Monorail set - is it "HO Scale"?

[Buttercup Roberts]

Hi everyone,

We want to do a monorail layout starting next year for our family Christmas display.

We are doing a 6 1/2 foot prelit artificial palm tree instead of the traditional pine tree next year, and want to run an evelevated monorail dispaly around it, maybe extend it to cover the whole back 1/3 of the sunporch the display will be on, winding around some other large potted plants we have back there. We'd like to add the Sorcerer Mickey Hat, the Epcot sphere, and there's a Cinderella's castle playset that we thought about putting in the star position.

My question is this: there's the current set that runs on batteries, but I also saw an older set on eBay that's electric, which we would prefer. The electric set says "HO Scale" which is 1/87.

Another ad for a Disney (current, battery operated) set also said it was "HO".

Does that mean the electric set will be the same size? I don't want to buy a train that will be so small it won't look right next to all the Disney accessories we'll want to add.

Thanks, I'm a total model train novice, so I am pretty clueless, and the photos of these sets the sellers are putting up don't show them set up so it's really hard to get an idea of their size.

 

[denyd]

Not a pro at model railroading (Dad was), but a lot of models in the USA are scaled to 1/72 (1 inch = 72 inches or 6 feet). The cars, ships & planes at 1/72 look ok next to HO stuff as long as there aren't too many HO scale items nearby. I've found that the Disney stuff tends to be of varied scales so that a steam engine can be shorter that Goofy.

What this all boils down to is if it looks good to you, then it's fine.

 

[Micca]

We have the monorail set and I am guessing it does NOT conform to HO scale.
There is an electric train set sold at WDW that is HO scale, but it still looks cool with the mono stuff.

 

[CandyMandy]

The toy monorail sets are not HO scale. Based on the height of the doors on the monorail cars, they are close to S scale (which is larger than HO). To get an idea of S scale, think of a Matchbox or Mattel Hot Wheels toy car - they are made in S scale.

But it gets even more complicated. Most of the accessories Disney has marketed for the Monorail sets are not the same scale as the trains. For example, measuring based on the size of the steps on the stairways at the station platforms, neither the Polynesian Resort or Grand Floridian resort playsets are S scale (they are somewhere between it and 1/32, the scale of standard toy army men). The two structure sets that are approximately the same scale as the monorail trains are the Contemporary Hotel (a bit on the small size but adequate) and the switching station (the closest).

If you want small human figures to go along with the monorail, go for S scale. A number of firms make and sell these; Artissta is the better know but their selections lean towards period model railroad types and are expensive. A firm called Peoplescale.com makes less expensive plastic and cast pewter ones that are contemporary people and look great when painted.