Reply to "Need advice from those with ships on their layout......"

I used a 48" scratch-built model of a railroad barge (New York harbor) on an HO layout to store cars. I didn'y try to inorporate it into a layout: at that size I would have become a ship modeler who had a few train cars for added detail. But it doesn't seem to me that 60" would overwhelm most people's O scale layouts. Check the doors to be sure you'll be satisfied with the scale and if so--go for it. People are fond of saying that railroad cars came in different sizes--but as you know, that's nothing to the variety of ship sizes, especially when you start involving canal and lock limitations.