H0 track system comparison 2026: what the same layout costs in five systems

"Which track system is the best?" is the question beginners ask most — and the one answered worst. In the forums people argue. We did the arithmetic instead.

For that we build the same small but complete layout in every system: an oval, a passing siding, a stabling siding — three turnouts, roughly 2.2 × 0.9 metres. Then we count which parts that system needs for it, and put a real dealer's current prices on top.

The result

As of 29 September 2026 · Modellbahn Union · euro · DACH region

Between the cheapest and the dearest system lies €50.99 — around 21 % for exactly the same layout.

What is costed is the layout without digital control: track, the three separately purchased point motors, and the lever panel you switch them with. Out stays the power supply — a transformer for analogue, a command station for digital. Both scale with the layout, not with the track system.

An earlier version of this post gave different figures, and a different order. Until 29 September 2026 a turnout decoder per turnout hung in the total for Märklin C and Roco geoLine and not for the others — two digital amounts standing next to four analogue ones. That made Märklin C the dearest system and Piko A the cheapest. Both were an artefact of the arithmetic, not of the track. Now that every total has the same scope, Roco geoLine is the cheapest, and €1.55 separates Märklin C from Piko A with ballast.

These are euro prices from a German dealer. We never convert prices between regions, so this table answers "what does it cost in continental Europe", not "what does it cost where you live". For the UK we have one system costed so far: Peco Setrack from £195.30 — noticeably cheaper than in DACH, and that is a home-market effect, not an exchange rate. The "from" is there because none of our British retailers stocks a lever panel.

Three things you can read from it

Parts count and price run against each other. Peco Setrack needs the fewest parts at 31 and is still dearer than Piko A with 35 and Roco geoLine with 39. Comparing systems by "how many parts do I need" gets it wrong — and so does comparing the price of a single curve. Only the finished layout answers the question.

The turnouts are a large block — but the track makes the difference. With Märklin C the three turnouts cost €55.97 and their point motors €59.97, so with the lever panel €136.51 — 46 % of the total, and not a centimetre of track is included. With Roco geoLine, the cheapest system, that same block costs €23.92 more at €160.43. The €49.44 that separate the two therefore sit entirely in the track. Anyone planning more than three turnouts shifts this table — and does so through the point motors, whose unit price ranges from €15.30 (Peco) to €28.12 (Piko).

Ballast costs a premium — measurably. Piko A and Piko A with ballast are the same layout at the same size. The ballasted variant costs €49.82 more, a good 20 %.

Why this comparison is different

Adding up a parts list from target dimensions is easy — and can contain parts that never join into a closed layout. An oval only works out if the curve angles add up to 360°; a passing siding only if there is a curve that brings the turnout's diverging route back parallel.

That is why the layout is actually built and checked in every system: every joint has to be coincident, the loop has to close, the siding has to meet both turnouts. What does not close does not appear here as a number.

That is exactly where one system fell out that an earlier version of this table still carried: Tillig H0 Elite. The catalogue holds no counter-curve for the branch of an Elite turnout that would bring the passing siding back parallel — Elite is a flex-track system, and from catalogue parts alone this layout does not work out there. A total could be computed on paper (€281.20), but it would sit next to a layout nobody can actually build. So it is not here.

All five layouts in the table you can look at directly — real plans, rotatable, with a parts list:

The same layout in five systems — oval, passing loop and siding on 2.2 × 0.9 m. Page sideways from system to system; “Explore interactively” loads the plan for rotating and zooming.

Which system for whom?

Small budget, permanent layout, should look real → Piko A or Roco geoLine. The two are €1.17 apart but they are different offers: Piko A is bare track with the cheapest price per metre in the test (and the dearest point motor), while Roco geoLine brings its ballast with it. With Piko A, budget for cork and ballast on top (see below).

Build up, take down, children, run trains quickly → Roco geoLine, Piko A with ballast or Peco Setrack. Ballasted track is sturdier underfoot and more reliable in operation.

Märklin stock in the cupboard → Märklin C. The three-rail decision is made by your vehicles anyway, not by the track — and at €295.20 the C track is not the outlier it long looked like here. It is still the second dearest of the five, but €1.55 separates it from the top and €9.48 from the next one down: a matter of percentages, not of classes.

The item almost everyone forgets

In 43 of 63 systems the turnout drive is not included: the turnout comes in the box as a manual one. A medium-sized station quickly has twelve turnouts — around €240 for Märklin C in drives alone.

And the drive on its own switches nothing. In analogue operation a lever panel comes on top (one four-way panel for four drives, around €21); in digital operation a decoder. Our totals above include the panel; most comparisons online include neither.

Three traps in that:

"One turnout = one drive" is not always true. A three-way turnout needs two drives, a double crossover up to four. Anyone calculating by turnout count undercounts exactly the most expensive components.

Digital is cheaper than most people calculate. People read "one decoder per turnout" and multiply. But one four-channel module switches four drives: at twelve drives that is €105.66 (three modules) against €459.24 (twelve built-in decoders) — a factor of 4.3.

But not every module switches every drive. That is the trap behind the trap. The common turnout decoders are twin-coil modules; a motorised under-baseboard drive (the Tillig 86112, for one, which six systems in our data use) cannot be switched with them. The same holds in analogue operation: some lever panels require drives with end shutoff. So before buying a module, check not only the channel count but the type of your drive.

The open gap: Roco Line and Rocoline are missing

Honestly: this table is not complete yet, and the gap is a relevant one. Roco Line and Rocoline with ballast are missing — not because they are poor, but because in our own data several parts carry no real manufacturer article number (internal identifiers such as D4, D8). No article number, no price; no price, no total.

Both are serious candidates: Rocoline goes up to a 1962 mm radius — more than any other system in the test — and both offer flex track and a double slip. If they are on your list, do not cross them off because they are absent here. We will add them as soon as the numbers are maintained.

For the USA there is no total for the same kind of reason: the dealer there sells track largely in packs, and the piece count only appears in the product title. Calculating from that would mean guessing — we would rather leave it empty.

What the numbers do not include

The figures compare bare track with ballasted track, not with fully ballasted track. For an unballasted system, underlay, ballast and adhesive come on top — around seven metres of track for this layout. The underlay can be calculated (cork, 3 m per pack, from €16.63); for ballast and adhesive no manufacturer states a reach in metres of track. We therefore show those two items as "price known, quantity unknown" instead of inventing a number.

And prices change. The date above is 29 September 2026. We recalculate the dataset when the data changes — the figures here are an extract from it, not a hand-maintained list. The cost column in the buying guide even recalculates daily; where it differs from this post, it is the newer figure.

The full chain of decisions — two-rail or three-rail, with or without ballast, rail height, turnout shapes, which systems are still in production — is in our buying guide: Which track system suits you?