I should have left my Rail King in the box.....

A side by side shot that show how much taller the scale Mike is. 

Photo would not load in original post. 

My advice is to run everything!!  Have fun, don't worry about a few inches one way or another.  I run my PRR T-1 with my General with my post war #221.  My philosophy is life is "it's my railroad and I will run what I want"  Course we all have our little likes.  Just my opinion.  Have fun anyway.

My HO hard liner scale person will not leave!!  They are close....and at speed.....hard to tell maybe. I think I am mad at myself for not realizing how different these two categories were when came to O. 

Unless you have become a purest, run em and enjoy all of them.

Scale dosen't look good on my layout so I have avoided it. I guess Lionel F-3's and GP's are scale and I have a few scale steam that traditional size cars behind look OK.

Scale and traditional are really two different scales. Scale seems huge to me almost like HO and S.

I find it hard to understand how folks who are OK with a center rail on their track but still cringe at the thought of minor scale differences. 

I guess that is what makes us all a little special and that trait is what makes our layouts unique in a world of thousands.

Now go  and run those trains Dave, they all look beautiful to me.

I did kinda bring a 'rivet counter' attitude from my HO days. I thought 3R was a way to be not so rigid....after all if you're OK with 3 rails.....but the size thing is going to have to wait until the layout is done and I can run them together.  

I'm not a rivet counter but I don't mix Premier and Rail King rolling stock unless it is Rail King scale.

Dave,

       I went all scale maybe 10 to 15 years ago and have never looked back. I have posted on several occasions about going scale from the beginning when newbies ask advice.

       Now what to do with Rail King and non scale stuff...........sell/trade forum.

      The only non scale piece I own is a Rail King Nabisco GS4, I spent twenty years with Nabisco so I do not think I will ever sell it, nor run it.

JohnB

those are both great looking locomotives. I'd enjoy them both to the fullest. 

I was running my Marx CP steamer last night, and I stopped it next to my RK M1a, and the M1 is huge compared to the Marx, but I like'm both. 

Dave, pack up all those non runnable non scale things and send them to me.  I'll give them a good home, and I'll be happy to run them for you.  After all, we don't want any unhappy parings on any railroad.  They'll be happy here, where everyone gets along.  Scale, non scale, tinplate, plastic, those with many rivets, those with insufficient rivets, just one big happy party.  Bob S.  

Do you have sleepless nights thinking about that 3rd rail running down the center of the track.

    Bill T

I completely understand.  I have found I can't mix scale and semi-scale either. Just yesterday afternoon I put a beautiful RK 0-6-0 up on the high, never-run-it shelf because after looking at it, I realized nice as it is, it just looks too non-scale to mix with all my current locos.  

I learned a lot about "scale" size & look doing the five conversions where I bashed my LC+ steamers into more scale models of other locos.  In every case, I had to add 1/4 to 3/8 inches height to the loco - a scale foot or more:  I could always find some real-world shorter loco to model (i.e., a scale ATSF 1850 series Prairie is the same length as the LC+ semi-scale Hudson model).  But the scale models had to be taller, and in some cases wider: height, particularly cab height and height overall, is the biggest difference that signals to the eye "this is not scale."   Locos came in all lengths, but in some way height has to be similar regardless of size.  Look at an 0-4-0 A5 switcher and you see what I mean: it's short, but its as tall as Pacifics and much bigger locos.

In olden days, Bowser built a business on the K4 boiler, using it also for the L1 and I1 Pennsy locomotive kits.

Rusty

I had a similar issue when I was accumulating IR Virginian hoppers for my coal drag. I had a Williams Rectifier I was going to use as motive power until I put the cars behind it, BIG mismatch! My solution? I got a Lionel MPC Rectifier to pull it and I am planning to sell the Williams one to help fund the purchase of either an Alaskan RR diesel or an ATSF steamer to pull my set of K-Line Santa Fe map boxcars. I plan to run both at some point concurrently on the layout and call it Fire and Ice. So sometimes it does work out for the better.

Jerry

The 3R track was part of the logic of changing from HO to O 3R. It was the cause of leaving 3R when I was 5 years old......and part of why I came back. 

I was tired of spending a lot of time on making track clean and zero derails. The wiring was a pain too. So the 3rd rail was a trade off so I could stop working on cleaning track and fixing places train derailed often. I knew that up front. 

I wish I had known more about scale vs traditional from the start. 

Dave its your RR and you are the boss!!  I have a few RK Steamer and i also have a few rk sized pieces of rolling stock to run them with. If your going true scale then there is always the after market and once sold use the funds for more scale equipment. Also some of my RK imperial steamers look great in front of the Atlas 36' billboard reefers!!!

steve

I am by NO means a rivet counter, but I agree with you that scale proportions don't mix well with traditional ones.  So I don't run them together but separately--that way, the eye doesn't know.

I did sell off most of my traditional stuff to buy the scale--it was a way for me to get the size of my fleet down to a level I coiuld handle, not a decision that I liked the one over the other.  There is less scale stuff for the roads I like, so the numbers had to come down. 

I am not suggesting that you do the same, but you could consider it.

Call me crazy, but I love running my K-Line Big Boy and Lionel Vision Line Big Boy together...

Generally, I'm a Hi-rail scale guy; not a rivet-counter, but a rivet-estimator, for sure.

Case-by-case; some sub-48 items live quite well in the 1:48 world; most struggle.

A "too-short" semi-scle loco with a big girth, such as the RK 2-8-8-2, is just fine

with the 1:48 stuff - but not as scale models of the intended prototype. I use the 

RK "USRA 2-8-8-2" to model or freelance other, smaller prototypes (my NYC 0-8-8-0

hump switcher is near-scale for that loco), but not as a USRA 2-8-8-2.

The RK Triplex is a scale model, to me - of a small Triplex that never existed! Its cab

and boiler and pilot (etc) are big - but the loco is compressed. So it works.

I feel your pain; love the looks of the little RK 4-8-2 Mohawk - but what is it?

What drove me crazy when I was first getting into trains were the Lionel Alco FA engines which were about 4 or 5 inches too short. Whenever a friend came over who had a F3 and put it down next to my Alco FA I would think where the *&^% is the rest of my engine.

That is what I tell newbies who are looking at Rail King or Lion Master engines. Sooner or latter they will put their compressed Big boy next to a scale Big Boy and you will say to yourself where the *&^% is the rest of my engine.

There are plenty of Scale engines that can run on 036 or 042 curves if space is a problem.

JohnB

I've had a similar learning curve with O-gauge regarding the disparity between "traditional" and scale sizes. I've chosen to avoid O scale items and stay with "traditional" undersized items. 

I also have roots in HO modelling where items are much more uniformly scale. I don't like to see obviously mismatched items on the same layout, even though much of my O-gauge stuff qualifies as "toys" rather than scale models.

I even branched out into some Marx tin items, but those generally run on their own layout. O gauge is a mixed bag ! 

I prefer scale proportioned items but am willing to break from this if it doesn't look remarkably different size wise.

The Premier 4-4-0 releases are much to large scale size wise but they look OK with everything else in my stable.

Like has been said,  we have a 3rd rail on our track, we shouldn't be too picky.....

JohnB

You have a lot more knowledge and time in the hobby than I do for sure. I respect that.

I'm 060 challenged and the LionMaster series is a huge gift that I just recently discovered.

I don't think I'm alone with that attitude. We all love the hobby for what ever our size we have to deal with.  hee

Larry

Gentlemen,

    You need to spend more time in the Tin Plate world, do away with the Rivet counting and enjoy your little boys toys, to the fullest!  I suggest you start off with a nice P2 263E or P3 260E.  This is an enjoyable hobby once you learn to relax and have fun.

PCRR/Dave 

I bought a few Std gauge tinplate junkers......to play with and try and restore. I feel the pull of tinplate.....but the scale guy wins every time. 

The MTH repro's are very cool.....

Both Dave's

Shoot, all my old guy toys, including Harleys are relaxing.

Tin, tinplate junkers, steel, die cast, chrome, it don't matter it is all just plain old guy greedy fun.

All meant in humor.

Larry