Modeling Passenger Trains, Yay or Nay?

[Tyson Rayles]

Passenger trains can look pretty going thru the scenery but from a operations stand point they are very boring to most people. In countries other than the USA where they still have a nationwide network of regularly scheduled passenger trains you see more of them on layouts. In this country where we no longer have passenger service in the vast majority of towns/cities (and some say Amtrak doesn't count even where it does run ) there just isn't as much interest. Nobody cares much about something you rarely if ever see I guess. An other problem is space. Passenger cars are veryyyyyyyyyy long and require a much larger radius to perform and look good while doing it. In HO you really need at least a 30" radius and 36" to look good when going thru a curve. Most HO layouts have a min. of 24" to 28".
Then of course if you don't install the diaphrams you run the risk of pregnacy and being overun with all those baby passenger cars that nobody wants and you can't even give away!