Like any lifelong railfan, I’ve been addicted to trains since I was a kid. I can prattle on all day about my favorite Chicago Metra locomotive, or about how Chicago became the rail capital of America. Usually, I just use The Autopian as my outlet for the thoughts rattling around in my brain. Recently, I finally took my enthusiasm down to the small scale. In doing so, I’ve discovered that tiny trains are gloriously fun, but also ludicrously expensive. I think I’ve spent more on scale trains than I have on my last car repair.
I don’t know when the exact moment was that I fell in love with trains, but I do know it happened in my childhood. One of my favorite things to do as a kid was to watch Wisconsin Central freight trains passing through Lake County, Illinois. The images of those red and yellow locomotives remain burned into my memory more than two decades later. Nowadays, I find myself going to that same depot in Antioch, only now the trains are emblazoned with Canadian National logos.
As a kid, I had this dream of having a giant table with a scale replica of parts of Chicago and its surrounding areas on it. In my head, I’d have the Sears Tower as the centerpiece, O’Hare nearby, and lots of HO Scale trains buzzing around. I pictured this layout having functional street lights and red lights, moving cars, and those Wisconsin Central trains, but tiny.
My dream never happened. The closest I came to it was an HO Scale Santa Fe locomotive pulling some cars around an oval track sitting on the carpet of my bedroom. I had some great fun with that train. I remember putting Matchbox cars in the boxcar and in the gondola car, then seeing how the train performed with the extra weight. I also remember tying things to the caboose to see if the train could pull it. I think I also messed around with the switch to the point where I made the poor locomotive drift, causing sparks as it slid sideways.
Then, I grew up.
At some point, likely before I even became a teenager, the trainset was either discarded or given away. I then started paying attention to other things, like powersports, ships, aviation, and video games. I never forgot about my love of trains; only now, I was making skins for locomotives in Microsoft Train Simulator (below), on top of being obsessed with the Boeing 747, the CRJ-700, the RMS Titanic, and countless hours in driving games. I also never stopped wanting that train table, but it stopped being a goal or even something I had planned.
Now, so much time has passed. It’s been at least 24 years since I had that train set, and about equally as long since I even attempted to work toward that dream of a train set. But my recent years getting involved in real trains have reignited that old desire.
Taking My Train Obsession Down Some Sizes
If you’ve read my work for long enough, you know that I have been writing about the Illinois Railway Museum (IRM) pretty extensively since 2022. I seemingly write more about IRM than train magazines do. It’s gotten to the point where the museum’s volunteers know me by name and ask me what I’m going to write about after that visit. I guess I’m that predictable.
One of the parts of IRM that I haven’t given much attention to is the museum’s model train display.
Nestled near the entrance of the museum is a large room full of train sets of all scales. There’s a beautiful HO Scale layout in the middle of the room, and it’s flanked by N Scale, O Scale, and even ridiculously tiny T Scale train sets. Over the past four years, IRM’s model trains, as well as some model train events I’ve gone to locally in Illinois, have been filling my head with ideas.
Coincidentally, my wife also has a thing for model trains. She actually built a fully-functional model train layout as a kid, then her parents destroyed it when she moved out. Yet, for us, model trains have always been something to enjoy from a distance. Our apartment was just too small to accommodate a train. We always thought that it would happen “someday,” likely when we moved into a house.
However, since I just spent $23,000 on fixing my teeth, with another $15,000 bill due a year from now, our house plans got delayed just a little longer. At the same time, we also did a major summer cleaning, which saw us donate tons of stuff that we haven’t used in years. We cleaned out so much stuff that I was finally able to move my car part projects from the dining room table back to my actual workbench. However, ironically, my wife and I have gotten so used to eating at our little tables in the living room that we never started using the kitchen table again.
That’s when my wife had a brilliant idea. If we’re not going to use the kitchen table to eat, and we aren’t going to sell it, why not use it for trains? I knew I loved this woman. Using the table to support a train layout actually makes some sense. It’s not exactly a high-quality table, nor is it valuable or a family heirloom. I got it from Big Lots when I moved into my first apartment. It also has easily removable legs, making it portable for when we do move.
Model Trains Are Tiny, But Awesome
First was choosing a scale. The most popular scale is HO (1:87), but it’s a touch big if you’re limited on space. The second-most popular pick is N Scale (1:160), which is roughly half the size of HO. You can go smaller, but you’ll find the biggest selection of rolling stock, scenery, and other bits in HO or N. A kitchen table for four is still a small space, so in order to have something a bit more exciting than a tight loop, we chose N Scale.
Sheryl then went nuts. IRM’s volunteers and visitors often donate old model train pieces to the museum, and they’re resold to the public to support the museum’s mission. We love giving back to IRM, so Sheryl brought home a ton of track and other odds and ends from IRM’s model train store. I’m pretty sure all of the track you see here isn’t worth more than $25.
At first, I thought this model railroading thing was going to be cheap, but that faded away very quickly. When it came time to buy rolling stock, IRM’s train store wasn’t much help, as most of its equipment was either broken or not N Scale. So, we took to eBay and local hobby stores.
Sheryl’s favorite locomotive as a kid, and as an adult, is the Norfolk and Western Class J. As a kid, she had one of these in HO Scale from Bachmann Trains, so she wanted her favorite train back. We were stunned at the price. That locomotive will set you back $519 today. A working one on eBay is about half that.
Sheryl rolled the dice and spent $49 on this example. It’s in excellent physical condition, but did not pass my bench testing. Older Bachmann locomotives used nylon gears. This was an affordable solution to keep costs down, but terrible for longevity. Over time, the gears shrink, then eventually crack or shatter. When this happens, the locomotive jams up. Sure enough, that’s what happened here.
This is a well-known issue, and while people have brought some of these locomotives back, I’ve been told that it’s generally considered to be “fatal.”
Another issue that this locomotive has is a broken wire on the rear truck. Since the locomotive gets power from the truck, the wire will need to be soldered back on before the locomotive can even travel further than an inch. I can handle that without a problem. I will see if a hobby shop can help me fix the gears, however. Otherwise, it’ll be parked as eye candy on our layout.
Sheryl has since purchased three more used locomotives. None of them were over $75, but all of them are broken in some way.
One of her favorites is this Kato Seibu Class E851 (below), which is painted in a fantasy Amtrak livery. She then paired it with some used passenger cars from eBay. Even this semi-broken locomotive, with its missing coupler and loose center truck, was still $75.
To Sheryl’s credit, all three of the extra locomotives run quite well, and their damage will not be difficult to fix. Only the Class J is incapable of pulling a train right now.
Still, after seeing Sheryl’s fleet of well-used trains, I decided to get just one starter train, but in new condition. I am obsessed with Chicagoland’s commuter rail line, Metra (Metropolitan Rail), so I decided to get Kato’s Metra starter set. It has an MPI MP36PH locomotive, a common sight in Metra’s fleet, two bi-level gallery cars, and a cab car. These four tiny pieces? $170 after tax and shipping from eBay. Apparently, that’s cheaper than getting it directly from Kato, which wants $235.
That was the “cheap” one. Had we gone HO scale, replicating this train would have cost me more than $600. Yet, even for the affordable interpretation of Metra’s common rolling stock, the details blew me away.
Look at all of the extremely tiny parts of the locomotive.
Each car has an interior and can be wired to light up inside. The cab car is lighted, so that it can be used in reverse, just like the real deal.
As crazy as the price seems to be, the money does seem to pay for something tangible. I’ve been told that Kato is not a flagship brand when it comes to visuals, just one known for great reliability and precision on the mechanical side of things. Well, color me a fan.
The Cash Adds Up Fast
Adding everything up you see on the table here, you’re looking at about $600 or so, which is more than I spent to do the front wheel bearings on my wife’s Volkswagen Jetta. Mind you, everything on this table, but the track bed (off-screen) and my Metra consist, is used. Had we purchased all of this new, we would be in at least double. I mean, a new J Class alone is $519.
Ultimately, we will be going new for some parts, anyway. The track we have does work, but isn’t super reliable, even after cleaning. Before we secure the track down and start building up, I want to make sure the trains can complete laps without stuttering. I also want to upgrade our crappy power supply to something better.
Out of curiosity, I asked the proprietor of a local model train store how much he spent on his layout, which wasn’t much bigger than our kitchen table. He chuckled and said, “tens of thousands.” His business partner pointed to a layout with easily twice as much, if not more, detail, and said his was going into the six figures.
Everything in this hobby is expensive, from rolling stock and buildings to just basic materials to make the layout look like more than just a train circling a bare table. There are a lot of bits with price tags that start in the three-digit range, and it’s just going to be one of the very many expensive bits you’re going to have on your layout.
The minuscule tractors above? $10! I mean, yes, that’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve come from a world of buying standard Hot Wheels cars for around a buck, or maybe a nice Hot Wheels car for about the same price as these tractors. These things are so small, they can park on a fingernail!
But, thankfully, as the kind gents running the store told me, beginners rarely spend that much money on their first layout. His advice was just to get a basic trainset going. It doesn’t matter if it’s rough. Just get it running. Then, enjoy it for a while, and then upgrade it over time. There’s no need to blow crazy money right away. He pointed me to an example layout in his store that was done on a tight budget – under $1,000, as I recall:
Low-Stakes Fun
So, that’s the advice we’ve taken. We’re just getting the layout running, then we’ll build from there. Our general plan is to have some sort of elevated line and a pair of tracks for my Metra and Sheryl’s Amtrak. We’re sort of going by trial and error as we go, which is fine. It’s fun figuring out what happens next!
I also love it because, at least thus far, it’s a low-stakes hobby that’s great for a couple. It’s not like cars or motorcycles where you’re changing oil, paying for insurance, paying for repairs, and paying for storage. And if something breaks, it’s not the end of the world. It’s especially fun because I love hearing what ideas Sheryl has for the layout. I don’t really modify my cars or anything, so that back and forth doesn’t really happen there.
But truth be told, we have no idea what we’re doing. It’s been over 20 years since we last touched model trains, and it feels like we’ve gotten into a new frontier. We’ve watched a million YouTube videos and talked to real experts, so we’re not totally blind. But I can confidently say I know my way around a carburetor more than I know how to build a model train. So, if you have some advice, please send it our way!
Top graphic images: Author; KatoUSA.com; TonysTrains.com
