Video:Model Trains (3.5 MB)
Watch Jim Parker's model trains zoom around his miniature world.

Common Model Building Scales

Press the play button to listen to Jim Parker explain scales.

O Scale	.25 inch to the foot. Also known as ¼ scale. This means each life-size foot gets miniaturized to .25 of an inch. The ratio is 1:48.
HO Scale	The most popular scale of model railways. HO is commonly thought to mean "Half of O scale" because it is almost exactly half of O scale! 1:87. It is also known as 1/8 scale.
N scale	2 millimeters to the foot scale. 1:160. This scale comes second to HO because of its extremely small size.