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Many a amateur model railroader will decide that, instead of HO, they wish to build their railroad empire using O scale model trains. While the bigger trains may appear easier to work with and just plain more fun they may also be a source of disappointment to the green. These are some typical mistakes made with O scale trains.

Is your turning radius too tight? While the minimum turning radius for an O scale train is twenty-four inches you have to realize that box autos and passenger cars aren’t the same length. If you’re recreating an 19th century freight route you may be ok but if you decide that instead you would like to run a modern Amtrak passenger train you may be tormented with derailments with such a little turning radius. Besides the functionality of too little a turn radius you also have the noticeable fact that it just doesn’t look that pragmatic.

Are your inclines too steep? Most new model railroaders envision some kind of tunnel or bridge in their layout where the trains will run beneath its own track or up over the roads the autos travel. When you’re working in smaller scale where you have room to build long inclines this isn’t sometimes an issue . Not so with O scale. Given the height needed to clear another train track your O scale layout will require a long incline indeed especially if you have made a long train to start with. You’re not going to go from ground level to coach clearing bridge height in just two feet. If you don’t have big layout, a possible solution is to send your lower track a touch underground so that your higher track does not have to rise as much.

Is your landscape out of scale? Although a locomotive is higher than an one story house we must remember that in actuality trees still tower over trains. No where is this single mistake made more than with O scale train layouts. The same scaling mistake is common with outbuildings and folks. When purchasing any accessories or buildings for your layout ensure that you know it is to scale and not that it just looks to be the correct scale.

Does your train match your track? Unlike Ho scale where everything pretty much works with the rest, O scale modeling can truly be confusing when it comes to matching the right track to your train. Since the early days when these toy trains were run on shiny 3 rail tracks there have been some major breakthroughs that include two rail systems, more authentic O gauges and the choice of running O scale trains on narrow tracks. Do your research before buying even your first train set, because once you have chose a track, you’re stuck with it or will be doing a major overall down the road.

Keep these common mistakes under consideration when arranging your layout and it should make building your O scale train layout much more pleasurable.

Emil Sudhakaran is a model train expert. For more great information on n scale model trains, visit http://www.modeltrainsguide-emil.com/ho-model-train/.