O Gauge Model Trains

The O gauge was introduced to allow toy manufacturers to sell trains that took up less space than their standard counterparts. These trains were also less expensive for customers. At one point or another, Märklin, Lionel, American Flyer, Dorfan, and Ives all made models trains designed to run on O gauge tracks.

This smaller size took off in the 1930s, when affordability trumped most other concerns thanks to the Depression. It was adopted wholeheartedly by Lionel, which sold two different O gauges for its O scale toy trains. Lionel’s regular O gauge track was the same width as its O-27 gauge track (1 ¼ inch), but the O-27 had a lower profile than regular O, and its thinner rails allowed all but the longest O scale model trains to make tighter turns (a circle of O-27 tracks has a diameter of 27 inches instead of 31).

Some of the most famous and sought-after model trains ran on O gauge tracks. Cars with vista domes for Santa Fe, B&O, and New York Central lines, among others, are considered standards of any self-respecting O gauge collection, even if the car was an East Coast line (tunnels back east were too low for vista domes, so in reality they only ran out west). Pointed observation cars such as the ones for the Empire State Express are also popular, as is a short N5 caboose labeled Pennsylvania or Lehigh Valley.

Other model trains sought by O gauge collectors include a work caboose with a boom tender, a Fairbanks-More Trainmaster locomotive (it was painted orange and blue, even though those colors never appeared in real life), and steam locomotives such as Lionel’s S2 Turbine. After World War II, Lionel actually made four versions of the S2 locomotive in both O and O-27 gauges.

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