I remember the good old days of OUTSIDE 3rd RAIL in HO when I first started model railroading in 1936. The Columbus O gauge club layout was outside 3rd rail, and the battle of full scale vs Lionel was in full swing.
Upstairs was the outside 3rd rail HO loop on the milled wood track base. (forget who made it). One week someone showed up with Mantua's new insulated driver mechanism for an Atlantic. Can never forget that night. The world of insulated switches began. The O gaugers had already begun to insulate drivers. There were some OO gaugers who wanted to add a layout. There were marvelous metal locos and cars available then. (where did it all go?) No one ever mentioned S gauge. Even AF as far as i remember. The O gaugers created a lot of scale mechanisms for Lionel locos in those days. I wanted trolley models in HO.(at 15) I began making interurban drawings for Paul Moore. For 4 drawings I got one built up car. A Columbus Delaware & Marion "Red Bird" was the first one. Forget the 2nd one. Then Paul quit the deal. Meanwhile I got a Walthers HO gas electric power truck. Two rail. (cut a lot of grass that summer). The power truck got switched between cars. We had fun Not constant bitching about flanges and coupler pockets. Drink a little Drambuie It calms the S soul. John Armstrong ----- Original Message ----- From: ctxmf74 To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2011 2:44 AM Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Hi SCALE - BC&G S Scale layout --- In [email protected], "bcgsteam" <bcgsteam@...> wrote: > when I started my current layout in 1997, I was using >Consolidations >that I had built from AF 0-8-0s > So when I started the layout, I selected American Models track...the >best looking flex track and turnouts available at the time that would >accommodate the AF flanges on my Consolidations. By the time SHS came >out with their fantastic Consolidations, my track was 100% laid and so >it wasn't a matter of converting wheels on rolling stock, it was a >matter of not wanting to relay all my track! Hi Brooks, It's hard for those of us new to S scale to comprehend the effort you guys had to put into building a layout in the days before SHS and American models. Old O scale guys told me similar tales about their problems switching from outside 3rd rail to insulated two rail back in the day, but O got that all worked out before I started modeling in the 50's. It must have taken a lot of dedication to stick with S when there was little scale stuff available or even in the pipeline. We complain about not being able to get specific cars or locos but at least nowdays we have a nice supply of flextrack and many scale locos to choose from. Building long term layouts has it's pitfalls in all scales, things like better track , better scenic methods, DCC, sound, etc. keep popping up but S has been particularly slow to get to the point where these changes are only cosmetic and don't affect running choices. Hopefully in my lifetime S will become a flourishing scale that has more in common with HO scale than with old American flyer. Regards, DaveBranum __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6501 (20110928) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 6501 (20110928) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com [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: [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/
