2 Rail Modeling

Charlie,

You might want to edit your title for that photo of "The Train of Tomorrow", which actually turned out quite nice.

Charlie....

Thanks for the pictures.  I was wondering....the crane above looks very much like the Lionel TMCC crane that has been repainted and refitted with scale couplers....???

Alan

LOL, yes I omitted the "Tomorrow" part by mistake. Or...it was so far advanced it was actually the "Train of Above" as in from the heavens. Thanks for catching that.

As for the Lionel Crane, well, I was not thinking of that, I guess it could be, but that would seem strange. Regardless, I thought the rigging especially was fantastic.

There were other models as well, but I liked these.

I really wish there was an information page with all the entries as this would make it easier to identify the starting point for these models.

Good info Alan, thanks.

Charlie

Your post Charlie certainly gives focus the the Train of Tomorrow. I think 3rd Rails timing is perfect for his one.

I do have to recognize our Forum member Keith for his persistence in bringing focus to having this train produced.

There is a convergence going on, albeit slowly.

It's a cycle of things. First you get a 2-rail MTH loco, and admire the great looks of fixed pilots and full handrails. You take notice how cool it looks. Add a set of Kadee couplers and the engine has so much appeal.

next you add some Kadee couplers to some freight cars and man this is looking so realistic.  you start seeing everything else with a "crooked eye" and it just lacks the same realism and appeal.  Fast forward a few more months and you are completely stricken a with the 3-rail scale\2-rail bug.  It Happens.  And it makes your railroad empire start really taking a new and improved look.  There, now you've done it!! Everything you order is 2-rail/3-rail compatibility proven. Ha! It does happen!!

I see it differently.  The 3- rail scale crowd is, in my opinion, far more interested in accuracy of locomotives, rolling stock, and structures/scenery than is the corresponding 2- rail crowd.  When I say that on a 2- rail forum I get howls of protest, but there are not that many 2- rail layouts that can compete with, say, Dennis or Hot, or that guy with the beautiful PRR layout.  A few, but not many.

I personally find it hard to come to grips with such extreme fidelity to prototype, sitting on track with a center rail, but it does not seem to bother the 3- rail scale crowd.  It does bother a few who like to run their grand-dad's trains on realistic track, but that is another story treated here on another thread.

That's OK Bob. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around my sudden rivet-counting and roster-checking tendencies. By the way, some visitors to the club have said exactly the same thing you mentioned in the first paragraph. I'm impressed with the aforementioned modelers (Dennis, HW, Rich, Neal and Bob) as they did it alone vs. the combined efforts of several club members.

Ok, I'll howl.

Stuff & nonsense.  Total tripe!  The kind of Philistine pig-ignorance that that calls for a plague upon your house!!!  Let there be rending of cloth & gnashing of teeth while wailing at the Temple walls over such silliness. 

Look at the cover of the current issue of OST, and at Sethian's layout, and several others in the immediate area, some of which will be featured in future issues of OST.  As for structures, someday you'll get to see mine in person, but for now you'll have to go look in back issues of OST.

Your post makes sense, logically. However, I just don't see it. HO is booming right now. From the manufactures that I have talked to at shows they pretty much all say O is contracting. If your theory was right we would be steadily gaining people in O as the Baby-boomers age. I don't see it.

Also, I don't believe this notion that all these people will model in larger scales because their eye-sight is getting worse. That is only one variable... Has their disposable income increased? Do they all of the sudden have more space to build a layout? Are they now more capable of building/maintaining a large O scale layout? At the most recent show I attended, the majority of gentleman running the N scale modular layout looked to be retired and quite a few of them wore glasses.

Finally, unless we are talking about Kohs and Key, HO has better quality models for the average modeler. Compare an AtlasO F unit to an Athearn Genesis F unit. The Athearn wins hands down. Same for several others. Even as nice as Scott Mann's FP7 look, they still lack in a few areas compared to plastic HO equivalent. Even this sudden rush to use Kadee couplers in 3 rail O is a few decades behind. 2 rail modelers have been doing it for a long time and serious HO modelers are converting to true scale couplers such as Sergent couplers. The equivalent in O I suppose would be Protocraft P:48 couplers.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer O scale myself. But in my opinion, the heydays are behind us and once the Baby-boomer demographic is no longer buying O scale models I fully expect it to shrink into a niche scale in the market. From the conversations that I have had it seems that the only 2 segments of O scale that are actually growing are Proto 48 and On30.