While he was fascinated by trains, it wasn’t until he walked into a hobby shop at 14 that he realized model railroading was something one could do. “I was hooked,” he said.

Modeling a railroad is hard. Railroads are large, linear pieces of civil engineering. So many modelers are drawn to the smallest scale they can use. Recently a new scale, named T, at 1:450 has ...

Gabehart’s N scale (1:160, smaller than HO scale) Allegheny Northern model railroad winds 165 feet on a shelf-type, walkaround layout that is 52 inches off his basement’s floor.

Scale, which tells you the ratio of your model train compared with a real one. An O scale model train is 1:48, so 1 inch on the model equals 48 inches on a real train.

G-Scale Junction, a model train store in Heath, is a stop for many train lovers. The business specializes in G-Scale model trains. For more information, call 740-967-7300 or go to gscalejunction.com.

For those who know their model trains, large scale includes S-scale, O-scale (Lionel size), G-scale (often found in garden railroads), F-scale, 7 ¼ gauge, and 7 ½ gauge models.

That’s not all you’ll find at the home of model-train club Scale Rails of Southwest Florida, where its 46 members have duplicated those towns as a model-train layout. “I call it 3-D art ...

Peter Dolimpio is the owner and creator of a massive double HO Scale Model Railroad layout in the basement of his home in Leominster, Massachusetts. Both this layout and others can occasionally be ...