After 25 Years, Leaving HO.

Well, Kids...

Not long after I celebrated my 25th anniversary in the model railroading hobby (Dec. 14, 2011), I finally started divesting myself of my HO scale stuff.

I had made the decision a while back that I was going to upscale to O gauge, due to the fact that it was just getting to be too much for my eyes.

I'm 36, by the way. I've had "low vision" all my life (I'm an albino) and working on HO for a half-hour here and there when I was in high school and college wasn't too taxing on my eyes. But, now that I've been in "the real world" and actually have time to spend "tinkering" with my various hobbies, 4-5 hours working on projects gets to be a bit much (even with frequent breaks to rest my eyes!). So, the only way for me to stay in the hobby is to upscale.

I'm a little sad to leave HO, as it's been my scale of choice for over a quarter-century, but, I also look forward to my new projects in O. And, it's not just the new scale that excites me... I'm drastically changing my modeling theme as well, as I am leaving the North American modeling scene and lookiing "across the pond" to the British Isles and modeling some of their wonderful steam equipment. Right now, I'm particularly enthralled with one of Sir Nigel Gresly's A1 (later modified to an A3) express passenger locomotive and British railway icon, the #4472, "Flying Scotsman." To say it's a beautiful piece of equipment would be doing it a diservice. I plan to scratchbuild the equipment on my O layout, and one of the locomotives will be based on the 4472.

And, speaking of the Flying Scotsman, I belong to a model railroad club here in Minnesota, and want to build a model of the Flying Scotsman in OO scale to run on the Club's HO lahyout (as HO and OO run on the same gauge track). It will be built to appear the way she did in 1969 during her goodwill tour of the United States with the locomotive fitted with a cowcatcher, bell, chime whistle and headlamp hauling the nine car passenger train decked out in chocolate and cream livery. I think this project will be a wonderful "retirement" project and a dignified end to my HO modeling career. (Dare I use the term, "swan song?")

Anyway, I'll start a thread on the project once I get things rolling on that. Right now, I'm looking at equipment (Hornby products) and reseraching more about the train on its tour of the US. But, I will keep you guys updated on that.


So, this is my official announcement of my leaving HO scale. It's been a wonderful 25+ years and I enjoyed every minute of it.

And, God help the O scalers... there's about to be a lot more LNER (London and North East Railway) "Apple Green" 1:43 scale (British O scale) steamers plying the rails of southeastern Minnesota (and possibly the tri-state area)!!! RULE BRITANNIA!!! :D

Erik,

You need to get one of those plump, blonde Minnesota girls who populate your area to sing over your HO layout. THEN, it will be over!

Good luck with your project. After ten years in HO, I switched to N. I was 29 then. Trying to raise a family (in SE MN) in a series of ever-shrinking homes. Finally, I built an HO Timesaver, and found it to be hopelessly boring. If I couldn't make my space bigger, I had to make my trains smaller.

I was in a model railroad club with a fellow who wanted to switch from N to HO. I swapped him my HO stuff for his N stuff. Now, I have enough room for HO, so I built a large N layout instead. 30 years+ of accumulating equipment for this general goal has done me well. I'll stay in N until I can't see it anymore.

Good luck with your O scale project. I saw the "Flying Scotsman" pass by on the BN tracks opposite Winona on it's US tour in, I think, 1970. I was impressed by how quiet it's three-cylinder sound was as it went by the old passenger shelter on the northbound track.

Pegler waved at me as I took a picture.

4472 was on the small side as far as steam locomotives go, but didn't look "out of scale" in real life. So I think your 1/43 scale model will not look out of place alongside 1/48 scale models. How are you going to address the coupler issue?

At one time, Cal Scale carried a pretty complete line of brass appliances in both O and HO. To judge how these would look on a 1/43 scale model, you would almost have to put it up to the model. Although steam locomotives here were either built by a handful of builders, or made in-house, the accessories were commonly used across the industry. With few exceptions (air pump vs. vac. pump, couplers, etc) most of these should already be on the model. You could substitute British-prototype accessories with American-type, if the 1/48 vs. 1/43 difference would not be a problem.

I think it would look good with a dual-lamp headlight, like used on South African steamers.

Les

Les,

I'll see what I can do about the Valkyrie women singing a final noturne to my days in HO.


As for the Scotsman...

So, she danced along the Mississippi going to/coming from her run through Canada, eh? I was not aware of that, but that's cooll to know (and gives legitimacy of the OO version running on the club layout! :D ). I do believe I'll have to have a scale-sized Pegler standing on the footplate waving to the onlookers as well!

Pegler, having a chat with someone on the platform...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/train-pix/ ... ngscotsman

I, too, have noticed how quiet British steamers tend to sound, as opposed to their counterparts here in the US. Espeically the #60163 "Tornado" that was built in 2008. It practically "whispers" as it rolls along.

As for the issue of mating equipment, when the 4472 was here in the US, she was outfitted with a "buckeye" or, as we call them, "knuckle" coupler on the front of the engine to be FRA compliant. My model will have the same, plus, from what I can see from the film and photo archives of the tour, the observation car (done up as a British Pub named "the Fireman's Rest") retained its "buffer and chain" setup (or, at least the chain, anyway), but my model will divert from this and have another buckeye on the tail... just in case the club members want to "tow" her from behind, or add a helper. (Mind you, it will be odd to see that elegant, British train hauled around by DM&E SD40s or ACEs, if the membership so desires!)

Erik,

Yeah. She could sing your Tycodammerung.

Les

I got out of H.O. Scale my self and changed over to N Scale at home once I started to run out of space for what I wanted to do. I did however keep 3 H.O. Scale locomotives and a dozen cars to run up at a local railroad club so that I could have an excuse to get out of the house when the wife has her friends over for coffee