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O Scale Railroader Not An N Scale Fan
William writes:
“Good grief! I just bought my first N scale train, (and my last). I’m a Lionel guy and this is ridiculous! The only saving grace is my Bachmann train came with an extra set of Rapido couplers. Why do they make things so difficult?”
You are welcome to share your thoughts and personal experiences below.
6 Responses to O Scale Railroader Not An N Scale Fan
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O scale? Ridiculous! 😉
In N scale, I had a complete town on my layout in the length of less than four O scale boxcars. Fortunately, my eyes are still fairly good (and magnifiers are useful!) and my hands are mostly steady, even at my age (72). On the other hand, I wish I had the space for an O scale layout; it’d be an awesome N scale empire.
For N scale, I would avoid the Rapido Couplers. Micro Trains knuckle couplers are the way to go. You can buy Kay Dee Micro trains and many others that now have the knuckle couplers on them, you can even buy the couplers separate, and install them yourself.
I am currently 70 years old, and yes my eyes fail me at times, but I still prefer my N gauge trains. I can do so much more in a smaller space. I started in N gauge back in the early 1970’s, and still love my trains.
You obviously live in the past sticking with old O gauge. With N scale a whole new world opens with mountains and valleys,long trains and fabulous detail. This is 2022 not 1940.
Did you not realise what N scale is? Its 1:142 or 1:160 the size of H0/00, or 1:280 of your 0 Scale. It is small.
I used to model in N scale and migrated to H0. The other day I dug out some of my old N scale stuff and I couldn’t believe how small it is.
Small, but big in potential, prototype marshalling yards. proper 100 wagon trains. My N scale trains would literally disappear into the distance in my double garage. Wow!!
Give N scale a chance, its potential will grow on you
Consider. The number of cars, etc. that are available. O scale requires a lot of space, and if you have enough, go for O. But to be honest, and IMHO, HO scale is a good compromise. Plenty of stuff available and still small enough for a decent size layout. I tend to agree about N though, in that you will need to change out all the couplers to Micro Trains. In HO, those are Kadee. And may be the same situation in HO, in that you’d have to change out all the couplers to Kadee. So if you stick with N, which is what you say your bought. Then, as with most of us with vision problems, a good Opti-Visor and many different reading glasses will help.