Model Train Sets

Involvement ranges from possession of a train set to spending hours and large sums on a large and exacting model of a railroad and the scenery through which it passes, called a "layout". Hobbyists, called "model railroaders" or "railway modellers", may maintain models large enough to ride. Modellers may collect model trains, building a landscape for the trains to pass through, or operate their own railroad in miniature.

Layouts vary from a circle or oval of track to the realistic, real places are modelled to scale. One of the largest is in the Pendon Museum in Oxfordshire, UK, where an EM gauge (same 1:76.2 scale as 00 but with more accurate track gauge) model of the Vale of White Horse in the 1930s is under construction. The museum also houses one of the earliest scenic models - the Madder Valley layout built by John Ahern. This was built in the late 1930s to late 1950s and brought in realistic modelling, receiving coverage on both sides of the Atlantic in the magazines Model Railway News and Model Railroader. Bekonscot in Buckinghamshire is the oldest model village and includes a model railway, dating from the 1930s. The world's largest model railroad in H0 scale is the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany. The largest live steam layout, with 25 miles (40 km) of track is Train Mountain in Chiloquin, Oregon, U.S.

The size of engines depends on the scale and can vary from 700 mm (27.6 in) tall for the largest ridable live steam scales such as 1:8, down to matchbox size for the smallest in Z-scale (1:220). However, there is another scale that was introduced in 2007 that is also commercially available. Called T Gauge, it is 3 mm (0.118 in) gauge track and is a scale of 1:450, basically half the size of Z scale. A typical H0 (1:87) engine is 50 mm (1.97 in) tall, and 100 to 300 mm (3.94 to 11.81 in) long. The most popular scales are: G scale, Gauge 1, O scale, S scale, H0 scale (in Britain, the similar 00), TT scale, and N scale (1:160 in the United States, but 1:144 in the UK). There is growing interest in Z scale and T Gauge. H0 is the most popular. Popular narrow-gauge scales include Sn3, HOn3 Scale and Nn3, which are the same in scale as S, H0 and N except with a narrower spacing between the tracks (in these examples, a scale 3 ft (914 mm) instead of the 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge).

The largest common scale is 1:8, with 1:4 sometimes used for park rides. G scale (Garden, 1:24 scale) is most popular for backyard modelling. It is easier to fit a G scale model into a garden and keep scenery proportional to the trains. Gauge 1 and Gauge 3 are also popular for gardens. 0, S, H0, and N scale are more often used indoors. Lionel trains in 0 scale (1:48 scale) are popular toys. S refers to 1:64 scale.

The words scale and gauge seem at first interchangeable but their meanings are different. Scale is the model's measurement as a proportion to the original, while gauge is the measurement between the rails.

In addition to different scales, there are also different types of couplers for connecting cars, which are not compatible with each other.

In H0, the Americans standardized on horn-hook, or X2F couplers, though these have largely given way to working knuckle couplers (Kadee) which are a close approximation to the "automatic" couplers used on the prototype there and elsewhere. Also in H0, the European manufacturers have standardized, but on a coupler mount, not a coupler: many varieties of coupler can be plugged in (and out) of the NEM coupler box. None of the popular couplers has any resemblance to the prototype three-link chains generally used on the continent. For English modelers, whose most popular scale is 00, the normal coupler is a tension-lock coupler, which, again has no pretense of replicating the usual prototype three-link chain couplers.

Other scales have similar ranges of non-compatible couplers available.

It must be emphasized that, in all scales, couplers can be exchanged, with varying degrees of difficulty.

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