{"id":50,"date":"2014-07-25T02:39:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T02:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/?page_id=50"},"modified":"2018-07-25T20:22:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T20:22:29","slug":"scale","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/?page_id=50","title":{"rendered":"Scale-S"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days, in the “S-gauge” world, the term “scale modelers” (A.K.A. “scalers”) refers to modelers who want to own and build realistically sized and detailed models. Upon careful consideration, the common use of the term “S-gauge” to refer to all 3\/16 scale modeling is unfortunate, because it confuses the terms scale<\/em> and gauge<\/em>. In fact, post-war American Flyer (AF) has been mostly 3\/16 scale size and still looks good when grouped with modern production\u00a0S-scale models. The term gauge<\/em> is technically the distance between the rails and in the real world can vary depending on time and place. In the US, standard gauge trains have 4 ft 8 1\/2 in distance between the rails; narrow gauge is narrower (examples: 3 ft, 2 ft, 42 in), trollies are usually wider.<\/p>\n

(Click on photos to enlarge)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Module<\/a><\/p>\n

\"img_0270-power-house-2-sml\"<\/a>\"img_0269-power-house-1-sml-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the Pittsburgh S-Gaugers club, there are members interested in Scale-S modeling, which means that they want models that are as true to the real thing (the prototype) as they can get; they want all of the details to be present and accurately sized. American Flyer-S models were intended by A.C. Gilbert to be toys and had a relatively low level of detail and had large wheel flanges and large couplers to improve running reliability for children. By definition, Scale-S models have more realistically sized flanges and couplers.\u00a0This creates operating incompatibility with AF unless certain steps are taken to adjust for the differences. In general, AF-S trains may be thought of as S-scale with a low level of detail and Scale-S as a high level of detail and Proto-1-64 as the highest level of detail\/scale fidelity.<\/p>\n

At a practical level, the difference in detail size chosen by the modeler creates problems in two places: coupling cars together (coupler size) and getting cars through turnouts\/switches (flange size). It also means that train owners care about model’s details to varying degrees — that of course is a hobbist’s choice.<\/p>\n

That being said, in recent years, the differences between the AF\/Hi-rail-S and Scale-S hobbiests has been shrinking. Hi-rail-S folks often mix modern, better detailed rolling stock with AF and often try to build layouts that are closer to the real world, just like the Scale-S folks do. It is also common, especially on modern models, to switch couplers to a more realistic size and continue to run with hi-rail wheels. Once that is done, there’s not much difference in appearance in such Hi-rail models\/layouts and scale models\/layouts.<\/p>\n

In summary, that’s what Scale-S is — a concern for accuracy in model details. Those modelers have a natural interest in the real-world prototypes of their models, which extends into modeling approaches, photos, drawings and video; some build their models from “scratch” — no kit involved.<\/p>\n

The truth is that there are also some Scale-S modelers who choose hi-rail flanges and maybe even hirail couplers, but want realism otherwise. So these days, the difference between scale and Hi-rail has been greatly diminished. This is a good thing, because it helps to bring S hobbyists together. This is the way it is in the Pittsburgh S-Gaugers Club.<\/p>\n

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These days, in the “S-gauge” world, the term “scale modelers” (A.K.A. “scalers”) refers to modelers who want to own and build realistically sized and detailed models. Upon careful consideration, the common use of the term “S-gauge” to refer to all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"onecolumn-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-50","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psgtrains.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}