All Aboard! Tracking the Model Railroad Hobby - Vivian Pettijohn - February 1983

Vivian Pettijohn

Imagine yourself only three-fourths-inch tall instead of 5 feet 6 inches (or five-eighths inch instead of 4 feet 6). Or imagine everything else around you shrunk down to that small size while you are left as a giant to watch over it. Your one-story house would only be 2 1/2 inches high! In the world of model railroading, this is the size of an HO-gauge layout. HO-scale models of trains, trees, even people are 1/87 actual size. For example, you could couple 87 HO 50-foot boxcars end to end and they would stretch as long as one real 50-foot boxcar. It is a small world, but it can provide large amounts of fun. Half the fun of model railroading is in building your own setting (called a layout) whether it is a city, small town or countryside; the other half of the fun is in running it. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library