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Model Trains

Model Trains: a beginner's guide

This is the beginner's guide to model trains. Each topic has one or two articles behind it — read this page for the overview, or jump into an article to go deeper on one question.

  • Updated 2026-10-05
  • English and Chinese
  • 2 articles live

Where to start

Settle on a scale and how much space you have before anything else — that's the step beginners skip most often, and the one that's most expensive to undo.

How to use this guide

The learning path below is in order; later articles assume you've read the earlier ones. You can also skip around — every article links back to related terms, plus the previous and next article.

Scales at a glance

The same coach shrunk to each of the common scales and measured against one ruler.

Seven side views of the same maroon BR Mk1 coach scaled to Z, N, TT, HO, OO, O and G, stacked from the smallest at the top to the largest at the bottom, each with a coloured scale label on the left, its track gauge drawn in front and its length in centimetres on the right, over a grey A4 sheet with a centimetre ruler along the bottom; the G coach runs off the right edge
Z, N, TT, HO, OO, O and G from top to bottom: the same photo of a BR Mk1 coach (64 ft 6 in / 19.65 m over the gangways, per Wikipedia's "British Rail Mark 1") scaled in proportion, over a sheet of A4 paper lying landscape. O is drawn at the European 1:45 (US 1:48 and UK 1:43.5 give 41–44 cm); HO and OO both run on 16.5 mm track. Coach photo copyright Hornby, licence unknown; it will be taken down on request.

Narrow gauge at the same 1:87: H0m runs on 12 mm, H0e on 9 mm. Same gauge does not mean same scale. British OO is 1:76.2 and Japanese 16-ban is 1:80, and both run on 16.5 mm track.

Learning path

Reading in order is the least work. The articles still in progress will follow.

  1. Published

    Scales and gauges: choosing between Z, N, TT, HO, O and G

    Scale is the reduction ratio, gauge is the distance between the rails. Settle both before buying.

  2. Published

    AC or DC, analog or DCC: choosing how your model trains are powered

    Three-rail AC or two-rail DC, and knob control or digital commands. Two separate questions.

  3. In progress

    The main brands: what each is good at, and what it costs

    Märklin, Hornby, KATO and Tomix each have their own system. They don't mix freely.

  4. In progress

    Getting started with model trains

    What the hobby is made of: stock, track, power, scenery.

Know what you want?

Once the scale is settled, post what you're after on hobbeex and we'll find it, price it and bid for it on the Japanese and German second-hand markets.

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