Many a newbie model railroader will decide that, instead of HO, they like 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. Here are some common 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 got to notice that box automobiles and passenger vehicles are not the same length. If you are recreating an 19th century freight route you might be alright but if you decide that instead you’d like to run a modern Amtrak passenger train you may be tormented with derailments with such a tiny turning radius. Besides the functionality of too tiny a turn radius you also have the distinct fact that it just doesn’t look that practical.

Are your inclines too steep? Most new model railroaders envisage some sort of tunnel or bridge in their layout where the trains will run beneath its own track or up over the roads the vehicles travel. When you are working in smaller scale where you have room to build long inclines this isn’t sometimes a problem. Not so with O scale. Given the height needed to clear another train track your O scale layout will need a very long incline indeed particularly if you’ve created a long train to start with. You’re not going to go from ground level to train clearing bridge height in just two feet. If you do not have huge layout, one solution is to send your lower track a little underground so that your higher track does not need to rise as much.

Is your landscape out of scale? Even though a locomotive is higher than an one story house we must recollect 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 buying any accessories or buildings for your layout make sure 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 alongside everything else, O scale modeling can actually be confusing when it comes to matching the proper track to your train. Way back to the early days when these toy trains were run on glossy three rail tracks there were some major innovations that include 2 rail systems, more authentic O gauges and the choice of running O scale trains on narrow tracks. Do your research before purchasing 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 usual mistakes in mind when making plans for your layout and it should make building your O scale train layout much more delightful.

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