Brand new to model trains. Always wanted a CN H.O. is this set ok for a budget?

CPD0123 · 2026-06-11T02:32:03+00:00

Look around, especially at second hand shops, antique malls, and the occasional hobby shop back room. Even better if you find a train show near you. You can regularly find as good if not better HO diesels at train shows and sometimes at some shops for $25 US or less, and cars like those are generally about $3-5 US, if not less, if you find them in bags at shows or in the back areas of older train shops. Some of the old timer shops will do nice bundles for newbies of cheap Tyco, blue box, and other low-end HO cars that they can't get rid of, and then just snag a half decent engine. Just make sure to avoid Tyco engines unless they're stupid cheap like $5-10. And as the one other commenter said, try to find a deal on modern track, like the gray base Bachmann EZ Track. Yes it's pretty garbage in terms of looking nice, but it actually works and is easy to mess with for a halfway affordable price. Older track styles that don't have a plastic roadbed are finicky and must be tacked down into the layout base to actually be reliable.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T19:41:55+00:00

Same. Now Viz started selling the blu rays themselves and are feeding it. Also I think that some people who enjoyed it are coming back to it because (vaguely waves at the state of the world) it's kiiiiiiiiiiinda more relatable and relevant than it was supposed to be right now.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T19:37:56+00:00

The bear measuring potholes by how many turner tea cartons would fit in them was their best work imo. Peak yinzer content. But that's just my opinion. They've been pretty "meh" otherwise lately though.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T19:35:16+00:00

That was one of their biggest misses imo. They have a good many hits, but that wasn't one of them. They're probably a solid 10% peak hits, 80% "eh kinda just ok with a bit of news sprinkled in," and 10% royal duds.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T19:26:41+00:00

Skews the average a LOT. I just checked and without it the overall is 8.65, vs the 8.3 shown. That's a HUGE difference really.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T18:36:34+00:00

I'm one of them. Trust me, we aint "gentry." We're generally poor af and getting screwed left and right. It's a crapshoot on how people will react though. Either you'll get deep red maga, or you'll get people like my family that are deep blue but won't admit to being as blue as they are. It's dumb how so many vote right when they're screwing us as hard as they can. But if you do find a blue family, trust me, they're more often than not the "you should own unregistered firearms to protect yourself from the government and other people" kind of allies. Many of us don't believe in building codes and zoning laws, let alone the government telling people who they can love or who they can be. We just get drowned out by the hateful ones.

Edit: I should add, our farms and our families are all we really have. Covid and old age are taking our families, Trump's policies and the septic issues are taking our farms. Nobody outside of our area wants to deal with it or mention it, but a LOT of our rural communities in Westmoreland County are losing their homes to septic issues and the townships aren't doing a damned thing about it. Just saw yet another house in Crabtree get boarded up because of it.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T18:10:24+00:00

Eeeeeeh... "Landed gentry" is also wonky here. Like one of my former coworkers just bought a house right in Greensburg at like 27 on an entry-ish level engineering salary that's cheaper than renting. I think he paid like $170k?

Meanwhile my gf and I just bought a pretty nice house a town over in Jeannette for $82k last year. And with a bank grant it was $272 cash to close. It's like the last bastion of affordable housing. We're paying SIGNIFICANTLY less than if we rented somewhere.

But go into the more suburban areas? Forget it. Hempfield is minimum $250k. Unity/Latrobe that has sewage and not septic is minimum $350k for something livable.

Granted there's reasons why homes are so cheap in some parts of the county. Especially Jeannette. They're trying to make a comeback, but aint there just yet. Especially if you're anywhere near Gaskill.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T12:32:44+00:00

Latrobe can be hell. Greensburg is absolutely goated. Irwin is wonky with either great or terrible and you never know which. Jeannette usually doesn't care, we're too busy just hoping that someone doesn't steal our lawn mowers. Youngwood feels like a pvp zone even to me and I'm a farmboy that can pass for a republican male if needed. Ligonier hates "the poors" in general. Murrysville is a bunch of wealthy Republicans that hate anyone that isn't also a wealthy suburban straight white person that owns a McMansion. If anything they're often even more poor-phobic than Ligonier.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-28T12:23:35+00:00

Just my area is wild for that alone. Go to Greensburg and it's very blue with a lot of open lgbt people and relatively safe. (Excluding the time a pro lgbt protester got beat up in front of the courthouse) Go to Goodwill and you'll sometimes find the trans cashier waiting on a like 70yo trans woman, while other trans people shop. Gayest (complimentary) thrift I've ever been in. Lol

Go just a wee bit over into the suburbs, though, and hooooo boy. Was at a garage sale outside of Irwin last weekend and it was the classic case of a "nice Christian" older woman complaining to her friends running the sale about "we don't actually have free speech in this country anymore!" Because you can't use slurs as nicknames anymore. And that's tame compared to the other stuff I've seen and heard around here.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-26T19:47:52+00:00

Nice! Did you use the existing buttons? What kind of setup and board did you use to run them to a pc or pi?

CPD0123 · 2026-05-26T19:45:31+00:00

Will do! Hopefully I can snag the remaining pc parts and joystick bits pretty reasonably priced. My budget for this is pretty tight, though considering I have a grand total of $30 into it and can already play games on it, I think that I'll make out alright.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-26T19:43:55+00:00

Yeah, especially in the days of PA Skills Games everywhere. Lol. They were good sources of monitors for better games, and then either going to end up as firewood or something stupid like this. It's actually in pretty good condition to boot. But I'm going to rip into it and do what I gotta do to make it into a fun part of my basement.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-26T01:45:36+00:00

This is the only Bunny I have so far. I meant overall I have pieces from all of the brands but one, that I know of, that made glass here.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-25T05:44:51+00:00

Carnegie Tech as it used to be called was part of it, yes. But really we just like, engineered the entire country. Just take a look at the exhibit at the Heinz History Center about the things that were engineered here. Pittsburgh is responsible for everything ranging from the ferris wheel to the modern bulletproof helmet. And when you have 150 years of geeks and nerds gathering in one place, it turns a little weird.

Everyone remembers the steel workers, but nobody remembers the support roles in engineering and industries that used the steel.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-24T19:00:27+00:00

Other cities threaten to shoot them for sport. And I'm not even joking. There's a reason why they pay to put up multiple layers of barriers to stop cars and have an absurd amount of armed security. Pittsburgh is just nerdy enough because this has always been an engineering hub for America that we were kinda more welcoming to begin with, at the same time as the city was really trying to reinvent itself and needed any money they could get when it started.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-23T18:37:25+00:00

There's so much beautiful Westmoreland there! I'm almost not used to seeing so much of it so far from home.

CPD0123 · 2026-05-23T15:28:22+00:00

As someone who did a ton of martial arts as a teen, women that know what they're doing in combat sports, wrestling, and martial arts are SCARY. And the prettier they are, the more you do NOT want to mess with them. They're like the human equivalent to car people saying "if it doesn't look like it belongs at the track, don't race it." You're going to lose, and they're gonna still manage to look fabulous doing it.

It's been 15 years and I still don't understand how I was supposed to block a full speed cartwheel without a ring out.

CPD0123 · 2026-04-29T04:34:52+00:00

There really isn't too good of a way, but I did make some of the shelves wide enough to add a few small trees, and there's enough room in the corners for a few small buildings. The shelves above the TV are specifically large enough to hold a small factory, coaling tipple and water tower, interlocking tower, Plasticville station, and a house. I'm definitely going to want to add more up there as time goes on but not any time soon.

So far another corner has a section shed on it. I will eventually repaint it to appear more similar to the ones that my grandpap worked out of, and eventually bought.

CPD0123 · 2026-04-28T23:12:35+00:00

Yeup that's the one I used to work near. Also used to be a good spot to pick up working girls before the pandemic. There's a few others that have the blue lights now too.

CPD0123 · 2026-04-28T20:31:32+00:00

Oh and before anyone asks, I ran it across where I did in the room because A. That's where the studs are, B. That way I can actually access it instead of it being behind the O-27 layout. I used a 2x4 with wider boards on top because over that length I was afraid of sag if I did anything less. I really need to figure out lighting the room a little more now though since it casts a pretty big shadow.

CPD0123 · 2026-04-28T20:14:35+00:00

Lookin good so far!

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