Have any of you thought about going to the dark side?

[Bob]

As so many have noted, it depends on your goals and both N and HO have distinct advantages.  For me, I wanted to more realistically model Harpers Ferry and points west.  On my N scale layout, the two Potomac river bridges are each 90% to scale in length.  Just could not do that in HO in the room I have (the main bridge would be 12 feet long!).  I really love the look of long trains crossing the bridges.  The advent of 3D printing has made a wealth of small parts available, so you can more effectively prototype scenes. Reliability and the detail level of locomotives has certainly improved.  Sounds not as good due to the small size, and switching is I think more challenging. All in all, given my goals, N scale works best for me.

[wmcbride]

I started in N in 1979 and it was a pretty primitive world. I've done some HO switching / shelf layouts over the years especially after I heard (and bought) a Bowser HO C430 with Loksound.

I have less space now and am focusing more on N (but I tend to be a modern (SD70Ace, GEVO) N scaler.

One thing that may strike many as wrong is that I actually think sound "scales" better in N. I thank John Colombo for teaching how to add decent speakers to my GEVOs, etc. I am really impressed with the factory speaker installation Atlas has in their new Silver/Gold engines.

I have a roughly 2' x 12' N layout and I like how things sound when the engines are 12' away vs 6' etc.

[CRL]

What does it for me is N-scale's Scenery-to-Track-Ratio, which is there from the smallest N-scale layout, to the largest...but much more prominently when building larger N-scale layouts that occupy the same space as HO scale layouts.  If I were merely near-sighted in order to only count rivets, I would definitely go with a larger scale, but...seeing my well-detailed trains run through scenery and structures that are near scale-sized (at least close to the track) in wide and long LDE's (3' wide maximum by a minimum of 12' long) allows me to enjoy both close-up viewing/operation as well as standing back and getting the feeling I'm looking at a "real" scene....which simply is not achievable in larger scales considering the average human's arm length and eye-lens focal length.

Bingo!!! We have a winner!