It's great to see this thread develop without the chauvinism and rivalry
such discussions often provoke. Here's my slightly different perspective
on what is central to determining the best scale.
The considerations -- and there are tons of them -- can be lumped into two
broad categories: what I'd call pragmatic concerns and aesthetic ones. The
former are all the practical constraints that set limits on what is
possible or at least what is relatively easy or difficult for each of us:
They include things like our budgets, how much free time we have, space for
a layout, the availability of specific prototype equipment or other
supplies, the quality of same (e.g., running characteristics, detail,
accuracy), our skills, the condition of our eyes, etc., etc. Each of these
has obvious bearing on the appropriateness of a given scale and is
something that we can assess pretty rationally and objectively.
Aesthetic concerns, by contrast, are inherently subjective and irrational.
They have to do with our preferences and feelings, what we love most about
this or that particular prototype or about railroads in general. They
answer the question, "what do you really want to model?" By which I mean
not just the basic things like which railroad or which part of the system,
what era, what kind of equipment.... I'm referring more to what it is
ABOUT a railroad that you are trying to capture. I think that's a question
that anyone getting into this hobby or contemplating changing scales or
building a new layout must consider. Ask yourself -- what kinds of railroad
books do you like to browse or buy? when you look through a railroad book
or go to a museum, what kinds of photos or exhibits do you spend the most
time poring over? When you visit a layout, what features draw your
attention?
If it turns out that what fascinates you most about railroads is the
anatomy of the individual machines -- their sounds and smells, the
intricate piping and valve motion of a steam locomotive, for instance --
you probably should choose as large a scale as possible, so you can capture
the "bulk" of an engine, have complete, working valve gear, lots of detail,
and room for a powerful sound system. If it's the train or the railroad as
an entity that grabs you (especially if you love dense, mainline
operations), you should probably think as small as is practical, so you can
run long freight drags around great sweeping curves or recreate a vast yard
filled with cuts of cars from the four corners of your empire.
So far so obvious. The problem, though, is that most of us love and want
ALL that stuff, at least to some degree. Let's face it; we're all a little
greedy. So -- realizing we can't have everything -- naturally we make
compromises, hedge our bets, and try to set priorities. OK, the point I
want to make is that if we can get clear from the start about our aesthetic
preferences -- the subjective, irrational stuff -- and can get those things
in the right order, we will have a much easier time thinking about all the
practical issues that constrain us. And we'll be much more likely to make
choices and compromises that will keep us happy and interested for a long
time, much more so than if we approach the problem from the other
direction. You can change how you think about things; it's much harder to
change how you feel.
In my own case, I decided a long time ago that my love of railroads can't
be separated from my love of the landscapes where they run (geography major
in college) and that it is the railroad as a part of a specific
environment/region that captures my imagination. In terms of modeling, that
translates into a need to recreate realistic scenery and structures, but
equally a need to create a geographically plausible layout design for
interesting operations. Once I realized these were my central aesthetic
concerns, everything else fell into place.
I wanted a scale where I could represent a landscape both in some detail
(i.e., not too small) and some variety (i.e., not too large). I wanted to
build a realistic branch line (around the walls) that passed through a
changing landscape, without track looping back all over itself. And to make
the railroad/landscape come alive, I also wanted to be able to operate
trains with some reliability and realism. HO was pretty clearly the right
choice for me -- at least it was 20 years ago, when I was getting back into
the hobby. There were other, related advantages to that scale, too. The
availability of prototypically accurate, reliable motive power and rolling
stock freed me to focus my energies on what I really loved, building
scenery and structures. Moreover, there were lots of detail parts and
scratch-building supplies to fuel my imagination, allowing me to recreate a
wide range of both specific prototype structures and freelanced Victorian
buildings.
Yeah sure sometimes I get flashes of regret when I see nifty new products
in other scales, but overall it still seems like a pretty good decision.
Given my priorities I could have chosen N scale, and if I were starting
over now I'd give it serious consideration. But in 1978, there just wasn't
that much available in N, and much of what was available seemed of marginal
quality.
Used to be said that S was The Ideal Compromise Scale (small enough to
build a layout, big enough for good detail and operation). Well, that was a
long time ago, and a lot has changed. On the one hand, finding enough space
for a layout is much more expensive; and on the other hand, our ability to
produce reliable, accurate, detailed models in small scales has advanced
tremendously. The truth is, today EVERY scale is an ideal compromise scale,
depending on what compromises our aesthetic ideals lead us to make.
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