We love O model railroads and locomotives, there’s just no denying it? You can pick up the trains and really take a gander at them.  They’re not little trains; no one is going to carry one in his pocket.  You also can really make out the detail.  This is not one of those small little locomotives you need to go get your microscope for.  Don’t worry mom, your baby is not going to choke on any of the parts of this train.  Why do O trains just seem to come at us from some place deep in ourselves?  Here’s why:

Nostalgia: 

Baby boomers grew up with these trains and had their impressions ensconced into their minds even before they developed a notion of their own identities.  They’re the model trains from the holiday displays you remember as a boy.  They’re the o toy railroad that you wished you would wake up to on Christmas morning.  And they’re also likely to be the toy locomotives that you didn’t get because they were too expensive.  Because of this they are also the trains that remained forever in the realm of the wished for. Now that you have become a hobbyist again, they are the trains that are most likely to scratch that long festering itch.

Lionel:  

It was Lionel (now Lionel LLC) that popularized these trains.  Lionel is probably the representative model train making company in the United States.  They have survived more ups and downs than any other train maker and had more face lifts than Elizabeth Taylor’s had husbands. The reason why you associate toy trains with holiday is because of an advertising campaign invented by Lionel in the 1930’s.  It was these strategies that made them the kings of the model training world in the first half of the 1900’s.  It was mainly because Lionel started to corner themselves at the higher tier of the market that the prestigious train maker opened themselves up to usurpers.  By the Vietnam era when model training was at an all time low in terms of American participation, Lionel’s cheaper, littler sized fellow train makers drove it out of business. Now produced in China like most toy locomotive manufacturers, Lionel is ready to make a comeback.  The Lionel brand still retains a certain allure that other long standing train makers like Bachmann don’t.

Weathering and detailing are a breeze with O scale trains:  

Even though O gauge requires a lot more room than HO or N, its size also adds a great host of positives.  O scale model railroads are not as large as the German g scale that appeals to out-doorsy enthusiasts.  Real world trains are 48 times bigger than O gauge model locomotives.  It is a locomotive that is easy to pigment, decal and weather.  You don’t require incredibly fine motor skills so even the least coordinated of young people or most palsied of old folks can work with these locomotives.  Trust me, even when I’ve had one too many lattés and my mits are shaking like leaves in a storm I still have no problems with these locomotives.  Also, because of its dimensions, you can really take in the little aspects of these trains.  The O gauge human miniatures have discernable faces and the locomotives can be detailed to the point of making individual sleeper windows look open or closed. O gauges reputation is well deserved.

Hobbyists appreciate O gauge because of its full tradition:  

Mostly because of Lionel’s long history in American model training O scale is one of the favorite collector’s items.  Vintage Lionel locomotives of bygone eras consistently fetch good prices on e-bay and many toy locomotive enthusiasts like to collect Lionel locomotives from different decades so that they can have a sort of living history of the evolution of toy locomotives. 

But O scale is also a wonder in itself. It does take up more room than other smaller kinds of trains, but this drawback seems well worth it for most of us.  Lionel, because of its wonderful brand identification, is unlikely to fall to its debt troubles.  Even if all Lionel died, it is likely that someone would design a train of this scale.  Just ask the rocker Neal Young who loved O gauge locomotives so much that he was at one point part owner in Lionel and is still kept on an advisor to the company!

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

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