Part of the issue is we aren't really sure who we are promoting to. Is it the the Flyer/Hirail guys?
Is it people just starting out in model railroading? Is it more experienced modelers looking for a change? Each group would require different things and a different approach to draw then to S. I'd bet the last group was our best chance, as they presumably know what they want to do and have the experience to figure out if they can accomplish it in S. The beginning modeler is more likely to get frustrated by the more limited variety and availability in S compared to other scales. I'm not sure there is a point to "promoting" to the Flyer guys; if they want to transition to scale they already have a head start on the resources. Getting back to the track issue, most experienced modelers I know in HO do NOT use turnouts with built in switch motors. They either use under the table motors or hand throws of various types. I'm sure there are a lot of people using the "set-track" switches with build in power too, since they are still made there must be a market. I'm not sure the rest of what modeling is S entails will appeal to them. Hobby shops are hard enough to find, those that carry much or any S are much harder and those who could afford to stock a full line of S track as an alternative to the Bachmann/Atlas/Kato they already carry for HO could probably be counted on one hand. I know some pretty serious HO modelers who are building very fast, using either Fast Tracks jigs or Proto-87 stores etched frogs and points, Central Valley tie blocks and flex track in between. With what is available from Tomalco, Shinohara, Tom's and Custom Trax (and a couple of more) there is no reason a scale S layout cannot be built in the same time as a comparable HO layout, at least as far as track is concerned. Pieter E. Roos --- On Mon, 2/14/11, Bob Werre <[email protected]> wrote: > Perfect Dan, we who are in S for the > duration have two things to > consider (1) what we need for our personal layouts, and (2) > where new > converts will be coming from and what their needs are. > <SNIP> > We tried to make the impression that S is a viable > alternative to the > other scales. However it doesn't take long to realize > that one would > try to build a layout in rapid time (like that home > rebuilding show on > ABC) it probably couldn't be done in several years. > Case in point the > most popular, visible manufacturer since Gilbert has been > SHS. They ran > ads in the S magazines, some of the general MR > publications, they were > at shows, and their products were available in many hobby > shops. They > pretty much had it covered until about 4 years ago. I > suspect our > market had become somewhat saturated, and 2-8-0 project was > difficult to > complete. One could however, pretty much replace all > his flyer track > with SHS track (except for crossings). The problem > was you couldn't go > beyond that too far by appealing to the potential > converts from HO or > possibly O. Even though American Models also had a > track items, it to, > wasn't complete enough to be called a "system" and > certainly wasn't as > well known. Now we can talk about other track and > turnout suppliers but > one has to search fairly deep to find some of them and be > confident they > will work well with other items. > > Bob Werre > BobWphoto.com ------------------------------------ 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: [email protected] [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/
