Model Forum / General / Railroads / June 2004

First and foremost, remember that model railroading is a hobby for fun, so
that it is most important that you do what makes you happy.  If running a
potpourri of equipment makes you happy, that's perfectly OK.

Many people do prefer to run trains of equipment that look plausible
together - all European narrow gauge, all Colorado 3' gauge, or all modern
or all older US standard gauge.  Doing this tends to result in modeling to a
common scale - 1:22.5 to represent European meter gauge, 1:20.3 to represent
US 3' gauge, 1:32 to represent US standard gauge if you can afford those
fine Aster models, or 1:29 (or thereabouts) to represent standard gauge with
more affordable Aristo, etc. equipment.

For myself, I am preparing to run a motley collection acquired on a good
deal from a friend and supplemented by bargains at shows - an LGB
Coloradoish 2-6-0, a few REA & MDC standard gauge prototype freight cars, an
MDC narrow gauge caboose, and some Bachmann passenger cars of mixed Colorado
narrow gauge and Sierra RR standard gauge parentage.  I think it all looks
OK together for now, but if I find some bargain narrow gauge prototype
freight cars, I may replace the REA rolling stock.  But that's more to
satisfy my eye than a strict sense of scale - after all, my layout
vegetation is 1:1 azaleas, boxwoods and dogwoods.  Gary Q

Darryl <dcrps@comcast.net> wrote:

That depends on your modeling philosophy.  If you want a scale model
railroad, then everything should be to the same scale.  If you just want
to run trains, then they don't all have to be to the same scale.

Small cars build to a large scale come out pretty close to large cars
built to a smaller scale.  The biggest problem may be couplers and coupler
heights.  In that case you can use the universal coupler - a twist tie.

--  
Bill Kaiser
wkaiser@mtholyoke.edu

There are three ways to do a job: good, cheap, and quick.
You can have any two.
A good, cheap job won't be quick.
A good, quick job won't be cheap.
A cheap, quick job won't be good.

Depends upon what you are doing.  I've known of layouts that used 2 or even
3 scales to provide a perception of depth to the layout that it otherwise
wouldn't have had but those scales were seperated by scenery to a very large
degree so that the changes in scale didn't clash.
In addition, there are sometimes Z scale layouts on O scale layouts that
represent large scale tourist trains in a park, etc., sometimes with people
perched on/in the cars.

--
Bob May
Losing weight is easy!  If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less.
Works  every time it is tried!

We were all neophyte's at one time or other. Welcome to model
railroading.

It's you railroad, so what you do is up to you.

With 'Large Scale' some folks stick to one size, others mix and
match whatever suits their fancy. The only thing I suggest is try
to keep the cars and loco within an individual train proportional
to each other, even if different trains within your empire are
not.

Visually, seeing a 1:32 scale train passing a 1:20.3 train is not
as jarring as seeing a 1:32 tank car being pulled between two
1:20.3 American standard gauge  40' box cars.

Len

Some modelers stick to a single scale, and are real "rivit counters".  Others,
like myself, run what ever we like. If it looks good and we like it. It's on
the layout, and it's going to run.
It's your railroad and little world. Run it your way.

 Bill H.