In the multiple scale world of model railroading, scale is important. I have on a shelf in my office a model of a GE C30-7 and an EMD SD40-2, sitting nose-to-tail. I have ascertained that both models are just about perfectly matched to HO scale, and so it is easy to compare them. I look at what the prototype locos represent, and I see two locomotives from around the same time period, though the SD40-2 appeared a few years earlier. Both machines sported six-wheel trucks and 3,000 horsepower from V-16 engines. The Contemporary Diesel Locomotives Spotter’s Guide, 2nd edition (Marre, 1994) tells me all sorts of fascinating stuff about them.
The SD40-2 sold 43 locomotives shy of 4,000, an astronomical success. On the other hand, GE sold a very respectable 1,137 C30-7s but substantially less than the SD40-2. We also know that today there are still thousands of SD40-2s hard at work while the C30s are few and far between. The numbers tell me the C30 was 67-feet 3-inches long while the SD40-2 was 68-feet 10-inches long. What the numbers don’t tell me is the spatial relationship of the two machines.
With both units in scale, the C30 looks bigger, even if it isn’t. If I had to go by appearance, I’d be led to all sorts of conclusions that aren’t borne out by the facts. We know the SD40-2 was a six-axle frame with the car body of the four-axle GP40-2 perched on it, leaving a very large rear deck suitable for a garden party and a fairly spacious lounging deck in the front. The C30, by visual comparison, has a long hood that leaves only a narrow catwalk on the end. The short, pug nose draws the cab farther to the front, making the long hood just that much longer.
Each model has considerable visual appeal, just as with the real locomotives on which they are based. Each model is from a different manufacturer just as the prototypes were, and each one has been faithfully modeled. Paint work is excellent, both operate smoothly, and one has been converted to silent DCC service while the other came equipped with DCC sound. But that’s just shoptalk; the real interest is in what I see when I relax and look at them. If I’d have guessed which locomotive design sold the most just upon visual appearance, I think I’d have guessed the GE. I guess you can’t judge a locomotive by looking at its cover.
On the upper shelf are HO steam models. I get to compare a USRA light Mikado with a Pere Marquette 2-8-4 Berkshire. With a quick eye, I run them over, never mind who made them, how they work, or anything else. The Berk is clearly bigger than the Mike, even though both are maximized to go through tunnels and under bridges that face both locomotives. They are the same height and width — Plate C clearances — but they look different.
The Berk clearly has larger drivers, and its boiler doesn’t taper at all. As a result, the Berk has a more brutish look. It has a larger firebox held up with a four-wheel truck instead of the Mike’s two wheel trailing truck. The Berk pulls a tender nearly twice the size of the Mike’s USRA tender. Again, we can turn to the numbers, but I won’t. The visual record is correct, and this time, the locomotive that looks bigger also pulls harder and runs faster. More Mikes were built than Berks, but more money was possibly spent on Berks than Mikes.
Comparing diesel to steam is more complicated, especially if you go wallowing in the numbers. The steam locos by themselves were about the size of the diesels, but the tenders nearly doubled the length and weight, at least with the Berk. Once a steamer got started, it could generally bring that train to a speed in miles per hour equal to about the driver diameter in inches. Diesels, on the other hand, could start nearly any train, but the horsepower rating then determined how fast the train would go. This is number work, however.
The scale models allow me to see them both, side-by-side as they never were in real life. I love the ornate mechanical monsters that are steam locomotives as much as I enjoy the colorful pageantry of diesels. At the far end of the steam track is the tiny John Bull, a 2-4-0 from the 1830s. On that same end of the diesel track is an early box cab diesel from around 1925. My, how everything changes!
And this is just locomotive-to-locomotive comparisons. Throw in freight and passenger cars, track work, buildings, vehicles, trees and so much more, and suddenly you have a chance to reconstruct and almost relive a moment in time. This is all based upon a common scale, however.
The hardest thing to accept for some model railroaders is the fact that scales are not always what they seem. For example, HO scale is portrayed as being either 1:87 or 1:87.1; here at MRN we use 1:87 just because we had to pick a default. Meanwhile, I’ve seen 1:72 and 1:96 airplanes and cars on HO layouts, and yet they don’t seem out of scale. Clever modelers site them onto the layout where they help to force a perspective. I’ve seen some clever buildings that start at 1:72 in front and taper to 1:96 in back, also forcing a perspective.
There are HO layouts and back along the horizon are N-scale buildings and trains, convincing the eye they are HO stuff just very far away. So long as modelers know that products are of different scales and do not set them so they are compared, it all works just fine.
Nowhere is this more confusing for new modelers than in the garden scales. With all using the same 1.77-inch gauge rails, we have your 1:32, 1:29, 1:24, 1:22.5, 1:20.3, and 1:13.7. Each one converts the gauge to either standard or some type of narrow gauge. 1:32 is pure standard gauge while 1:29 is a modified version of that. 1:24 scale represents 42-inch narrow gauge, 1:22.5 is meter gauge, 1:20.3 is pure 36-inch narrow gauge, while 1:13.7 becomes Maine 2 foot narrow gauge.
Each of these garden scales is known to play with adjacent scales. The Maine narrow is very close to the 1:12 dollhouse scale and encourages that sort of thinking. 1:20.3 often pulls 1:22.5 freight cars. That scale then plays with 1:24 scale figures, vehicles, and buildings, as does 1:29. 1:32 offers up vehicles and accessories. The key is to know how to place these various scale items so the eye cannot visually compare the size.
In the land of O gauge, many scales come to play. There are historical roots for all of them, from 1:43 down to 1:55, and those who model these scales learn how to locate items to place them into a proper perspective. Purists will complain about this endlessly, but that will change exactly nothing. At the bottom of it, there are two kinds of happy model railroaders: those who have learned to deal with scale flexibility and those that don’t really care about it.
The SD40-2 sold 43 locomotives shy of 4,000, an astronomical success. On the other hand, GE sold a very respectable 1,137 C30-7s but substantially less than the SD40-2. We also know that today there are still thousands of SD40-2s hard at work while the C30s are few and far between. The numbers tell me the C30 was 67-feet 3-inches long while the SD40-2 was 68-feet 10-inches long. What the numbers don’t tell me is the spatial relationship of the two machines.
With both units in scale, the C30 looks bigger, even if it isn’t. If I had to go by appearance, I’d be led to all sorts of conclusions that aren’t borne out by the facts. We know the SD40-2 was a six-axle frame with the car body of the four-axle GP40-2 perched on it, leaving a very large rear deck suitable for a garden party and a fairly spacious lounging deck in the front. The C30, by visual comparison, has a long hood that leaves only a narrow catwalk on the end. The short, pug nose draws the cab farther to the front, making the long hood just that much longer.
Each model has considerable visual appeal, just as with the real locomotives on which they are based. Each model is from a different manufacturer just as the prototypes were, and each one has been faithfully modeled. Paint work is excellent, both operate smoothly, and one has been converted to silent DCC service while the other came equipped with DCC sound. But that’s just shoptalk; the real interest is in what I see when I relax and look at them. If I’d have guessed which locomotive design sold the most just upon visual appearance, I think I’d have guessed the GE. I guess you can’t judge a locomotive by looking at its cover.
On the upper shelf are HO steam models. I get to compare a USRA light Mikado with a Pere Marquette 2-8-4 Berkshire. With a quick eye, I run them over, never mind who made them, how they work, or anything else. The Berk is clearly bigger than the Mike, even though both are maximized to go through tunnels and under bridges that face both locomotives. They are the same height and width — Plate C clearances — but they look different.
The Berk clearly has larger drivers, and its boiler doesn’t taper at all. As a result, the Berk has a more brutish look. It has a larger firebox held up with a four-wheel truck instead of the Mike’s two wheel trailing truck. The Berk pulls a tender nearly twice the size of the Mike’s USRA tender. Again, we can turn to the numbers, but I won’t. The visual record is correct, and this time, the locomotive that looks bigger also pulls harder and runs faster. More Mikes were built than Berks, but more money was possibly spent on Berks than Mikes.
Comparing diesel to steam is more complicated, especially if you go wallowing in the numbers. The steam locos by themselves were about the size of the diesels, but the tenders nearly doubled the length and weight, at least with the Berk. Once a steamer got started, it could generally bring that train to a speed in miles per hour equal to about the driver diameter in inches. Diesels, on the other hand, could start nearly any train, but the horsepower rating then determined how fast the train would go. This is number work, however.
The scale models allow me to see them both, side-by-side as they never were in real life. I love the ornate mechanical monsters that are steam locomotives as much as I enjoy the colorful pageantry of diesels. At the far end of the steam track is the tiny John Bull, a 2-4-0 from the 1830s. On that same end of the diesel track is an early box cab diesel from around 1925. My, how everything changes!
And this is just locomotive-to-locomotive comparisons. Throw in freight and passenger cars, track work, buildings, vehicles, trees and so much more, and suddenly you have a chance to reconstruct and almost relive a moment in time. This is all based upon a common scale, however.
The hardest thing to accept for some model railroaders is the fact that scales are not always what they seem. For example, HO scale is portrayed as being either 1:87 or 1:87.1; here at MRN we use 1:87 just because we had to pick a default. Meanwhile, I’ve seen 1:72 and 1:96 airplanes and cars on HO layouts, and yet they don’t seem out of scale. Clever modelers site them onto the layout where they help to force a perspective. I’ve seen some clever buildings that start at 1:72 in front and taper to 1:96 in back, also forcing a perspective.
There are HO layouts and back along the horizon are N-scale buildings and trains, convincing the eye they are HO stuff just very far away. So long as modelers know that products are of different scales and do not set them so they are compared, it all works just fine.
Nowhere is this more confusing for new modelers than in the garden scales. With all using the same 1.77-inch gauge rails, we have your 1:32, 1:29, 1:24, 1:22.5, 1:20.3, and 1:13.7. Each one converts the gauge to either standard or some type of narrow gauge. 1:32 is pure standard gauge while 1:29 is a modified version of that. 1:24 scale represents 42-inch narrow gauge, 1:22.5 is meter gauge, 1:20.3 is pure 36-inch narrow gauge, while 1:13.7 becomes Maine 2 foot narrow gauge.
Each of these garden scales is known to play with adjacent scales. The Maine narrow is very close to the 1:12 dollhouse scale and encourages that sort of thinking. 1:20.3 often pulls 1:22.5 freight cars. That scale then plays with 1:24 scale figures, vehicles, and buildings, as does 1:29. 1:32 offers up vehicles and accessories. The key is to know how to place these various scale items so the eye cannot visually compare the size.
In the land of O gauge, many scales come to play. There are historical roots for all of them, from 1:43 down to 1:55, and those who model these scales learn how to locate items to place them into a proper perspective. Purists will complain about this endlessly, but that will change exactly nothing. At the bottom of it, there are two kinds of happy model railroaders: those who have learned to deal with scale flexibility and those that don’t really care about it.