Roger Nulton et al --
I have had a lot of correspondence with Rev. Bruce Heald. The first was his
positive response to my September 2009 "S Curves" column, in which I covered
the issue of designing a model railroad that will hold one's interest. Rev.
Heald's lengthy letter extolled the virtues of a prototypical operating scheme,
and I agreed with him. His letter, together with my response, appeared in the
Nov. 2009 MRN.
The next significant exchange was in response to my September 2009 review (in
MRN) of the Pennsylvania Heritage Models two-truck Birney streetcar. Based on
the review, Rev. Heald inexplicably purchased the scale version of the
streetcar (even though it's available in hi-rail too, a fact made clear in the
review). And boy did he complain (to me and MRN) about how terribly the car
ran on his tinplate track. I forwarded his note to PHM's Tom Doherty while at
the same time suggesting to Rev. Heald that he contact Tom and ask for a
wheelset trade. He did, and was satisfied. But now I knew that Rev. Held
would rather complain in public than act in private.
I have never challenged Rev. Heald's concept of operation. I agree with him!
As for favoritism toward scale in my reviews, I review what I get. I am always
on the lookout for S stuff to review. My first choice is to contact the vendor
and ask for a review sample. Some comply, some don't. In the latter
situation, I have now and then purchased a product at my own expense and
reviewed it. And sometimes my publisher or editor digs up something and sends
it to me to review. I cannot review hirail motive power because my layout's
trackwork is incompatible with hirail locos. But other MRN staffers do, e.g.,
David Otte's review of the American Models Texas Special in the May 2010 MRN.
As for my "scale" bias in "S Curves," I plead guilty. I am biased toward
promoting S scale (as opposed to hirail or tinplate) because I can't imagine
any modeler considering switching from O scale or N or G or HO to S would ever
want go from his NMRA-compatible-interoperable world to S hirail. I admit that
the situation for people contemplating switching from O hirail to S is
different, but their market segment is much smaller that the potential HO
converts. I want to keep S simple for the non-S people -- a necessary task
with so many coupler, wheel, and track options to wade through.
So I do not know why Rev. Heald spent the bulk of his rant about operation in
response to my May 2011 "S Curves," particularly since he already knew that I
have no disagreement with him about operation. My only point in my May column
was how non-S people perceive S. Apparently, some S people find it very
difficult to think outside the box.
Dick Karnes
Model Railroad News
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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