Key Model Imports?

I have to agree.  These are models that I would be proud to own.......the E1s are drop dead gorgeous.  I have definetly learned things from the discussion here so to that end I say thank you.

I have always been a stickler for detail, especially when it comes to models when plans and detailed photos are available. The "One of a Kind" N&W E6 surpassed my expectation from Key. This model is one that is not going to be rerun, as it basically a Track 2 Hobbies exclusive. The model was advertised on the NWHS forum and a few phone calls to individuals that I thought would be interested with no takers. I am not a fan of Importer reruns as I believe if you snooze you lose. That is not to say a rerun cannot be done in a different version/phase or paint scheme which I am all for. Too many times people sit on the bench and cry when the model finially arrives which coveting the models they wished they had ordered. I believe the MMW EMD SD45 by Erik will be one of those models that people will regret if they sit on the bench. It also amazes me are those that wait till the order deadline passes then whine as the model gets closer to arrival date wishing they had ordered. The Keys Early Es are his best yet!

Stephen

Roger: Did the Es come with a decoder harness for DCC Sound?

That's one way of looking at it.  Another way is that the hobby starts to lose its appeal if one has the funds to purchase anything that even remotely tweaks one's interest.  I have always liked the ACL purple diesels, but I doubt that I will be pining away forever because I did not buy one of these.

The E units are gorgeous.  I would love a leased RF&P E8 myself. 

So after all this, I lost track some time around page three, I want to jump in the pool for a GS-5. But the Key website dosen't link to any dealer info. How do you get in touch with these folks?

If you have a dealer you usually work with for Brass you can ask them.   Otherwise Roger Lewis. 

I'm impressed with the product (and prices!) Key is providing! We've come a long way in the O scale hobby over the decades.

 

I'm going to write to them and ask if it isn't high time that we reconsider 1:45 scale. I will ask that they survey their customers and see if there isn't some interest, enough to cover a subscription to a model or models. They produce in small quantities anyway to a discerning clientele that wants only the best in fidelity and detail. There has to be enough potential interest to cover a run of a few hundred models.

 

It jut doesn't seem right to pay 3 or 4 thousand dollars for a museum quality model, but one that nonetheless is built to the wrong scale! I understand that the adoption of 1/4" scale goes back to the 1930's when scratchbuilding was very common, and was a concession to simplicity of calculation. They didn't have computers and calculators back then, and figuring lengths in in 17/64" scale would have been cumbersome. (The only computational aid they had back then was a slide rule.) Today production of parts and dies is computer aided, and it is just as easy to program a computer to spit out 1:45 as it is 1:48.

 

I would like a 1:45 NYC Hudson with matching 20th Century passenger cars, or a 1:45 Santa Fe Super Chief. For a Hudson or 80' passenger cars, the difference runs into as much a 1 and a half inches of length. (I realize I could procure a 1:45 Hudson by scrounging around and buying some ancient Mi-Loco or Scalecraft relic from the 30's, but don't we deserve some modern production along these lines?)

 

I am going to pursue these inquiries and suggestions with some high end and limited edition producers and importers who cater to a discerning clientele. I will report back on the responses. Let's bring the "scale" back into O scale!

We have P48 instead. 

 

Please, no more scales. 

 

The 1/29 vs 1/32 thing is silly enough and was one of the reasons I left that.

It's still the same gauge! It would be the correct scale for O gauge track. Why not make a $2000 model to the correct scale? To me, 1:48 is noticeably undersized for the track width 1:45 has a venerable history in our hobby, as many of the first scale products of the 19920's and 30's were in 1:45. You ought to be able to run the two together if desired.

 

Others in our hobby have compensated for this by going to "Proto 48" gauge. When you are talking about a new gauge to make up for the difference, I can just as well ask why not just keep the gauge and adjust the scale.

No more scales!  I didn't get into the large scale stuff because it is so fractured.  P:48 at least uses the same scale bodies used for conventional 2 rail and 3 rail products.  I doubt any manufacturer would touch a dead scale that hasn't been made for the US market in decades.  Regular O scale is hard enough for companies to make money in.

The hobby is all about choices. 1:45 is a choice (just like Proto 48 is a choice) and I know it's not everyone's interest. All I'm saying is that some importers for very fine scale models sound out their customers to gauge interest. Given the quality of those kinds of models i have to ask whether some choice shouldn't be allowed for those who want full scale fidelity.

 

Even the Lionel Corp had a brief flirtation with 1:45 around 1934-35, making their UP M-10000 and Hiawatha in that scale. You could still run the two scales together; (it was often done in the old days) The biggest difference would be seen in train length. The UP "Big Boy" would be about 3-4" longer; a 20th Century train might be as much as 12" longer depending on the number of cars. Some O scalers may not care. others may like that a lot. I know I would!

I work mostly in 17/64, and find it more satisfying.  I mix the larger cars and locomotives with 1/4" scale, and have no real problem with the size difference.

"No More Scales?"  It is of course too late to say that - 17/64 practically preceded 1/4" scale in the 2- rail field.

Hi bob2,

 

 

What are you using for source, is it all scratchbuilt or using old kits?

 

The first scale manufacturer in O gauge, in the 1920's I read started in 1:45. A look at the earliest model magazines shows that there was quite a bit of parts, models and kits in 1:45. The scale continues to be used in Europe on the continent. I'm just questioning why it should have died out in the states, especially when it got off to a good start in the beginning days of the hobby. It becomes all the more poignant a question when guys are now spending 2-4 thousand on a museum quality model, that to my eye is noticeably the wrong scale. You would think some of those connoisseurs might like the option of full scale fidelity.

 

Two of the respondents so far have expressed their frustration with what has gone on in No. 1 gauge. I admit it was a bit contrived to take 1 gauge track and redefine it as the 3 foot narrow gauge track of some larger x scale, but there was nothing contrived about wanting to use the scale that is correct for O gauge track. The pioneers in our hobby certainly didn't think so. It all goes to product labeling- as long as it says so in the ad or on the box, it's up to the consumer to choose or not.

1:45??  Isn't that more like 1:43.5?  Half of 1:87.  Which is Half of 0 scale.

Leslie - mostly scratch built.  You can see a lot of them on Photobucket - I will get a link.

 

Some of my collection is early O Scale, and either 17/64, or very close thereto.  That includes the venerable CLW PA/PB.  Those were available right through the 1980s.

 

http://s667.photobucket.com/us...y/?sort=6&page=1

Hi Tom Tee,

 

1:43 is British O scale. It is derived from a measurement of 7mm to the foot. (HO is literally "half O" at 3.5mm to a foot) O scale is still called "7mm" scale/gauge in the UK. 7mm scale is oversized relative to O gauge track, while 1:48 is undersized. 

 

Like the use of 1/4" scale, 7mm was used not because it was the true scale appropriate for the track width, but as a concession to scratch builders for ease of measurement. (The correct metric measurement for 1:45 would be about 6.5mm per foot) 1:45 is still continental O scale in Europe. The Germans and the Swiss, the people who give us Mercedes Benzes and Swiss watches, are obsessed with precision. These guys pooh-pooh both 7mm and 1/4" scale as sloppy and inaccurate, and cling to 1:45 for their O scale models.

 

1:45 was quite prevalent in the US during the early period of the O scale hobby, but most O men had to resort to scratch building back then and found it easier to work with 1/4" scale, which although not accurate, was close enough for them. Today, most of our models are purchased and are made with computer guided die work. It's just as easy for the technician to program the computer for 1:45 as it is 1:48. We need no longer be limited by something that might have been a limitation in the 1930's.

 

My eye has ALWAYS noticed the undersized difference with 1:48. I don't mind it so much for a $300 Atlas engine, but when you are talking models at the detail level and price that Key is providing, I have to at least ask if it isn't time to consider full scale fidelity as an option for buyers. On shorter freight cars the difference is not so significant, but with an 85' passenger car you are talking an extra 2" in length!

Hi bob2!

 

Thanks for your pictures! They are awesome and I hope the readers will take a look. Thanks for mentioning the CLW PA's. They are still around and available on the meet circuit. It's a beautiful prototype to model and it's nice to know that the CLW product is correctly scaled. An ABBA lash up of those in 1:45 would be about 8-9 inches longer than a 1:48 version!

 

I consider your collection of vintage 17/64" scale (1:45) equipment to be precious historical relics of our hobby. I hope that you make provision for their due disposition once you pass. With the passing of the decades, that early stuff gets more and more scarce.

The entry by Leslie is just plain inaccurate regarding the purveyors of Mercedes:

 

Those 'guys' to use your phrase do not pooh-pooh 1.43.5, most high end brass from importers in Germany is in 1.43.5 such as Wunder, Kiss, Dingler etc.

 

Home grown high end stuff from Gebauer etc is 1.43.5.

 

Some do indeed now offer both options such as Schnellekamp.

 

Lemaco items that were produced for the German and French market were 1.43.5, granted that the brass they imported for Switzerland is 1.45.

 

Ready to run plastic from Lenz sourced from China is 1.45.

 

High end brass at 1.43.5 is not pooh- poohed in Germany, if you harbour any lingering doubt check out the eye watering prices on ebay.de

 

This would appear to be opinion presented as fact.

 

You are correct however in your description of the discrepancies in scale in relation to track gauge.

That is a lot more gentle than the blasting I got about three years ago on this forum for my "facts".  Since then I try to remember to always say

 

Opinion.

 

Leslie - almost all the steam is scratchbuilt.  Cab Forwards and 4-10-2s are my specialty.

Hi Limey,

 

Learn something everyday! Perhaps German 1:43 tends to be "foreign" prototypes meant for an export market? (Those guys do like to export!). It was my impression that most continental O, modeled after domestic prototypes tends to be 1:45. I believe Marklin O used to be 1:45, and a lot of the Swiss models are as well.

 

I hope to see some revival of 1:45 in the US, particularly for larger engines and passenger cars!

Hence the extreamly successful entrance of MTH into the European market place with 1:45.

 

With their ability to manfacture in any variation of any scale, they apparently chose 1:45.  I guess that was to appeal to the broader popular price market.

 

While viewing the Key Cab Forward I got drool all over my keyboard.  It is hard to imagine that level of detail at any price point.  Incredible!!

Hi Tom Tee,

 

That cab forward is beautiful! We would be looking at about an extra 5" of model if it were in 1:45!

 

Interesting point you brought up about MTH. I'm going do suggest they try to offer 1:45 as a choice on some domestic prototype!

It so happens that I asked on the ACE Trains Owner's Club Forum a few weeks ago - and I asked Allen Levy on Saturday - why the world took up 1:87 scale for HO, which is half the British 0 Scale of 1:43.5.   Apparently, no one knows!

 

But, I can tell you a little about historic 0 Scale, for it was originally 1:48 in the UK too.   The problem arose when German manufacturers were comissioned to make realistic British model locomotives.   As you all know, our prototype loading gauge is small, so the models were smaller and the German's mechanisms would not fit.  Therefore, the British scale was enlarged sufficiently to make UK train models the same physical size as Continental ones.  

 

Bear in mind that the standardised gauges came first; Marklin in 1891 seems to be the agreed foundation, but there were not really commercial scale model trains until Bassett-Lowke comissioned the German makers from 1900, and particularly so from about 1910 when the proportions of the 0 scale B-L model locomotives started to become trulyaccurate.  It was at this point that the increase in size was implemented for UK models.

 

I presume the UK originally, and the USA/Canada still, adopted 1:48 since 1/4" scale is so easy for those employing Imperial measurement.   But, there never would have been a problem fitting German mechanisms in trains exported to the US, since your prototypes were larger in the first place.  I presume this is why your scale never changed.

 

British Gauge H0 had a similar problem in the 1930s, and the scale was changed from 1:87 to 1:76, which it retains to this day, and it is known as 00 Gauge, after Hornby-Dublo, introduced in 1938.

 

As it happens, US, UK and European trains all look well together, since the scales vary as the reciprocal of the prototype measurements.   We know this is not right, but our eyes tell us it's fine.

 

Of course, Museum quality stuff has a problem if truly scale wheels are too close together, narrowing the frames - or too far apart,  thus messing with the cylinder/connecting rod/motion alignment. 

 

If trains did not need mechanisms, and particularly if they did not need to negotiate sharp bends, the tinplate makers 100 years ago could do remarkable things.   The "N-Gauge" Bing LNWR 4-4-0 and coaches, 1/16" scale,  and the 1/4"scale  Carette promotional model of the Caledonian Railway 4-6-0 locomotive "Cardean" and the 65' 6" West Coast Joint Stock 12-wheel coach that went with it, are perfect 1/4" scale reproductions which stand comparision with anything ever made.  But neither were intended to run on a practical radius!

Bob2 wrote:

I work mostly in 17/64, and find it more satisfying.  I mix the larger cars and locomotives with 1/4" scale, and have no real problem with the size difference.

 

I find the difference in freight cars sizes between 1/4 in scale and 17/64 in scale much more noticeable than the difference in track gauge between Proto48 and 5 feet.

 

Here is a photo comparing a Lionel 1/4 in scale B&O quad hopper with a Mi-Loco 17/64 in scale B&O quad hopper. The far ends of the two cars are lined up.

 

If I was starting now, instead of 28 years ago, I would consider Proto48. 

 

Larry Kline

 

 

I might add my "opinion" to this thread and it is too bad it has been carried on under the Key Model Imports post made months ago. 

 

I like both of these scales you guys are writing about. They are so close that its all the same family to me anyway. Heck I like all scales, Z included.

 

As far as a manufacturer doing any scale it is largely based on demand. It is a business decision. The smaller the run the more expensive. What is that saying I have heard guys say.. "How do you make a fortune in Model Railroading?, you invest an even bigger one in it!" Sadly I think 17/64 is so obscure in this age that any manufacturer daring enough to beginning cutting dies and producing products would stare a full blown financial meltdown unless of course the big money in Dubai wants to do it.  On that note a plastic box car would cost $350; begs the question who would honestly pay that? I would if I loved 17/64 and wanted it, but most would not I presume with HO scale out there at $40.  As far as brass, that is the nature of brass and it could be done and likely for not that much more if you had the reservations and the sales. At the end of the day its all based on those sales...... those numbers determine a project and if the project leader like say Brian Marsh for example is willing to put his companies stake on it. O scale 1/48 weather 5' gauge or P-48 has a hard enough time surviving today let alone another odd large scale. HO and N are the market.. and then the rest of us watch and hope they make us something that they take for granted in those common scales. Most buyers today are NOT builders but out of the box...

 

I can say Keep building and keep enjoying what your doing. Promote it and show it to fellow railroaders; pass it along and in time I think it could catch on. Marklin I see is really pushing 1 again, its bad arse stuff I have some and love it but models are rare as hens teeth. I doubt in my lifetime 1 scale will ever take off in the US, I am 38.  On that note I am HIGHLY concerned about our hobby. HO or Z, 1 and in between its all faced with todays 10-20 years olds showing interest. X Boxes and a paradigm shift in how we conduct business and our lives in the approaching mid 21st century is NOT a culture adept to building models of historical subjects or vintage automobiles. Many of todays youth are growing in a culture that buys a iPhone and upgrades every year; an antique is 2 years old and is an embarrassment to be seen with. The Baby-Boomers and the pre-WWII kids are not getting younger.. what will come of the hobby in 30-40 years? I doubt the Key Model Imports or Proto-2000's will be around making E3's and Cab forwards. 

Hi Erik,

 

 

I purposely brought up the subject of 1:45 on a thread devoted to Key 

Models, just because they produce such high end, high priced, finely detailed models in small numbers. The clientele buying their stuff is likely well aware of 1:48 being off scale, and so I thought it fair to suggest that they sound out their customers on potential interest for items rightly scaled! If 1:45 should ever experience a revival, it will have to start with a small production vendor.

 

Some of your points are thought provoking- especially about the demographic future of the hobby. I'm not sure where we will be in the future, but somehow I don't think the hobby will ever die out. There is just something so compelling and fascinating about these products that there always will be collectors and enthusiasts.

Back to those hoppers: if you insist on regarding them as models of the same hopper, they will not look good together.  But if you look at a real train from that era, every freight car seems to have its own size.  Even a string of box cars - big, little, bigger, etc.  Seems to me there are more sizes of hopper cars than box cars.

 

Even passenger cars exhibit different roof heights, in the same train.

 

All that said, Eric is correct.  If there were a demand for 17/64, or even Proto-48, there would be a supply.

 

Opinion.

I saw the Key Imports Cab Forward on the video and close up shots. Beautiful!  I wish I had $7000 to afford one.  I like the oil lines to the lubricators.  Gives me some ideas to fix mine up.

But there is a demand for P48.  A handful of manufacturers still make models ready to go, and more make conversion wheelsets to run on the track.  Granted, it's a tiny sliver of the tiny (2 rail scale) market of a minority gauge of O, but it can be found with little fuss nowadays.  How many manufacturers make 17/64 scale stuff today?

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for running what makes you happy.  I like trains and would have one of everything if I had the space and money!  I choose to focus my efforts in 2r and the Kato N scale passenger sets.  I am concerned too about the state of the hobby, being only 37, and want it to be healthy for many years to come.

 

I think though that for the hobby to survive we would need more reasonably priced modern prototypes.  Many of us model around 1950, give or take a few years.  Looking over model magazines of the period many modellers were also modeling then-current prototypes.  The hobby's focus has remained on that period, but to kids today I think many of them would rather have models of what is running on the rails today, not something from 60 years ago.  The time difference would be like a modeller in 1950 making a layout set in the 1890s, a definite minority even then.

 

I don't think kits would work very well for the mass market appeal.  About twelve years ago, I worked in a hobby shop in Minnesota, and even then ready to run/fly/float was an easier sell than the kits, even the still available Athearn blue box kits.  If an RTR model has an issue as small as a wheelset popped out of the sideframe, many people would rather return it than fix it.  This isn't just a modelling hobby issue.  In the car culture nowadays, customization is simply new rims and a lowered suspension and a stereo, all done at a specialty shop.  There isn't the sense now of do it yourself, except for home improvement because of HGTV and the like.  Maybe we need our own network?

At one time the "market" argument was used against O gauge itself! 40-50 years ago it was commonly declared "dead", and if you went into the average hobby shop asking for it, the owner would sadly shake his head and adopt that long face that funeral directors cultivate. You might just as well asked to converse with the dearly departed! I was often told that "they don't make that anymore", or that there was "no market".

 

The market argument can be circular: you can say that there is no product offered because there is no market or demand; but there may be no demand because there is no product. Marketing professionals know this all too well, and don't see "market" as something static or a given. They have often created one where there was none before, especially for new products. They also view market as "scalable", i.e. something that can be increased with certain inputs. The O market was "scaled up" over the last 40 years.

 

Marketing people also carefully distinguish between existing and potential market. A potential market consists of people buying similar class of product, or one that is created by a different marketing or distribution strategy. Example: LGB tapped a whole new market of buyers for model trains when a lot of their product was purchased by retailers who found them useful attention getters for front store windows especially at Christmastime. I've seen LGB product used as attention getter in shoe stores, bars, restaurants, real estate offices, dept stores, doctor's offices and many others. (The fact that these were often based on foreign looking prototypes didn't matter) The hobby shop distribution chain overlooked those possibilities and clientele. A naysayer and skeptic could have told LGB at one time that their products couldn't possibly sell over here, because No. 1 gauge was dead in the US! (And it was.)

 

How much of a market is there for a $7,000 Key model? What market existed for 1:29 before LGB? Or for On30 before Bachmann? Or for Proto 48 before the first products were offered? How much of a market existed for Standard Gauge before Lionel and MTH decided to revive it? At one time HO was an untried novelty! The history of model railroading suggests that anytime you make something that looks good, runs well and you put it out there sufficiently, there will be buyers, even if it's a newfangled scale or gauge. 

 

I consider the potential "market" for 1:45 to be most anyone running O gauge track. The rest is all details pertaining to pricing, distribution and advertising.

I hope you are correct.

 

I submit that the market for Proto-48 is thin enough that, if all suppliers banded together, there is not enough business to pay one decent salary.  Somebody please prove that assertion wrong.

 

In fact, let me go further out on a limb, and make that statement for all domestically produced non- plastic O Scale Kits.  I realize that Atlas, Weaver, and MTH are profitable, but the rest seems like a labor of love, augmented by day jobs.

 

Opinion.

The only possible way to put out an O-scale kit today and make it a worthwhile investment is if is a model of a prototype never done before in O-scale.  Even so, the number of people who are willing to invest the time to build these has fallen. If you don't have the skills or resources to build them yourself, to get it done is extremely expensive.  Only the wealthy have this luxury.  Over 12 years ago, I had a Loco Workshop Q-2 kit rebuilt by a builder in N. Carolina.  He did an excellent job and brought the kit to a new level with added rodwork and details including a movable booster fitting.  This costed an arm and a leg, and I could have looked around and found the Westside-KTM version and probably paid less.  You pay for the time and labor. Opinion

We have a less developed ready-to-run market in the UK and kits have been for thirty years the predominent offering - and mostly by individuals hoping to recoup the costs of introducing something they wanted to model themselves.

 

But the US market has been at such high level for such a long time now; by this I mean the output of the brass and scale wheel models from Sunset, Weaver and MTH (have I missed any of the reasonably priced people?).  When you combine this with the ease of finding the now inevitably plentiful supply of secondhand models on the 'net, it is not surprising to me that kits have had a hard time.

 

For example, a kit, with wheels, gearbox and motor of a UK 4-6-0 will probably cost £500 ($750) just for the bits.   You build it, if you can, so that bit is free, but a decent paint job will cost you a further £200-300 ($300-450), so it is no cheaper than buying a ready-to-run model.  Thus, not many would want to spend the time when they could be getting on with something else.

Hi bob2,

 

The history of our great hobby bears out that production, especially for specialty items, is often launched by a hobbyist. Sometimes a larger manufacturer had a "day job" using their machinery and facility for other things, with model train equipment being a production sideline. This I believe was the case with the venerable Rollin Lobaugh who started a machine and tool plant. He branched out into models later. He certainly had the equipment and personnel to do it with!

 

About kits: I consider them a dead end for a few reasons. Most people today lack the tools, the hands on skills, the time and the patience to build and paint them. A great many of today's better paying professions involve working at a desk and with a computer. Men lack the skills and experience they once had generations ago. Today, many don't know how to "do" anything that involves working with your hands, unless it's typing on a keyboard!

 

The other reason is that models built up from kits don't seem to have the aftermarket value and collector market that production models have. There is a good market for Lionel collectors for example. The money is out there, as even Key Models attests, but little of it is interested in kits or in kit built models.