Well, that is the question. Pondering the most popular scale in model railroading, I was faced with some issues I didn’t face in other scales. Sure, every mature scale has offerings on various railroads and over numerous eras of railroad history. We are offered buildings and model supplies that either meet or can be adapted to our favorite scale. So covering any scale in a column is demanding, and we’ve been fortunate in our writers.

I’ve worked in HO scale since perhaps 1951, some 57 years, and this has taught me a lot about the scale. As much as I enjoy writing, researching, and all of that, I’m certainly not the man to do this job. I’m pretty sure there is no one person who can.

Yes, I know there have been some real giants of model railroad writing who have worked HO scale long enough to evince some expertise, but most of them are not available to us. Besides, while they embrace HO scale at some point in time, that point may not be in the immediate present and the near future. We can get together at train shows and other meetings and reminisce about times gone by, but our column will really need to be contemporary.

Let’s face it: HO scale is HUGE! In locomotives alone, we have steam from the John Bull of 1830 to excursion versions of steamers into the present day. We’ve got diesels from the first boxcabs to the latest products of GE and EMD. There are electrics from steeple jacks to the GG1 and later. We have the smallest of switchers and industrial goats on up to the mighty Big Boy and other giants of steam. We even have such oddities as camelbacks and the intricate Triplex. If you’re going to construct a model of a locomotive type that hasn’t been modeled before, you’d better bring a lunch because you’re in for a long dig!

Freight cars? We’ve got ‘em. Passenger cars? Yep, them, too. Trolleys? Buckets full of them. Buildings? Everything you could imagine. Bridges? Without a doubt. Turntables and roundhouses? Sure. Trees and landscaping? In great depth. Books on layouts? Shelves of them. DCC and other control systems? The best anywhere. Yeah, you get the idea. Just take a look at Walthers’ HO catalog for any year and see the ocean of offerings, knowing that there is another third of the market they don’t cover.

HO can be like the proverbial elephant and the seven blind men. Each one feels some part of the elephant and assumes the creature must be like that part, while not being able to perceive the entire animal. As a columnist, I’d be afraid I’d miss some important facet and leave a section of the scale unrepresented. Every columnist is like an old-time reporter, covering some news beat, becoming a specialist, of sorts.

So how does a reporter cover a beat the size of the entire city? He doesn’t. HO is divided into submarkets, and there are experts in each one. Here at MRN, we have a locomotive doctor in John Maughan and a brass guy in Jan Willard. There is diesel coverage in both Mike Acker and Dave Carr. I like to handle steam, but I want to hear from others. We have guys who like to construct buildings and have tips and tricks to share. We’ve got Dick Foster, Alan Houtz, and Rich Cobb. We also have railroad-specific writers, such as Stephen Priest who once hogged trains on the Santa Fe. Victor Roseman always has the most amazing things to say about what’s happening in this portion of the hobby. There’s always the danger we’ll get an installment on HOn3 from our dean of writers, Dave Otte.

We are constantly offered stories and articles that don’t fit our regular charter; stuff we think our readers would enjoy. A column would be a perfect place for such items. In a year of a subscription, I think it would be nice to see 12 different perspectives on HO scale. Thing is, many of these angles would also work for other scales, too. However, such a column wouldn’t be a typical undertaking, and it could get challenging. As much as I would like to see it in all twelve issues, we might have to skip now and then to accommodate special projects. Most of the DCC material will end up in “Thinking of DCC,” and, of course, reviews will still be handled as reviews.

As an editor, one of the things I worry about is about reader confusion. We already have reviews, news, and advertisements. Unfortunately, I get letters that indicate a reader thinks a news brief or a new product announcement is a review. They aren’t. As a rule, a news brief or a new product announcement is based on information supplied by the manufacturer rather than on personal experience, whereas a reviewer has the actual model in his possession. To make the two more distiguishable, we always include a “Review” graphic in the header of each review.

That leads us, of course, to advertising. While we try to catch the absence of scale references, the inevitable typos, or other issues within ads, ultimately the company that submits the ad is responsible for the content. At times, we ask if they’d like to fix something and they accept or decline. Other times, the ad arrives just as we’re closing the issue, and it’s a case where we either run it or cut it. Unless something in an ad is morally objectionable, we will generally run it.

Letters about problems our readers find can be hard to chase down when the writer complains that the information in a review was wrong; when we dig up the reference we often find the offending comment in an ad or an announcement. While our news editor is a pretty sharp pencil, she doesn’t have the time or research resources to dig into every assertion made in all of the announcements that come through.

In the end, columns, like editorials, are about opinions and ideas. We have added to our columns because our readers tell us they like them, and these opinions and ideas are news, too. So we want to have an HO column, but we will need contributors, and we’ll also need a name for it. As always, we like to hear the opinions and ideas of our readers. Send us your letters and e-mails, letting us know what you think. We’re listening!