Trains for You | HO Model Trains For all

Welcome to the greatest hobby on Earth! Model Railroading is incredibly rewarding and satisfying, but it is also rather demanding and knowledge intensive hobby. Where to start? What to model? And just what are all those terms - "prototype", "gauge", "digital" and "decoder"?

Be easy, take your load off and Browse the Site!

Just running model trains around a track is not what this wonderful hobby is all about. You will soon discover that model railroading is a very diverse field and that it offers different things to different people. While some find greatest satisfaction in dispatching multiple trains, others will be consumed by managing complex train yards. And yet to others scenery construction will be the real joy. And there is a contingency of people who are happy and content to simply collect model trains. And to many happy parents it just might be that "quality time" they get to spend with their kids while playing with trains. It is hard (if not impossible) to figure out which aspect of model railroading will attract you the most from the start. Best thing, though, is to jump in, get your feet wet and… enjoy!

Anyone will advise you to start by purchasing one of the starter sets; you get a train (or two!), a controller and enough track to keep you busy for a while. Starter sets are a bargain as they are priced to entice!
But first, let's get some terminology straight and out of the way.
Prototype is the real thing, you know, trains in 1:1 scale ;-)
By rolling stock we mean available cars and locos.
Gauge is the distance between rails on the track and it corresponds to the scale.

Digital means that locomotives, some cars, turnouts (switches) and other motor equipped accessories have a decoder in them. Decoder recognizes (decodes) signals sent to it and activate appropriate functions. In digital world, power (usually) is supplied to entire track and decoder equipped trains and accessories listen for signals addressed to them and act accordingly. To illustrate the point, in analog world all locomotives on the track start moving once the power is supplied to the track. In digital world, locomotives will operate only when a digital controller sends a signal to them to move at a given speed in certain direction. Huge advantage of digital is that wiring to layout is greatly simplified; in many cases wires from the controller/transformer to the track is all one needs to get going.
Scale is the proportion of a model to prototype. What now?

The hobby is awaiting!