Too Young Or Too Old For Electric Trains
Your age plays a big part in the trains you’ll select. Very young children may be fascinated by electric trains, but they certainly won’t be able to set them up and run them. Many people think that children shouldn’t be given electric trains until they are nine years old or older. In my opinion think six is a good age to transition from toy trains and battery operated trains to real electric trains.
I recommend GeoTrax to a lot of people with young children because the curves are designed so that no matter how a child assembles them the track pieces will always line up. It’s the only product I’ve seen that had this capability. With GeoTrax children learn about laying out the tracks without the frustration of having to redo sections of it because the pieces don’t fit properly.
Model Railroad Scales
When deciding on a scale, its significant to remember, that the bigger the number in the size the smaller the model will be. For instance, HO is 1:87.1, or about half the size of O gauge at 1:48.
If referring to a narrow gauge railroad, it’s not unusual to see n3 or in the case of O scale there’s “n3″, “n2″ & “n30″ The “N” refers to narrow, and the trailing number refers to the gauge (or width)
The stronger supported scales are HO, N & O (more popular to less popular). scales have a bigger commercial presence, thus making it slightly easier to find.
Space becomes a large concern when picking a scale. It’s important to pick a scale that will work well in the space you have. It’s not very smart to choose O scale, if you only have a 1′ wide shelf to use set it up.
You can find lots of layout plans on the web. Model railroaders’ home pages and model railroad manufacturers websites are good places to look. If your looking to buy a model electric train, parts and supplies have a look at http://electrictrain.org/.
