What semi-scale loco WOULD NOT you own?

I have a RK F3 that I won off Ebay that came out of a set.  It's 2" (8 scale feet) too short.  It's sitting in a box, never to be run.

At the time I didn't know the engine was not scale.  I probably would still have bought it because I used the PS2 guts to provide my unpowered Atlas GP9 into a nice, scale engine with great sound and it runs great.

I don't mind a little out of scale, but 8 scale feet short is too much for me.

I like the semi scale that looks realistic.  I will not buy Mohawks with Hudson tenders or Rail King Big Boys and Challengers when the Lionmasters are more detailed and correctly proportioned.  I do like the Rail King Santa Fe Northern which is a great looking model.  It also looks like MTH did a great job on the Rail King Milwaukee Road streamlined hudson. Most of my semi scale rolling stock is also Rail King.

We have a very cool little sternwheeler dinner boat which cruises the Willamette River here in Portland ... named The Portland Rose, with Capt. Bob!!

Bob,

I have that F3, a Rugged Rails, that came out of the B&O Freight RTR set circa 2003 or 2004. That engine, while short, has about 4K scale miles on it and I have NEVER had ONE single problem with it aside from a pickup roller needed to be replaced from wear. A great little engine with the full PS2 package. I also have a full scale F3 Railking ABA set, Western Maryland, that I purchased last summer. It doesn't see a whole lot of run time but I like it just as much. 

I'm a diehard MTH enthusiast and like nearly all Railking products but the one that I can think of off the top of my head as the silliest looking engine has GOT to be the 19th Century engines, particularly the 4-4-0. Call me wierd but I just don't like them. 

I just picked up the Railking Imperial 2-8-8-2 Y6B - a fantastic engine. While it is compressed, looks, runs, and sounds wonderful. That whistle is top notch! 

Scale is like being pregnant:  You are or you are not!

Exactly, I agree Dominic, but use semi-scale because that's what it's referred to by the makers, but it is a silly term.

I like semi scale stuff. And when I ordered a MTH UP Turbine 3 unit loco I knew it was 'smaller' than scale. But when it came in I told my hobby shop I did not want it.....it was SO small even I didn't like it.

BUT.....a few years later I did buy one....only because I got it for $150 used. So it's my least liked loco...but I do own one!

I would never own any of the articulated loco's---just looked too compressed for my tastes.

--Greg

Well chalk up another 3 rail only term. Semi scale . I bought a Williams lehigh Valley Berk which is semi scale. it mainly sits on the shelf not because it's not a good engine it pulls like crazy and I can deal with it's size. The big thing I don't like about it is the motor sticking out the back.
Williams could have turned the motor around so it pointed into the boiler. but theres that flywheel where I can see it. I mainly run command and if it wasn't for the flywheel I'd spend the money to convert it to TMCC.
I do hope now that Williams is owned by Bachmann they get some back head detail in their engines.

David

I enjoy the locomtives based on the pre war 701 0-6-0.  There are lots of models based on this loco. I wish Lionel had come out with a post war 0-6-0.

quote:

I wish Lionel had come out with a post war 0-6-0.

What about the 18000 Pennsylvania B6 0-6-0 switcher?

When some new kids moved into our building with an L-shaped 8x12 Lionel setup featuring Lionel's Congressional set I was awe struck. Even though I'd seen the GG-1's run on the showroom layout I hadn't had the opportunity to actually fondle and heft one, and those aluminum passenger cars - wow! The "semi-scale" version is fine with me. If it wasn't for O-31 I couldn't have a setup. God Bless Toy Trains.

Pete

The 18000 B-6 was scale, using the same scale tooling the original was done in the 30's~

Killian...

MTH will (someday...) be shipping their "Imperial" line S2, complete with PS3 and wireless drawbar in addition to all of the usual Imperial goodies - real coal load, tender truck chains, etc, etc, etc. According to MTH, the length is 25 and 3/4 inches long!

This one. Even being a tinplate guy too this one is way to "stubby" for me.

Well to be honest I will not own any rail king or lion-master type engines or freight cars from any mfg. I understand if you do but they are just not my preference. Model trains are a great hobby and no matter what you like, stay with it.  

hello guys an gals.........

That would be euro-trains........... I stick with american trains and nothing else because i was born in USA.

the woman who loves toy trains

Tiffany

Tiffany, all the Euro models are full scale.

Chris, I think being a tinplate guy is a different issue. I too love tinplate as you know, and we accept anything as it's only a toy look in any case. But when it comes to high rail, modern trains, well, generally  it's meant to look realistic, and I agree with you on the Daylight, the Dreyfus is another, and the turbine is another. It's the same reason I just can't abide the look of the semi scale GG1's. The size and heft of these old monsters is the main attraction.

None of them.  True, I do own some post war Lionel I collected 25 years ago,but I have no intentions to add to this collection ad am willing to part with them TO MY FRIENDS.  Odd-d

I have a Williams PC GG-1 semi-scale. At this point in my life, after so many years in N scale trying to get the details as exact as my abilities would let me, I feeling now is... heck with it! If I like it, I'm gonna get it. I don't have the room for a beloved GiGi full scale, so that will do for me.

any prototype model with deliberate (compromise) non-scale proportions.

(eg: 1:29 scale on 45mm (#1 gauge) track)

My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." 

No, no, no. That has nothing to do with this. I think the worst engine ever made semi scale were the first Railking F-3 units. Stubby! How much more would it have cost to make a F-3 unit scale size but not with the detail. Don

I don't have one but since Don said stubby what about those Lionel diesels that sat so high off the trucks that they looked like a Monster truck?
Now those are some ugly trains.

David

Ya but your trains are made in China.

This what you mean David? Pretty much the worst loco I've ever seen.

Yep Dave that's the one. I can't imagine any train manufacturer on 6 planets putting that in a box and trying to sell it . The only saving grace they could have had at the time was that they were the only ones making O scale engines.
I could see them holding that up in the product meeting at York and getting laughed out of the place with comments like "Put a set of mud tires on it and we won't need any track"

David

Ugly doesn't come close to describing it. Imagine actually seeing this design on the drawing board and thinking, yeh that'll sell, nice. It looks like someone got a few bits and pieces from the spares box and just cobbled the thing together.

I have a Railking Alleghenney with its six wheel trailing truck the distance from the rear driver to the end of the cab is long and way to much overhang on my 19" radius curves.

hello Chris Lonero............

that's not what i meant, what i mean is the trains look american, not where its made. The railking challenger i have is made in Korea # 30-1418-1, the later models 30-1541-1 is made in China.  As far as i can tell the Koreans have better quality control when comparing between the 2 same engines but with 2 different cab numbers 3981 vs. 3985.  The freight cars i have are made in china though and pretty well made.

the woman who loves toy trains

Tiffany

Well if there are any going FREE I`ll have them,just love any loco toy like or not they are all welcome on my layout.

James

That's a very generous sentiment James.

Isn't that from
The "Island of Misfit Toys"?

laz57

I'm one of the few that thinks a semi-scale GG1 looks like a GG1 should. This is due to seeing/loving the postwar Lionel version, and the fact that I rode behind many a GG1 when traveling between Phila and NYC in the 1960s. When it pulled into the station, it looked foreshortened from your point of view on the platform. When I saw it side-view from a distance at the PRR Museum years later, it looked odd to me.

That said, perhaps it's a bit off the mark to criticize what are marketed by any of the manufacturers as bottom-of-the-line cheap trains for smaller children, because they are not more scale-like. Thankfully, the marketplace has trains available for all tastes and pocketbooks. It may come as a surprise to some old goats that small kids don't notice or care about the same things as adult hobbiests, but for sure those kids' parents notice and care about the price of the train.

When I was young, I had a plastic Marx steam engine, the cheapest of the cheap, but I never noticed that was only an approximation of what it was portraying, and I had some great times with it. Now, as an old goat, I have some highly detailed scale engines. I would never have had any interest in them, without that cheap plastic Marx engine I had a kid.

I got my first train set at 10 and I can assure you if it had been that one I'd have noticed. I'm glad you mentioned farm animals in your analogy cause I may be an old goat but that's one ugly duckling.

When it comes to getting fired for designing something ugly that engine can only be described as "pushing the envelope"

David

We have that in the SP Daylight ABA set.

If it's Daylight, it can't be ALL bad

I got my first train set at 10 and I can assure you if it had been that one I'd have noticed. I'm glad you mentioned farm animals in your analogy cause I may be an old goat but that's one ugly duckling.

When it comes to getting fired for designing something ugly that engine can only be described as "pushing the envelope"

David

Well, maybe you would have, maybe not. In any case, 10 is 5th grade - pretty late to be getting a first train. Besides, you guys aren't with it. High is hot.