are.  I've seen and had HO layouts that had a fair amount of scenery and buildings, in other cases a couple loops and some basics like a station, small town, etc.

My current HO layout has been changed over to look like a British Countryside style, with a small village of shops (shoppes?), a station and mostly wider, green pasture areas.  Nothing too heavy in either structures or scenery, but enough to simulate a train going through the country.  I have a lot of fun running trains on it, because it's what I want for now.

When my family had a hobby shop, we had a club that built an HO layout in the basement.  After the trackage was put down, guys had a lot of fun running trains on just the track on roadbed, before the scenery and buildings went in!

The one thing that happens to me on the unsenicked portion of my S Scale Great Plywood Glacier tends to be a magnet for unfinished projects and things I'm too lazy to put away.

Rusty

The late Brad Bradley, an active standards guru and past officer of the NMRA, was very much into operations as well as standards, and had a large HO layout in his basement (yes, there really are some basements in Florida). His layout had no scenery or structures that I can recall. He was quite an active model railroader and seemed to enjoy his layout just fine, even without scenery!

Bill in FtL

HO scenery...

Do or do not... there ain't no rules. Your hobby. Your fun at stake. This song sums it up nicely:

Now excuse me, but I gotta' pick up my bass guitar and jam a bit... lovin' me that bass line.

Andre

Wow!  A lot of responses .  Good to know that HO doesn't automatically mean super detailed required .

Here is a shot of my version of the plywood pacific, otherwise known as the Foam Board Pacific. 

The above shot has only been in service for about a year at this point. It took me six years to get to this point. 

Here is a shot of my original section of railroad dating back to 1987.  Got the scenery shell up in 1990 after I moved the layout, just to protect the trains.  Started the rock work about 7 years ago.  I'll finish it one of these days. 

I keep about 11 people busy for 3 hours.  I've run 14 sessions over the last 18 months.  We are having fun, completed scenery or not.

Do what ya want, when you want to, and how you want to, and never stop having fun doing it. 

Regards,

Jerry