I've been watching a YouTube series about the construction of a garden layout in England. The builder is using O gauge track, but it has only two rails. What's the story?
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How many rails did you expect?
I only see two rails in the video, not three. There are 2 rail O gauge trains.
We have a whole forum here on OGR dedicated to two rail trains.
Ron
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Jerry,
I see you are pretty new to the forum - Welcome!
O scale two rail is large segment of the overall market. 3 rail standard gauge and O was developed in part to allow ac operations which simplified the use of turnouts,and was of course popularized by Lionel and others. All other gauges use two rail track with a few exceptions. There is some studded center rail by Marklin, and some outside 3rd rail in multiple gauges, similar to subway trains.
While it may be slow in arriving, the future is likely battery powered trains and remote controls via radio, bluetooth, or some other communication method.
I've been following this garden layout too. It's making me want to build one! I have to assume he's using a battery powered loco. You could keep good conductivity on the rails outside but it would be a lot of maintenance in my opinion.
@jhz563 posted:Jerry,
I see you are pretty new to the forum - Welcome!
O scale two rail is large segment of the overall market. 3 rail standard gauge and O was developed in part to allow ac operations which simplified the use of turnouts,and was of course popularized by Lionel and others. All other gauges use two rail track with a few exceptions. There is some studded center rail by Marklin, and some outside 3rd rail in multiple gauges, similar to subway trains.
While it may be slow in arriving, the future is likely battery powered trains and remote controls via radio, bluetooth, or some other communication method.
Thanks. Yes, I am new to this. After watching a bunch of Lionel videos on YouTube, I bought a Strasburg set barely two weeks ago. I'm not rushing to begin a layout, though. My last experience with Lionel was when I was about 10.
I'm amazed how the technology has changed. Bluetooth! Even the change in the type of track available is making me slow down and think about what to do.
@BillYo414 posted:I've been following this garden layout too. It's making me want to build one! I have to assume he's using a battery powered loco. You could keep good conductivity on the rails outside but it would be a lot of maintenance in my opinion.
They must have lithium batteries that can be recharged while inside the locomotive. I'll have to look into that.
@Ron045 posted:I only see two rails in the video, not three. There are 2 rail O gauge trains.
We have a whole forum here on OGR dedicated to two rail trains.
Ron
Well, as hard as it may be to believe, I made am mistake. : (
I typed "three," instead of "two." I didn't realize that O gauge came in two and three rail variations. Obviously, Lionel needs that center rail.
@Jerryc41 posted:They must have lithium batteries that can be recharged while inside the locomotive. I'll have to look into that.
Check out Bluerail from Dead Rail Installs.
This is just a mock up I wanted to test two MTH F7's. One running on DCS and the other on Bluerail Battery. There are other very good videos on Battery Operation. Bob Walker on OGR has some good stuff with the battery in the engine.
Have Fun!
Ron
@jhz563 posted:
O scale two rail is large segment of the overall market.
I don't know where you heard that one, but that's completely inaccurate.
HO scale alone makes up over two-thirds of the overall model train market. Of the remaining third, N scale has the largest portion. What remains of that sliver of the market pie, is all the other scales, of which 0 is the biggest portion of that fraction.
But 0 is the most diverse: You have 0 gauge, which is the largest group. At one time years ago, 0 scale referred directly to 2-rail 0 scale trains, which were also scale proportioned models. Now, just to muddy the waters a little more, we have 3-rail 0 scale: Scale proportioned trains that run on 3-rail 0 gauge track.
The 2-rail 0 scale guys often grumble about lack of product. But it's nothing personal: It's simple economics. There has to be enough sales of a product to justify production of the product.
The 3-rail 0 scale trains is certainly a driving force in the current retail market, but hardly the largest portion of the market by a long shot. Lionel has said what keeps them in business on a day-to-day basic is NOT the scale train market, but the traditional starter set market.
Bear in mind the current minimal order for scale locomotives is 25 (twenty-five, period). And there are cancellations because that low number wasn't even met. And that's also 3-rail, not 2-rail.
An example: When Lionel finished the K-Line Collector Club SD70 MAC,. they made just over 3,000 of them, which Jerry Calabrese called an exceptional and unusually large production run for a scale product. When K-Line offered the Kennecott Copper MP-15 (a scale "proportioned" unit, but hardly a scale model), by July of that year (1997), over 20,000 of those had been ordered... I got that info directly from K-Line. And the orders were still coming in. They expected the total run as high as 25,000-30,000. Current Lionel BTO minimal production runs are 25 units (twenty-five, no added zeros).
Sorry to get off topic. Not knocking any single interest group in 0. But one could get the impression from reading this forum, that "scale" is taking over 0, but that's just not the case.
