N and Z and that hideous, fictional On30 are where they are because they had
big money behind them when they hit the North American scene. All three scales
originated with European manufacturers.
HO got good promotion in the dirty Thirties when model craftsmen were looking
for a cheap "in" to the hobby. OO trains were almost as expensive as O. The
early HO manufacturers produced mostly crap, but it was cheap crap and it
successfully infested the smallest-scale niche. Authors like Eric LaNal (Allan
Rice) also promoted HO as a scale where you can be up and running with cars
made out of kleenex and track made out of hair. {OK, OK, so I prevaricate
somewhat.} It got a further boost postwar when the housing crisis pushed
homeowners into basement-less and attic-less boxes.
S Scale actually got a fair bit of promotion in Model Railroader in the
1947-1948 era, with companies like Mid-Gage and Super Scale offering a full
line of scale products. Their page size display ads were not hard to find.
Mid-Gage, an exclusively S Scale manufacturer, even announced expansion of its
facility to keep up with orders. So ... what happened?
regards ... pqr
P.S. -- I subscribe to the Pogo hypothesis.
----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Nicholson
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 1:23 PM
Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: October Model Railroader magazine....
> ____________________________________
I often wonder where N-N-Nothing and Z-Z-Z scale would be if their
proponents had to fight as hard for recognition as S scale has to. Or,
for that matter, HO, if the powers that be had decided to promote OO
or TT, instead.
What is it Pogo the Possum used to say, "We have met the enemy, and it
is us!"?
Bob Nicholson
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
