Dave Swanson: Hi, I am Dave Swanson with the World's Greatest Hobby Program and today, we are helping you get started in model railroading.

What we are going to look at in this clip are O Scale model trains. In this clip, you are going to see a Atlas O Scale Starter set, which features a steam locomotive and several freight cars. O Scale is popular because it's large enough to be able to work on, but its also very durable and allows you to put a reasonable amount of model railroad in a reasonable model size.

O Scale is unique among the scales and that there are two varieties of track; Three rail track, which is what you see here, which runs on AC power and two rail track, which is similar to the other scales that runs on DC power. While either of these work fine, it is important to know that you can't intermix them. You either have to go three rail or you have to go two rail.

O Scale is a good choice for younger children as the trains tend to be large enough for them to work with and are fairly rugged. O Scale has a lot of options with regard to steam and sound, and all kind of things that make the trains more interesting.

O Scale is the second most popular scale and it has a wide variety of trains available. It's slightly more expensive than either H, O or N, with a starter set in the $150 to $250 range. In our next clip, we are going to look at the most popular scale, HO.