Is semi-scale dead?

An interesting topic, and I imagine it will draw some interesting responses.

 

Like you, I find myself running only scale (or darn near close to it) trains these days, pretty much by default.  It was planned this way; just evolved to being that way over time.  And, also like you, all of my scale items are on the smallish side because I don't have the space to run the bigger stuff that's out there (O42 is my maximum curve diameter).

 

I still have a lot of not-to-scale trains, some of which I will keep for nostalgic reasons, but most of them are either in display cases or boxed up.

 

I think it's mostly just related to the "evolution" of O gauge over the past twenty some years.  The manufacturers' offerings have evolved as the market has evolved, and vice versa.

 

Come to think of it, I believe I wrote about this very topic back in one of my magazine columns.

One Word; Railking

Is the evolution of O-gauge limited to just the forum community, or is it across the board? Is the forum driving the change from the manufacturer's/importer's?

 

What is the real cross-section of the O-gauge hobby? IE, Mom buying a Christmas present for Junior, or Big Boy Jim looking for a little scale man jumping off the train to change the turnout?

I think the manufacturing cost of producing semi scale trains to scale trains has dropped enough to cause this phenomena. IF you look at the Rail King line by MTH, you will see that they are getting more scale like every year or so. The Imperial line now is so good looking and has many scale details that it almost rivals the Premier line. This is an example of where the O scale line may be heading. I think customers are also attracted to more scale details than before....Just an observation...

In my opinion, modern semi scale locomotives and cars should still have a large share of the market. All of my recent locomotive purchases were of the mth railking imperial product line. I have a fairly large layout that is roughly 30' by 5'. But given the size constraints my widest curves are O-42. That leaves me out of the market for large, scale sized locomotives. My only option is to run semi scale equipment. I have a feeling that there are plenty of people like me who fall into this category.

maybe because semi scale doesnt look wright..not per portioned wright..

Another two words; Lion Chief+.

 

Stuart

 

I look for semi scale cars.... (in fact I will be sending you an e-mail about cars for sale).  I play with "toy trains" and due to my coming divorce, run on the floor as the layout is with my kids at the other house. 
I like "rugged rails" Industrial Rails, and traditional sized cars.  My trains have cars of similar size and go with the locomotive, so I don't have to run scale for it to "look good". 
I look at the new catalogue and shake my head at the prices that are being asked because there is no way on earth that I will be able to buy anything new for a long time.....
I buy cars and paint them.... I like to imagine trains that would run together if the world was a perfect place..... beer, wine and booze cars all in the same train..... train loads of hunting and shooting supplies going to sporting goods stores. (right now I am painting a "LIBERAL'S TEARS Gun Lubricant" car for my 2nd Amendment train).
I think that we who run semi scale as a choice are being forced to run bigger curves because the new RTR sized cars are going to 31" and 36" because that is what the RTR sets have these days..... I also think that we are being priced out, because cars that don't require new tooling and have been produced for 50 years are the same priced as a newly tooled car....
My hope for the future is that MTH and Lionel realize that the old guys are not being replaced by the young guys and that unless they reduce costs on trains to get more young people in the hobby, that O gauge is going to price themselves right out of business......

There have been a couple of threads on the lack of new Lionmaster product - what we have seen in the past few years is recycled product upgraded from TMCC to Legacy. According to Lionel insiders who posted on these threads, the reason for no new Lionmaster is that the tooling cost for semi-scale is so near to the cost of scale that they can't build it cheap enough that it will sell in the market. 

 

I still have quite a bit of semi-scale and I run it on my home layout, which is kind of small to be running scale Challengers or 21" passenger cars. I'm talking about old K-Line die cast Mikados and Pacifics, 15" passenger cars, Rail King beer cars, that sort of thing. Fortunately I'm active in a club where I can run the full-size stuff, but I settle for scale Moguls and semi-scale Mikados at home because that's what fits on the layout. Given a choice, I'll take the scale units every time, and I think that's the general direction of the hobby. At the club I belong to, nobody is bringing semi-scale to open houses. It's all either scale or tinplate, nothing in between. 

And then there's Williams.  Seems to me it's very much alive.  Did ever wonder why plywood comes in 4' X 8' sheets?

Lionel's Ready-To-Run Catalogs have plenty of items that are smaller than O Scale in proportions.

 

 

Andrew

I think pricing and size constraints weigh heavily on this matter. I can imagine what I could build had I the space, time and drive to do so. For now (and the distant future) I'm stuck on O27 and happy to be there. The cars seem more whimsical, fun and toy like.

Nothing really beats getting home from work, cracking a brew and sitting down infront of some Marx tin clattering down the rails. I too have a very big mindblock when it comes to the scale stuff. There's very few lines in this world that have 3 rail track and those that do are usually underground, so that part isn't prototypical at all.

For those of us with the size, the bux and the wherewithal to construct an empire in their basement? Good for you. I hope I can get there one day too. For now, I'll be sitting in the corner playing with my tin and semi-scale stuff.

I agree with those above, there is a massive amount of semi-scale product being produced at present. Almost the entire WBB line for a start. The latest Lionel catalogues have a vast amount of semi-scale locomotives, passenger coaches and freight cars on offer, and I'm pretty sure that the MTH catalogues will too.

With the new LionChief Plus range, you even get remote controlled electrocouplers.

I would suggest that rather than dying out, semi-scale is alive and well, and entering a new golden age. 

 

 

I always thought that was so that it would fit into the back of a Ford Transit.  (After you helped to get poor sick Gloria out on Monday of course. )

Semi-scale is not dead at all. Just because something isn't talked about, doesn't mean it's gone.

 

The Ready-To-Run Lionel catalog is nearly all semi-scale products. The starter sets consist of semi-scale products, and Lionel's starter sets make up the biggest percentage of their sales. There's quite a selection of separate sale starter set cars and add-on packages.

 

Granted there is a growing demand and market for the full-scale products, they are still made in quantities that are dwarfed by the production runs of semi-scale sets and cars.

 

Notice there are two distinct areas the news media uses for an angle when doing an article or broadcast about trains.

1) The Nostalgia factor: Wow, this brings back memories of the good ol' days.

2) The Technology factor: Wow, look what you can do with trains now. Digital control and sound! These trains are so real!!

 

Prices are soft on used trains, period. It's not just semi-scale. You see price reductions with no buyers on scale products too on the For Sale forum. There's simply more train products for sale than there are buyers who can buy them. With a couple decades of over indulgence on the part of train buyers, most of us have more than enough trains already.

 

One big difference between the postwar era and today, is back then it was MORE people buying fewer trains... today it is FEWER people buying far more trains. This is an inevitable recipe for lower values eventually.

 

Industrial Rail (and RMT??) became victims of perceived value due to blowout pricing. The IR cars had been blowouts for sometime as the owners were trying to move out inventory quickly. When Atlas bought the dies, and priced products back to where they reasonably should have been all along, buyers were accustomed to paying no more than $15 for a IR car. No company can stay in business selling for less than it costs to produce.

 

Again, not just semi-scale here either. List prices are rapidly approaching near $100 for a single scale proportioned train car. What's the first complaint? The price. Again, no company can stay in business selling for less than it costs to produce. People complain about China, but love the variety of new products from brand new expensive tooling and dies that can only be offered because of the lower production costs of being overseas.

 

A final observation. Very seldom does a semi-scale product get cancelled from production. Whereas scale products get cancelled quite frequently if there are insufficient orders for that item. We've had a couple decades of the variety, selection and quantities of train products increasing in ways we never dreamed of. Meanwhile, the overall train market has not increased at the same pace.

 

While HO has always been scale, three rail train have historically been toys. Today's 3-rail buyers are a much more diverse group. Lionel needs the prestige of the high end, but could never afford to stay in business without the semi-scale starter end of the line. MTH never had the magic of the "Lionel" name, so they've diversified into the European market and into HO.

 

The market is simply oversaturated with products... all products. If there's a current lack of newly produced semi-scale products, it might be because there are decades of formerly produced used products competing for those sales. The high-end scale trains do not have decades of production to complete against, which is an advantage for new production. But again, if there aren't enough pre-orders, those products are frequent victims of cancellation.

 

To be sure, there's still plenty of not-to-scale product out there, with new items in that category offered on a continual basis by nearly all the major manufacturers.  I prefer to use the term "not-to-scale" because "semi-scale," although a convenient description to use, doesn't seem quite right.  An item is either scale or it is not scale.

 

Anyhow, I think one's perspective on the matter is, in many cases at least, somewhat correlated to one's level of involvement in the hobby.  Many of us--perhaps a majority--started our adventure in O gauge with not-to-scale products.  As we became more involved, we gradually began acquiring the more true-to-scale items, and over time found (as have I) that the scale stuff more or less displaced the non-scale stuff to the point where the former didn't look quite right operating with the latter.  Just a kind of gradual and somewhat natural (in many cases) evolution.

 

I wouldn't be too hasty to assign credit for this evolution to online forums.  While online discussions may tend to be dominated by the scale crowd and what we might think of as rival counters, that's to be expected because that group tends to be more oriented to prototypical operations and details, which often leads to more discussion.

 

The very diversity of offerings in O gauge is part of what makes this segment of the hobby so attractive.  There's something out there for just about everyone, and what YOU prefer to play with is strictly a matter of personal preference.  You can go either way and find that your needs and interests have been and still are being catered to by the fine folks who provide this treasure trove of product.

It appears that the market is still abundant in semi-scale and scale items. Scale may look better to the purist, but to the hobbyist (like myself) who views a layout in the context of the whole, running both (within limits) are OK. To the casual observer of a layout who I will refer to as the viewing public; most might not be able to tell the difference unless the proportions are significantly off.

Regarding Allan's definition of "semi-scale" as not-to-scale, that is certainly correct but I believe that we still need a semi-scale category.   I view semi-scale as a scale being somewhat close to true 1/4" scale. Then there is a classification that I call toy trains that is nowhere near scale. That's what I call not-to-scale.  For instance  a 15 scale ft tall gateman on a layout or a crossing signal that is a scale 36ft high would stand out. However  Ross switches and other non-scale items seem to fit.

If we look at the O gauge market; it is constantly evolving and it must continue to do so. Manufacturers can't keep bringing out the same stuff year after year and expect the same audience to buy. Scale seems like the latest trend.

Scale is like being pregnant.  You are or are not.  No such thing as semi-pregnant.  Period.  End of story.

 

Now, there is plenty of "Traditional", O-27 and O-31 stuff out there.

 

And the British/UK and pre-1900 engine and cars ARE scale, and look OK on our very sharp curves!

If it wasn't for Traditional, semi-Scale. Railking, Lionmaster I wouldn be able to run articulateds.  Thes terms are all the same, all Postwar means is the time frame it was produced.  They are all able to run on smaller layouts.

I run Rail King, RMT and a little bit of Lionel non-scale trains exclusively, and there is no difficulty finding these new and used in the market place.

 

My guess is that non-scale O-gauge trains are the most popular selling, much more so than scale trains because of the advantages in cost and layout space.

 

I also guess that non-scale O-gauge train products provide the capital foundation for scale trains, so scale trains would not exist otherwise in the MTH and Lionel product lines.

A lot of great analysis and mostly correct ones. So, the answer is NO! The semi-scale is NOT dead. IT is doing very well indeed....

Dominic,

You're so right. I also feel that the tag,"semi-scale" has been over used to the point of causing confusion. Through the years toy trains have evolved. Those entering the O-Gauge circus often wonder what is going on. I remember when the topic came up most agreed there was three class'. 1)Scale 2)Less than scale aka:semi-scale and number 3)K-Line or 027. No wonder some throw up their hands and seek some other scale. I like the idea of calling a halt to the use of the term, "semi-scale". Call it what it is, "Traditional".

How do you classify a 1:48 model of a prototype that is so short in real life, its scale model easily navigates 0-31 curves?  I'm thinking of the ore car that k-line and others make.

 

Good morning 

 

I'm with the group that says no such thing as semi scale.

Scale is a measured dimension.

 

Clem

Blissfield Railroad Days' Events - Blissfield Main Street

Next thing people will be telling us there's no such thing as semi-sweet chocolate...

 

Rusty

 

This is what I'm looking at after reading the forum for the last couple weeks:

 

Lionel's catalogs are a big hit. Lionel is the biggest producer of semi-scale or traditional, whichever you prefer, and have the best product recongnition. You can find Lionel stuff in non-train stores.

 

MTH is probably second. Product can be found in most train stores. Don't know if Rugged Rails can still be purchased on item at a time, such as a boxcar, for example. 

 

Williams seems to be dropping some of their line of traditional product, and when a new engine is released, it's scale.

 

Atlas took over the IR line. Seems like they did one run and then quit.

 

RMT is tbd. What is known, is that they, along with the original IR had to deep discount their products to move them out.

 

What does all this mean? I don't know, that's why I'm asking. Seems like the larger firms are producing semi-scale/traditional, whereas the smaller firms are dropping them.

 

I'm not bashing the way anyone enjoys the hobby. I like it all, which is why I'm in the hobby. I run scale and traditional.

You have to realize that for everyone that reads this forum, there are probably at least 100 people that simply run trains, simple or otherwise.  I think basing your survey on opinions strictly from OGR will certainly slant the results in the scale direction.

 

I like the term scale when talking about dimensions, but I don't feel that "scale" means having every rivet, pipe, or appliance in place.  I also feel scale means having correct windows in their proper location (passenger cars).

 

If a "scale" model is suppose to represent a 40', 60', or 84' car then it ought to be the correct length, if you're talking scale.  Anything else isn't.

It's important to remember that everything is built to a scale, it may not be 1/4" to the foot and in some instances and have a different scale used for height, length and width, but built to a "scale," most certainly.

 

Accuracy and fidelity in detail and decoration to a prototype is an entirely different matter.

 

Besides, we're still running most O on 5' gauge track with curves sharper than any allowable mainline curve, no matter how you dress it up.

 

Rusty

Interesting post, brr.  Could it be perhaps, that like many items we all took for "granted'

that as the world moves on, they (semi-scale locos/rolling stock) have moved on?

 

 

MTH Premier is supposed to be 1/48 scale, or "scale."  But some early model Alcos and F-3s dimensions are 2 1/2"W X 4"H.  Later scale models are 2 5/8W X 3 3/4H.  I suspect the latter is correct for 1/48.  Go figure!

 

I was flipping though some old Lionel catalogs and came across the phrase "scale detail" for an 027 train set! Another 027 train set has the words "scale proportions." Kinda funny today.

 

While we're talking about the phrase "semi-scale," I think that it is somewhat worth mentioning, that for 95 years of Lionel's history, Lionel pretty much meant "NON-SCALE." There were a few exceptions, such as the scale Hudson. And certainly some Lionel products such as the F-3 were close to being scale. But the vast majority were not. Writers of Lionel's history tend to believe that the proportions of Lionel products had less to do with scale fidelity and much more to do with marketing and economic production considerations.

 

All this had a lot to do with the growing popularity of HO. People wanted more realism and the manufacturers wanted to provide it and make profit.

 

During the 1970's Lionel MPC came up with the Standard O rolling stock, but obviously wasn't a big seller. In 1975, there were 12 Standard O cars. By 1977, there were only 2 in the catalog.

 

It's really only been since the advent of TMCC, that the push for true O scale products has truly taken hold in the market place. Scale locomotives with all the bells and whistles naturally created a market for rolling stock and accessories to match.

 

So given Lionel's long history, maybe there is no need for the term semi-scale... Lionel simply means NOT TO SCALE. For the newer products, they could be called Scale Lionel.

 

And maybe no one else thinks it's somewhat ironic, but I think that it's ironic that so many discussions over proportional scale fidelity take place in the Hi Rail, 027 and Traditional O gauge forum. As Frank53 and others have proven, even 027 train layouts can be done in spectacular hi rail fashion.

 

Oh well, it's just a discussion. With nearly 20 years of digital technology and scale advances, I'm not missing out on anything. I like my decidedly non-scale 027 trains and wouldn't have anything else. To each their own.

They just don't mention the scale...

Most of the people who own O gauge stuff do not buy the modern-day Lionel scale stuff and also do not even know this forum exists. I would also venture to say that scale will never overtake traditional or semi-scale solely because people are not willing to pay the extreme prices of scale.

 

No offense to anyone, but I sometimes think that a few people think that this forum is the end-all-be-all of O gauge.

I think this is borderline semantics argument.

 

It's well accepted in the modelling community as a whole (including model railroading) that a scale model is understood to be scale in overall dimensions to the prototype it is based off of.  If a model of a 50' boxcar measures out to 40 scale feet, then it's not "in scale" to the prototype.  Therefore, it's not scale.

 

As Rich Melvin has put it more than once, an O gauge train is either "scale" or it isn't, kind of like a woman is either pregnant or she's not (no such thing as being "a little bit pregnant.")

 

 

 

Using the 1 forum user to 100 non-forum users, which is probably an accurate guess, they aren't purchasing traditional sized products very much from Atlas IR, RMT, or Williams. If they were, they'd still be offered.

 

On the other hand, 3rd. Rail, Weaver and SMR seem to be doing okay.

 

Would it be reasonable to assume then, that perhaps marketing is the issue? Out of the 100 non forum user's, how many of them know/knew about RMT, IR, or Williams? It's a lot easier for say 3rd. Rail to market their products because their market is much smaller?

 

I know none of this matters, it's just interesting. IR produced some very nice stuff, SMR produces some very nice stuff. One is still around while the other is not

If it can do smaller radius tracks to accommodate fellow modelers with limited space why not scale?

 

But then each to his taste. tin plate is "old fashioned" yet has modern appeal to many.

 

Diversity gives this hobby broad appeal.

 

I know this doesn't address the OP specifically but it make for a good discussion.