It's Monday and How Big or Little Are You?

[TomPM]

Good morning folks

How was everyone’s weekend? We had a busy one as my son played in his first varsity football game for the Drexel Hill Raiders Pee Wee squad. They defeated the Ridley Park Parkers 33 to 7 in an exhibition game called the Raider Bowl. He is the starting center and the kicker. On his first ever kick, an onside kick, he recovered the ball! Hopefully we can get and keep his weight down. We play in a weight league and right now he is about 2 pounds over. Our first game is in two weeks.

All the youth football excitement, grocery shopping, and planning and scheduling my daughter’s upcoming birthday party kept me away from the layout and work bench. I did make a few mental plans, however.

We are starting a new tradition here with this post. We are having a good morning post with a topic to discuss as an added bonus. So take a few moments and say hello and tell us little something about what is going on.

Oh yeah, the topic! I thought we would start off with a nice simple basic one. Yes I know it has been done before but that may have been a long time ago. We have new folks here on the Gauge and they may not have known that. So with out further ado:

What scale do you model in and why?

Myself I model in HO. I have dabbled in other scales such as N and O. My first train set was given to me when I was three years old by my father for a Christmas gift. It was a Lionel set. Now some 40 years later that locomotive still runs under the McIntyre Christmas tree with my son at the throttle. For where we lived O was too big and a few years later my father set up an HO scale layout in the basement. It was a simple oval and it remained active for some 25 years until we moved. I tried N-scale for a while but left due to the poor quality of equipment back in the early 1970s. When I got back into modeling a few years ago most of my equipment was HO so I went that way. The scale is just right for my clumsy fingers and it also seems to withstand the tests from an 8 year old. We are getting into G-scale. We have a small lop of track in the garden. It is half ballast and I would to get back to finishing it. This hot summer has kept me indoors.

So how about you?

 

[Catt]

I am a multi-scaler though N is my favorite .I used to be a diehard HO type of guy and am in fact getting back into it heavily.

The detail and running ability of N is now on a par with HO (so are the prices :cry: ).I guess the main reason I stay in N is that I like to run long trains in fairly realistic scenery.That is something I could not do in HO even with half a basement at my disposal.

I also am into narrowgauge of the n30 varieity as I do both HO and O but thats for another thread.

 

[ezdays]

Good morning Tom. As my profile shows, "N and only N". When I first chose model railroading I bought one of those Bachmann HO sets, just to be sure that's what I wanted to do. I built a few kits and decided I would do likewise in N scale. I found that my eyes and hands still were able to do OK with the N scale and to think that I could get four times time amount of layout in the same space convinced me that N scale was for me. :thumb: I gave the HO set to my oldest grandson. The downside, well, I wish that I could have a bit more detail in the layout structures and scenery, and the trackwork is a bear to get right. :cry: Hmm, maybe the hands and eyes aren't as good as I thought they were. Regardless, I'm glad I stuck with N.

 

[alexander]

Good Morning everyone,

My name is Alex (Alexander), and i live in Far Northern New South Wales, Australia. I'm 14 years old, and model Burlington Northern in the 1970s, at a freelanced location.

Another thing, its 10 pm of a Monday night here, and when its our Saturday, its your Friday, also, its Winter here, not Summer, we have our Christmas in the middle of Summer. We also drive on the wrong side of the road too here'

Well, not much else to say, but i hope i will have fun here

Alex

 

[Ralph]

Good mornging all! I model in HO because way back in the late 60's early 70's Boy's Life magazine featured a series of articles about building a 4X8 foot layout in HO. I was inspired! The, a few years later, one of my uncles decided to switch from HO to N so he sent me all of his HO stuff! Destiny!

Ralph

 

[yellowlynn]

I was totally HO, but now, of necessity, I have "N" and G also. My 30" X 70" N is to carry to Boy Scout camp to assist in merit badges for RRing. The G is in a Pediatric Clinic in town that I keep up running. I'm pretty slow, but gradually getting some scenery into. Haven't been able to do anything with my HO in a long time.

Lynn

 

[MasonJar]

My first set was a Bachmann CPRail train fronted by an E-unit (I think... ). That's what got me into trains and HO. I find Nscale too small, despite my lack of space, and the larger scales would be very limited in the space I do have.

I am interested in going for a garden railroad at some point in the future though...! :thumb:

Andrew

 

[jasbourre]

Hello, I working on two layouts in the same room. I have an HO 11' by 6' with two main lines, Burlington and Canadian National. I also have a N gauge shelf layout that goes around the room its about 11' by 11' (lots of work to do with this one).
The important thing is I'm having fun with it and its a good way to spend time with my 13 year old daughter.

Hope everyone has a good day!

 

[RailRon]

H0 - at the moment, at least...

I started out in N scale in the late '60s - and then I tried to scratchbuild some freight cars. From there I went on to modifying locomotives...

Later, when my daughter was born, I had to tear down the 'Trim Creek Southern RR'. :cry::cry::cry: (Well, the girl was great, but SHE needed the room more than the TCS RR! ) So I resorted back to armchair modeling.

Then I read some books about narrow gauge lines (Beebe & Clegg books about the 3 ft. D&RGW/RGS, and then some books about the 2ft lines of Maine).
This got me hooked on Narrow Gauge and I realized that there were LOTS of diecast parts (Kemtron, Cal-Scale...) for scratchbuilders in H0 scale - and using the N scale track and loco mechanisms could also help to build up Maine 2-footers in H0 scale. Today it's called H0n30 - and newcomers think that this was something new... Ha!!!
So I started out on a new, small layout and started scratchbuilding rolling stock in H0n2-1/2 (as it was called then - in the early '70s!)

But life hit me over the head with more and more job duties (e.g. introduction of computers in the school!), and I had to stop model railroading for serious working on the job as a teacher/administrator - and beside that, first priority had the raising of my family! :thumb:
(All the room I had for my hobbies then was just enough to build some military dioramas, model sailing ships, and a collection of static model racing cars... )

In 2001 I FINALLY could rent an independent hobby room from my landlord (I fought for more than 20 years for that room! :curse, but from there I was on my way: I still wanted a narrow gauge line (to be able to do some some scratchbuilding) and some constant running line for 'background noise' in standard gauge. So I decicded to switch to H0 scale. Oh well, and that's where I still am...

Buit I'll have to admit that more and more I'm getting anxious when I look at the beautiful 0n30 models available today... Oh, well... Who knows... ops:

Heck, no! At first I want to complete the line up from Marian City to Trim Creek. Perhaps later, we'll see... sign1

Ron

 

[RailRon]

H0 - at the moment, at least...

I started out in N scale in the late '60s - and then I tried to scratchbuild some freight cars. From there I went on to modifying locomotives...

Later, when my daughter was born, I had to tear down the 'Trim Creek Southern RR'. :cry::cry::cry: (Well, the girl was great, but SHE needed the room more than the TCS RR! ) So I resorted back to armchair modeling.

Then I read some books about narrow gauge lines (Beebe & Clegg books about the 3 ft. D&RGW/RGS, and then some books about the 2ft lines of Maine).
This got me hooked on Narrow Gauge and I realized that there were LOTS of diecast parts (Kemtron, Cal-Scale...) for scratchbuilders in H0 scale - and using the N scale track and loco mechanisms could also help to build up Maine 2-footers in H0 scale. Today it's called H0n30!!! So I started out on a new, small layout and started scratchbuilding rolling stock in H0n2-1/2 (as it was called then - in the early '70s!)

But life hit me over the head with more and more job duties (e.g. introduction of computers in the school!), and I had to stop model railroading for serious working on the job as a teacher/administrator - and beside that, first priority had the raising of my family! :thumb:
(All the room I had for my hobbies then was just enough to build some military dioramas, model sailing ships, and a collection of static model racing cars... )

In 2001 I FINALLY could rent an independent hobby room from my landlord (I fought more than 20 years for that room! :curse, and from there on I was on my way: I wanted a narrow gauge line (to be able to do some some scratchbuilding) and some constant running line for 'background noise' in standard gauge. So I decicded to switch to H0 scale. Oh well, and that's where I still am...

Buit I'll have to admit that more and more I'm getting anxious when I look at the beautiful 0n30 models available today... Oh, well... Who knows... ops:

Heck, no! At first I want to complete the line up from Marian City to Trim Creek. Perhaps later, we'll see... sign1

Ron

 

[TruckLover]

Hi everyone,

I model in HO scale and have been doing so for about 2 years (I thinkops: , at least that). When I was little, 4 or 5, my grandpa had an HO scale layout in the garage that would come down from the rafters. It was on a pulley system and was I believe a 6' x 8' table. It was mostly steam stuff. When they moved to a different house, we had to put it into storage were it is still today (the track has probly all rusted and is bad now). :cry: :cry:

I have my own layout at my house in my room (click the link "new layout" in my signature). I have made it bigger and now it is a 12' x 2.5' x 4' L-Shape layout. It is mostly a switching layout because it is just not possible to fit a loop in that small space.:curse:

My grandpa is talking about making the garage out in back of their house bigger (they have a 5 bedroom house with a 6 car garage and a half an acre of empty land on there property). announce1I know what your thinking right now, a 6 car garage = mega dream layout , why would you need more room? Well because my grandpa loves tools . He has just about every tool you could possibly need for wood and metal shops. He has made both of my tables benchworks and he also halps me make things from scratch and from other things as well . So the garage is pretty much full with that stuff. The extension to the garage he said will have a train room :thumb: , a bigger art/sewing room than is in the house for my grandma , and more garage space for you guessed it, more toolssign1 . I’m not sure how big the train room will be but he said he wants a good-sized layout.

 

[N Gauger]

G and a little bit of N and HO too I also have a Standard Pre-war set... Started in HO, switched to N and when I got married, my wife bought me the LGB Starter set for our 5th anniversary the engine is still running great too 13 years old