Annual Holiday Train Show and open house by Model Railroad Club Inc. in Union and an annual Holiday Model Railroad Exhibit by New York Society of Model Engineers in Carlstadt on December 3, 2022.

The most popular scale in America is "HO," sometimes rendered as "H0," or 1:87, meaning the layout and rolling stock are reduced from 1 foot in life to 3.5 mm in model format.

O scale trains are 1:48 size models. While there are larger model railroad museums, Gribbell says he believes this is the biggest O scale model one.

“Each of us has his own train and it will be a thrill for us to see them running on this layout,” explained Treiber. The 2020 Model Railroad Show fell victim to COVID-19, breaking a 15-year run.

“Most people think of trains and Christmas,” Atkinson said. This year’s setup includes three different layouts in HO, On30 and O Scale, which are model train sizes.

That show returns this weekend with more than 85 tables of new and used model-train equipment in various scales, plus a raffle of an HO-scale train layout built by club members.

Detail of artist Steve Cryan’s functional model train layout Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2022, for his 29th annual Holiday Train Show at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex. (Dana Jensen/The Day) ...

Jaxon Phipps, 5, of Normal, checks out a HO-scale model train during a model train show on Sunday at Normal Public Library. The modules and train set with 30 coal cars was prepared by Andrew ...

(Abiola Odutola/The Brandon Sun) “The N-scale model has a ratio of 1:160, making it smaller, while the HO scale is 1:87, which is the most common scale in the world,” Stumme said on Saturday.