O Model Railroad

An O toy railroad just seems right, doesn’t it? You can hold up the locomotives and really take a look at them.  You must have two mits to examine it even as an adult.  And you can really make out the detail.  You’ll never accidentally  step on this train.  Don’t worry mom, your kid is not going to choke on any of the parts of this train.  Why does it seem so perfect?  Here’s why:

Nostalgia: 

Baby boomers grew up with these trains and had their impressions ensconced into their memories even before they constructed a sense of their own personalities.  If you visited a department store during the holiday season as a kid you probably saw one of these trains in an elaborate display.  They’re the o model railroad that you fantasized you would wake up to on Christmas morning.  And they’re also likely to be the model locomotives that you didn’t get because they were too pricy.  They are part of the imagined world where all our most desired desires came true. Now that you have become a hobbyist again, they are the trains that are most likely to scratch that long festering itch.

O model railroads are more often than not Lionel train railroads:  

It was Lionel (now Lionel LLC) that popularized these trains.  Lionel is still perhaps the most famous brand in the toy train business.  They have survived more adversity than any other locomotive manufacturer and had more face lifts than Elizabeth Taylor’s had husbands. Lionel’s aggressive marketing in the pre-WWII era is the reason why you associate model trains with holiday.  Lionel took over the toy training world in the pre-World War II period by savvy marketing of this kind.  It was only during the baby boom after the soldiers came back that competitors like Bachmann started usurping Lionel by marketing smaller locomotives at bargain prices.  Lionel took the role of the high end locomotive that no one could buy and eventually filed for bankruptcy and was bought out in the sixties. Now based in Beijing like the majority of model locomotive manufacturers, Lionel is about to make a comeback.  The Lionel brand still retains a certain allure that other long standing train manufacturers like Bachmann don’t.

Weathering and detailing are a breeze with O gauge locomotives:  

littler locomotives just can’t match the ease and joy of O gauge locomotives.  O scale model railroads are not as large as the German g gauge that appeals to out-doorsy enthusiasts.  Real world trains are 48 times bigger than O gauge toy locomotives.  It is a train that is easy to pigment, decal and weather.  O gauge trains are perfect for those of us who don’t have greatly developed fine motor skills.  Even if you can’t paint the side of a barn you will find O gauge a manageable toy to work with.  Also, because of its dimensions, you can really take in the little aspects of these locomotives.  You can really personalize your toy training experience with O gauge since everything is on a scale that you could do them from scratch. There is just a lot more that you can do with an O scale toy railroad.

Model train fans appreciate O scale because of its varied tradition:  

Mostly because of Lionel’s long history in American toy training O gauge is one of the favorite collector’s items.  Classic Lionel locomotives of bygone eras often fetch good prices on e-bay and many toy train fans like to collect Lionel trains from different decades so that they can have a sort of vibrant record of the development of model trains. 

Even if this were a just developed gauge with no following, it would soon draw admirers simply because it just seems like the ideal size for a toy locomotive. It really is the ideal size for a toy locomotive and it is well worth the extra room that it swallows up.  Lionel, because of its great brand identification, is unlikely to succumb to its financial woes.  Even if it did, the long tradition of Lionel will keep O gauge lovers stocked up for a great deal of time into the future.  So what are you waiting for, start your O scale model train railroad today!

Here is more information on Model Train Scale. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.