What are the differences

J, I'll take a stab at answering your question. First, remember that these are "Toy Trains", therefor nothing is scale. Having said that several manufactures make products that come very close to scale quite often. It has been my experience that one must generally view the item to determine if it is acceptable. Most of the 3rd Rail stuff is as close to scale as can be and still run on our track. Track is often the limiting factor. Our standard LARGE diameter track is 072 which is generally a 72 inch diameter circle. This scales down to 18 inch radius in HO which is considered a very sharp turn in scale circles. Generally any steam engine that is articulated or has more than 3 driving wheels in a row or any diesel larger than a switch engine or GP9 would not run on this sharp of a turn. Adjustments are made that have an effect on the engine's scale appearance.

Having said that many achieve good effect by staying with small equipment or large diameter track. If you are willing to compromise your scale desires some you can still obtain very good looks by matching the overall size of your equipment.

In the end it is your railroad. Your decision.

Al

quote:

Originally posted by J. Motts:
I'm sure this may have been asked before and if it has I apologize. However, being a newbie to this part of the hobby, would you all mind explaining the differences between what is considered "scale" as in locomotives and rolling stock and "toy train" types. I recently picked up a Lionel #6-27887 Rio Grande PS-5 Gondola. This car looks to be scale in size, it has sprung trucks and tremendous detail.

What size is Standard "O" Gauge, is that like tin plate types? I'm trying to figure out what I want to concentrate on in my future purchases. How close is "semil scale" to being "scale?"

My reason for asking all of these questions is I want to start a layout that will be Hi-Rail using scale equipment, I really don't want to run the 0-27 stuff, that will be kept for "around the Christmas tree." I am assuming that the Premier line from MTH is probably scale or very close and Rail-King is more along the lines of 0-27. What do I look for in Lionel?

Thanks for your answers guys, just trying to get a better handle on things.

Oh, man. You'd think the answers would be simple, but they're not.

Firset up, Lionel's Standard O and MTH's Premire Line are O scale, that is 1/4" to the foot. Except for some passenger cars which are usually shortened by about 10 scale feet to look better on the curves.

And Tinplate, both O and Standard Gauge, is in a world of it's own.

After that, it gets really fuzzy.

MTH's Railking line ranges anywhere from O scale to what is referred to as Traditionl in size. It depends on the item, particularly with Railking locomotives, some of which are former Premire Line locomotives displaced by better detailed Premire products.

Lionel's Traditional line is more or less like the Lionel of old, but even here it gets a little blurry.

Take the current Canadian Pacific freight set, for example. The locomotives are scale sized, but not detailed enough to be considered scale locomotives. They may be considered as semi-scale by some folks, but not by others. The freight cars in the set are traditional sized, but the caboose is a scale caboose.

Without clear lines of product separation, it pretty much boils down studying the catalogs and magazines and asking about a specific piece on an individual basis.

Rusty

J, you can divide 3 Rail up into several segments. You mentioned one, 027. You know what that is. The next step "up" in size goes by several names, "traditional" or "6464" (after a particular line of cars). It was Lionel's main product line in the '50s. It's also sometimes called "semi-scale". Then you have Standard O, which was a product of Lionel's MPC years. It means scale or 1:48 in size (personally I have my doubts about the dimensions on some of those products).

But, it becomes more complicated, because at some point in the '90s the word "scale" came to mean not only size or prototypical in dimensions but a certain quality of increased detail. That detail takes in everything from markings or graphics being realistic per the prototype, to also things like mechanical detail including the presence of realistically decorated and detailed grab irons, roof walks, under carriage detailing and anything else you can name. This is the area in which another and somewhat confusing term was introduced in the '90s - "near scale".

An example of what a Lionel rep told me was "near scale" was the '90s NYC Mohawk, as compared to the Hudson of the same time frame. Note that both engines were "scale" in overall dimensions and what was being referred to was the level of detail.

On top of that you have the recent development in the "scale" world of 3 Rail of more "prototypical" couplers and wheel flanges and solid or fixed pilots on engines, all of which are for the purpose of enhancing the "scale" effect.

So, when someone asks if your trains are scale, I recommend that you respond by answering, "what do you mean by scale"...

I hope this helps some on it. It's obviously not something that lends itself to a "one size fits all" description. And the fact is, there's only one thing that's truly "scale" - the 1 foot equals 12 inch trains.

Standard O should be scale. Premier ENGINES are scale. Most Premier rolling stock is scale (except modern era passenger cars and some flat car/auto racks).

Some of the "traditional" rolling stock is scale, but for cars that were made during the Great Depression. They may be painted in modern schemes but they aren't even close to modern era cars in size.

If this is an issue to you, you should look up the dimensions of the prototypes and compare those to the models. 1/4" scale is very easy to convert to 1:1 and vice versa. Each 1/4" of the model represents 1 foot on a prototype. A 50 foot PS-1 box car should be 12 1/2 inches long (multiply the prototype length by .25 and the answer will be the scale length in inches). An 85 foot long passenger car should be 21 1/4" long. A 10" box car will scale out to a 40' real car (inches x 4 yields length of prototype in feet).

Semi scale means not_to_scale. Sometimes the designer will selectively compress the item to make certain dimensions smaller (e.g. length) while trying to preserve the look of the prototype. The original Lionel GG-1 is an attempt to do this. The RailKing semi scale Hudson is selectively compressed. Parts of the engine are almost scale while the tender is considerably compressed. The main issue is whether the engine looks like the prototype.

quote:

6-27887

Yes this is scale Gondola and a very nice piece.

For MTH
Premier is considered scale(1/48 or 1/4" per 1')
Note: many Railking Items are very close to scale, and some are scale. Some engines are listed specifially as "Railking Scale".

For Lionel
Standard O is considered scale (1/48 or 1/4" per 1')
Note: When Lionel started "Standard O", I believe in the 70's, many of their items seemed really big compared to traditional/toyish size lionel items, but where still not quite scale(although it would be hard to tell without a side by side comparison). Lionel's current line of "Standard O" is all considered scale, and has been scale for some time now.

For Atlas
Masterline and Trainman products are scale (1/48 or 1/4" per 1')
Industrial Rail is not scale and more like 0-27/toyish

I believe all or most of Weaver Items are Scale.

You can obtain excellent scale "look" at times with some of the non-scale equipment!

J. M. I'll take a flyer and add a bit to what Al has offered: There is another comparison which you can make between our three rail trains as compared to "scale model" train, such as two rail "0" gauge. That is the difference between scale and accuracy. All Lionel "Standard "0" trains are to scale, as are MTH's Premier line, 3rd Rail's offerings, Atlas "0" and Weaver. They measure out to the correct dimensions for 1/4" to the foot scale, they are good models of the prototypes which the represent, colors are good and for us "Hi Railers", they fit the bill. But all of them use way oversized couplers and wheel flanges, all of which harken back to their toy train foundations, so they fail to be totally accurate.

But, for a variety of reasons, this route is the one I have chosen to model and I believe that I'm part of a very large group of train modellers. I chose 3 rail Hi Rail as a type of trains to model and operate, because of that last word: Operate. I like the way these trains run, how they can be made to perform with remote uncoupling, fabulous sound effects (not all of which are very prototypical; have you ever heard a real engine talk?) AND because they can be made to operate well on very tight radius curves. This is important because I only have a limited space in my basement and scale "0" gauge curves of 40" or 50" radius (80" to 100" diameter) and even larger curves would really limit my layout design too much. I also like the operating superiority of three rail track as it relates to signalling and track occupancy indication.

But my "scale" equipment includes 4-8-4 locomotives, huge box cab electrics and some 21" passenger cars. Sure, they look tight rounding a 63" curve but I have tried to hide those tighter curves where I have been able to. I own two of those Northern type engines plus three or four 4-6-4 large Hudsons, and they all negotiate my tight curves.

I have friends that have layouts as large and even larger than mine that have a lot of "o-27" gauge or scale equipment. MTH's RailKink line and Lionel's Lionmaster lines are typical of engines in that less than real scale line. Lionel's "Traditional" series of freight cars are generally smaller than scale, as well. 15" or less passenger cars fall into this category, too. These smaller than full scale equipment seems to please these guys, just fine, but I must be a bit of a snob! I like the full scale stuff.

Now, as Al mentioned, a lot has to do with your choice of equipment. I don't own any full scale Big Boys, Challengers, Cab Forwards or such. Those two Northern's are as big as my roster goes. In fact, the Northerns won't turn on my Atlas turntable, so they are forced to stay out of the roundhouse, or in an engine house I have. But real railroads were forced to make those kind of decisions all the time. One reason you have never seen a Big Boy restored to operation is that they could only be used on a relatively limited section of RR track between Grand Island, NE and Green River, WY.

Anyway, that's my preference; I'm glad I made that choice, and I enjoy running my "limited" trains.

Paul Fischer

quote:

"Our standard LARGE diameter track is 072 which is generally a 72 inch diameter circle. This scales down to 18 inch radius in HO which is considered a very sharp turn in scale circles."

quote:

Incorrect--radius is 1/2 of diameter. 072 = 36" radius.

While your statement is "correct", O-72 is 36" radius, the point the previous poster was trying to make the tightest common radius in HO, e.g. 18" scales up to O-72 which is considered by many of the toy train enthusiasts to be a very broad curve (which technically it isn't).

Evening Guys,
I just want to thank all of you very much for your most informative answers, they are very much appreciated. Your answers gives me a lot of food for thought and I think I may need to reevaluate my way of thinking on how I want to do my layout and what I want to run on it. I think I'll go back and look more closely at the various rolling stock and locomotives and try and get as close to scale as I can but will take into consideration all of the different types of cars and loco's that are out there. I do know that I plan to have craftsman type structures, both kit built and scratchbuilt. I will stay away from the items that are animated. When I was little I thought they were pretty cool, but now I'm not all that interested in them and would rather concentrate on the craftsman type. The animated ones just don't look all that real to me, I'm not knocking them, just not my cup of tea or what I want on my layout.

Another reason for rethinking what I can and can't use is a big factor called a very small space for my layout. Until I can fanagle more space, I'll have to settle for my current space which is only (don't laugh now guys) 9 X 11. I'm trying to negotiate more space in the den area which is actually now the living room after we added on, but so far I'm hitting a block wall as my wife doesn't want any trains in the room. So for now, its back to the drawing board.

Thanks again fellers for all of your great comments.

J.,

Best re-think your options when considering your wifes views.

quote:

Another reason for rethinking what I can and can't use is a big factor called a very small space for my layout. Until I can fanagle more space, I'll have to settle for my current space which is only (don't laugh now guys) 9 X 11.

I'm not laughing. Actually a lot of O-27 is made to scale, 1/64th ("S") scale instead of 1/48 of standard O.

My main layout is just 39" by 80" and it's O-27. I have two loops to just run trains, and a few industrial spurs for operation. I had to choose between having non-scale equipment or no layout at all. I decided that chasing "scale" wasn't as much fun as running trains.
But that's just the way I roll...

I hear you, I told her I'd make the frame and benchwork look like furniture quality, but that hasn't seemed to sway her any. Oh well, I guess I should be happy and thankful that I at least have some space in which to build.

Now to decide what type of track to go with.

Thanks for your input.

J,

I have an 11x12 layout, here's the diagram:



Maybe you can cut it down to 9x11 and show it to your bride.

You might want to go over to the 3-Rail Scale sub-forum, sounds like you'd fit right in.

One thing you have to look out for is size of buildings. I have a couple of snap-together houses on my layout that are maybe 4x5. I built a full O-scale house from plans out of a magazine it it is HUGE compared to those 2 houses.

I use Gargraves and Ross Custom Switches track and have been very pleased. it's been trouble-free. The only issue I have with them is the ties are too thick.

Atlas makes some very nice looking track with nice slim ties, I've seen complaints about their switches but not sure if that's still a problem.

Weaver, Atlas, MTH, Lionel, and 3rd Rail/Golden Gate Depot all make some very nice scale or close to scale equipment. Weaver and MTH are easy to modify if you want to use Kadee couplers, sometimes nothing more than cutting off the old coupler and adding a shim under the Kadee box.

Unless you go Proto-48 everything else is a compromise, but you can get things very close and keep the 3rd rail and tighter radii for your small space. There's plenty of small steam and diesel engines on the market. I like full-size passenger cars, but all I have is 072 on my mainline (inside the main everything is 054) so they have to stay on the main loop. The biggest engine I have is a Williams By Bachmann E7. I fixed the pilot and side steps so they wouldn't swivel and that limits the engine to 072 as well, but it sure looks fine going around the track. Even 072 is probably too small (too much overhang to look good) but operationally it works.

quote:

Originally posted by handyandy:
[I'm not laughing. Actually a lot of O-27 is made to scale, 1/64th ("S") scale instead of 1/48 of standard O.

Wrong...

It's a common misconception that "a lot" of O-27 is 1/64th S scale. Very little actually is 1/64th scale. Some are close, but no cigar...

The "scale" as it were, of O-27 is varies greatly between 1/48th and 1/64th. And it's not necessarily the same scale in relation height, width and lenght.

Lionel's design engineers were/are wizards of "selective compression." They manage to take a 1/48th models, then squeeze, nip and tuck them into a smaller model that happens to run on O gauge track, look good and run well on very sharp curves.

Rusty (the S-Scaler)

Just to throw another coat of mud on the answer;
There is one more selection from MTH I favor; Imperial Railking.
These are Railking (non scale) sized but with added detail closer to the Premier offerings. Safety chains, more working lights, ect.
The Imperial Railking Big Boy is 29 1/8 x 2 5/8 x 4" and will run on O-36 (but has insane overhang on those tight curves).
The Premier (scale wheels) Big Boy is 35" x 2 7/8 x 4 1/8 and will run on a O-108 curve according to the online catalog (I believe O-72 is the minimum curve for the non scale wheel version).
Now, the big difference is the length, and most of the difference is in the tender.
The Railking tender is MUCH shorter. I wish they offered a mid sized Tender for those of us with medium radius curves.