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I try to ignore the scale/semi-scale/o gauge/o27 gauge subject is because it makes my head spin.

But 3-rail O-gauge has a problem here and it isn't going away. Would it KILL our manufacturers to come up with some kind of labeling system that will tell us how their various products will look when run together? O Gauge isn't O Gauge. Scale isn't scale if it's "semi-scale". Heck, two "scale" 3-rail O-Scale models can't be counted on to be identically-sized at all! 

Even OSR Magazine got confused a while back and changed it's name to OGR Magazine!

Please MANUFACTURERS, can you adopt some simple labeling on your packaging that tells us which of your products will look best when used with which of your other products and your competitors products. And THEN, in a gesture of absolute magnanimity, publish a chart showing where each of your product "series" of bygone days would have fit into the new labeling scheme if the labeling scheme had existed when the old lines were produced.

Keep it REALLY SIMPLE. Like a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is 100% scale. If you say your car or loco is a 1, then I say my same car or loco is a 1, we should be able to place them side by side and they should look like identical twins in terms of length, height and all physical dimensions. Then '2' can mean that off-scale compromises that were made fit into certain categories--like maybe just the trucks--, and '3' can add more ways the car/loco might differ from a '1' or a '2'. Etc. Etc. Then you can issue some guidelines that say "a 2 can run with anything up to 3 positions away and still look "right". So if I buy a '2' boxcar and a '5' flat car, they will look plausible in the same train. But if my flat car is a '6', or heaven forbid, an '8', then I have exceeded the manufacturer recommendations and I may or may not like the result when I see the two cars end-to-end in the same train.

OK manufacturers? Now that you're all making everything in CHINA and probably running a lot of "competing" products on the same production lines anyway, this idea should not be totally far-fetched, right? 

Oh wait.....never mind....I'm awake now. It was just a dream. Sigh....

Don Merz

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OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Ste 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

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