.."so i'll stick with o for now and see what s looks like in 10 or so years."
In ten years you will have more invested in O scale and still have the urge to move to the better sized and better proportioned models that run on two tracks, not three. Don't let that future urge turn into regret so commonly expressed as "I'd move to S scale right away, except that I've got too much invested in O (or HO) now."
Both HO and O scales do offer far more varieties of diesels, steam locomotives, and rolling stock than S scale. For me, that might have turned into a curse as I would keep acquiring more product ending up on shelves rather than running trains and modeling. In S scale, the hunt has actually been part of the fun; and I've even had to pass up some S scale models such as the Fairbanks-Morse Trainmaster and Baldwin GG-1 because they did not fit in the geographical area I model. Deciding to model a specific road name or two for a defined time period in a specific geographic setting makes it very easy to do in S scale. And it will allow you to look at a realistic image of a railroad rather than watching toy trains for another ten years.
Terry O'Kelly
