Huntsville 1:48

O Scale Is for the Chosen Few

Rev. Joseph W. Starmann — February 1978

Let us assume you are new to the hobby of model railroading, or else in flight from one of the smaller flea gauges, and are pondering the possibilities of O Scale. If you peruse the standard literature on the subject, you will be led to believe that the chief considerations which you must face are geometric and economic: O Scale requires four times the area of a comparable model railroad in HO, or sixteen times in N Scale. Kits cost roughly two or three times an HO kit for the same piece of equipment, and an imported brass locomotive will likely run $500.00 or $600.00, and sometimes well over $1,000.00. Conversely, the advantages are said to be chiefly operational—the trains actually stay on the track—and esthetic—you can actually see the detail on the rolling stock.

Well, so much for the standard mythology. You will not have wandered far into the world of O Scale railroading before you discover some of the more disconcerting facets of this segment of the hobby which will surely give you pause and may, without a proper amount of determination on your part, eventually persuade you to withdraw. In an effort to help you meet your destiny with major league model railroading, and to chart your course through some hostile territory, we will try to describe some of the more immediate hazards.

The first thing that you need to recognize is that O Scale has been for the most part a well-kept secret since about 1950. The major model railroading magazines give it only occasional and generally off-handed attention. It is not easy, even for the veteran O Scaler, to keep abreast of all that is being produced and all that is happening in his chosen scale. Only with the advent of two key publications, O SCALE RAILROADING and Dan Henon's O SCALE NEWS, have we had in "modern" times any adequate source of news and a forum for exchanging information of peculiar interest to the scale. Even so, it is still impossible to find in print an adequate introduction to the entire subject of O Scale railroading.

Every few years one major supplier, William K. Walthers, Inc., does manage to produce a large updated catalogue which serves as an excellent guide to the availability of supplies, but even here there are numerous and important lines missing. Finally, it turns out that the larger world of HO and N railroading has been so overwhelmed by r.t.r. plastic and brass imports that it is also difficult to come by articles and other printed information on the use of tools and construction techniques vital to more craftsmanship-oriented railroading in any scale, but especially essential to building a successful O Scale railroad.

It so happens that my professional work takes me several times a year to conventions and other meetings in various cities around the country, so I have long cultivated the habit of visiting model railroad shops in these towns to see if I can come home with an interesting souvenir of the place. All one has to do is search the yellow pages to come up with the names and addresses of one or two hobby shops which seem to specialize in model railroad supplies. Occasionally, I have achieved a real coup in this manner.

A couple of years ago, for example, I found a locomotive kit on a dealer's shelf which was currently listed for about $250.00, but for which he was eager to take $100.00. (He hadn't seen an O Scaler in a long, long time.) Now and then you will find some real classic items which all too frequently have waited many years for a buyer. Most often, however, the most significant thing you will collect on such a visit is the startled or bemused look on the face of the dealer. Recently, I stopped in at a shop in Omaha—the model railroad shop in town, I had been confidently advised. At first, the dealer, a very pleasant elderly man obviously retired from some more useful line of work, tried hard to sell me some used Lionel, finding it difficult to comprehend that I wanted real O Scale. Then I began to worry that he was going to try to catch me for resale to some museum. Before we parted he admitted that he actually knew of two or three other O Scalers in the Omaha area. I went away with a Quality Craft kit, one of which I already owned, because I was determined to escape despite everything with a souvenir of Omaha.

At this point, we can conclude that the first set of personal qualifications you will need to enter the world of O Scale include the instincts of a bloodhound, the resoluteness of a detective, and the single-mindedness of a tiger on the hunt. As in religion, politics and marriage, the best thing you can hope for is to find another human being with similar interests. As a matter of fact, I am pretty well convinced that the self-made O Scaler is totally non-existent. Most model railroaders seem never to have seen a piece of real O Scale equipment; many HO modelers who have visited my workshop or our railroad have expressed genuine amazement at the bulk, detail and operational qualities of the O Scale they have seen for the first time.

Many have seen pictures and other references in the general hobby press, but photographs of O Scale equipment have a way of looking much like photographs of HO equipment, and the mathematical data are sufficiently abstract to lack real impact. Unfortunately, many O Scalers are very private people—one could say "closet railroaders"—unwilling to let even their closest friends know their quarter-inch addiction.

I'm not sure why this should be, but it does make for a rather lonely feeling on the part of those of us who would willingly share our fun and our interests. In my work, I travel around the central part of my home state a great deal, and I belong to a railfan club with 200 active members, many of them personnel at the university, and yet I am aware of only two other O Scalers outside of the club. Thus, while I would like to offer as my second recommendation to newcomers to O Scale that they seek out the advice and companionship of other sympathetic practitioners, I'd have to admit that such a suggestion would be very difficult to implement. Probably we should mount a campaign to persuade more O Scalers to "come out."

I was initially infected with the O Scale virus nearly thirty years ago as a teenager, thanks to the opportunity to view, at that tender age, the work of the great O Scale club layouts in the Saint Louis area, where I grew up, and to the friendly guidance of a couple of older modelers who were willing to act as mentors. That turned out to be a rare as well as fortunate experience, because subsequently I have been dismayed again and again by the sour mentality of many O Scalers.

The newcomer and the outsider are frequently surprised to find that relatively few O Scalers really believe that model railroading is fun or even a hobby. Many approach the subject with the same intensity and seriousness one usually devotes to religion or politics. After thirty years, I sometimes delude myself into believing that I have achieved a certain knowledgability and experience in O Scale railroading, but I still encounter any O Scaler I haven't met before with real trepidation, fairly certain that I will be advised in short order that, after all, he communicates only with God and other Master Builders.

In sum, I have come to believe that the grumpiness, petty jealousies and deliberate hostility which characterize so many of its practitioners is a peculiar O Scale plague which does not infect to such a notable degree other segments of the hobby. So I would strongly advise the newcomer to O Scale to search for a friendly mentor and to ignore some of the more unpleasant types you are likely to turn up. Even though it may be heretical, there are plenty of O Scalers who enjoy the hobby, have a lot of fun, and who are generally glad to have you around.

One other type you are advised to ignore with special fervor is the super-rich collector who likes to assure you that you can't enjoy the hobby for less than a quarter of a million. The only function he actually performs is to drive up the price of the older brass imports; you will discover that he rarely has an operating layout and knows almost nothing about O Scale railroading. It is quite possible to enjoy the hobby quite thoroughly on a much less grand financial scale.

As it turns out, then, your decision to go into O Scale will force you to consider some other problems beyond finding adequate space and providing sufficient financing. But if you have a taste for adventure, are intrigued by membership in a secret society, and enjoy searching for new friends (or are resigned to doing without them), you can do it. At least you will understand why we think of ourselves as a special breed and why we savor our accomplishments to an unconscionable degree. To be a successful O Scaler is to be more than liberated from silly millimeters; you get the firm feeling of solid achievement.

O Scale Magazine / Feb 1978