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Regular poster 374 posts royhoffman Regular poster 374 posts
royhoffman

After 57 years as an S scaler, it’s time for a paradigm shift. Up until now I’ve been embroiled in the dauntless task of promoting S scale. During my tenure as President of the National Association of S Gaugers (NASG) from 2001-2005, I made promotion of S one of my two biggest priorities, the other one being to provide services to the membership much like the NMRA does. But, something recently got me thinking. The editorial guidelines for MRH stated that articles submitted should not have scale specific references in them. I instantly rebelled because I thought that any articles submitted by S scalers should be literally dripping with allusions to S. The better to promote S so I thought.

 
But now it’s time to think of myself as a Model Railroader who happens to model in S scale. The hobby is too big and S is too small to continue to worry about promoting it to the determent of enjoying the hobby in general and other modeler’s efforts in their respective scales. The entire hobby has to be promoted as an entity if it is to survive in the coming years. I recently re-uped with the NMRA and have been attending some South Mt. Division, MER meetings where I’ve actually bumped into another S scaler.
I’ve become very interested in operations and hope to learn much from my fellow members as each one has a general approach to operations spiced with their own unique applications.
 
I’ve also learned that there are a lot of folks out there that model in more than one scale and have included S in their mix. They probably don’t understand the parochial approach to a scale anyway, so promotion is not all that important to them. So it’s time to take off the promotions hat and join the masses who are just in the hobby for its enjoyment regardless of which scale(s).
 
 
 
 

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Roy Hoffman

The S/Sn3 Scale Penn Western Railroad -
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feldman718 Prolific poster 1,358 posts
feldman718

A Whole New Approach

Roy,

Your blog hit the nail on the head. We may choose a scale t model in but that's bnot why we are model railroaders. Frankly scale may have something to do with preferences but it has more to do with the amount space you have available than anything else. I know that was the primary factor for me when I first got into N-Scale many years ago. I was living in a 2 bedroom garden apartment with a wife and 2 year old at the time and HO just didn't fit and I didn't want to get of the wife or child.

In 1982 we moved into a house and the thought was now I could HO but little did I know that that wouldn't fly with the CEO, the Office of Management and Budget and the Secretary of the Interior. She put her foot down and allocated a 12 foot 3 inch x 15 foot room in the basement to me and told me I could either live in it or run N-SCale trains in it. And so I've been in N ever since. Strange how wives have such an impact on model railroading.

I know I could have a decent HO switching layout in this space but somehow I didn't want that. What I wanted was something that I could run thru scenery and still operate to some extent and that could only be done in N. So I said goodbye to HO scale. Sure, I've had my on on the finidhed part of the basement for the last 27 years but if I ever get the chance to expand my layout into that 30 foot by 20 foot space if will only be because my wife is wiulling to give me a foot or two in there. Otherwise the foot wiull be direct at my bottom and that won't be a good thing at all.

Once you get past the scale issue, everything else is pretty much the same. Track laying is pretty much the same in all scales. So are the problems with scenery and operations. DCC works the same no matter what scale you chose. So we are all model railroaders and N-Scalers or HO-Scalers or even S-Scalers. To bad not everyone realizes this.

Irv

Model Railroader who models in N-Scale.
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royhoffman Regular poster 374 posts
royhoffman

Property Rights

Irv,

You're certainly right in that the wives jealously guard every square inch of their turf. When I had to put my layout in a 1 1/2 car garage, I left my wife a path to the washer and dryer and we still joke about it. Now that we have a basement, she gets a decent area and woe is me if I expand the layout 1 inch in her direction.

Roy

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Roy Hoffman

The S/Sn3 Scale Penn Western Railroad -
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Benny MRH Author 7,177 posts
Benny

I think Scale envy crops up

I think Scale envy crops up becasue we all want to be able to take our trains and run them onther layouts - that is, if George comes over to my house, he can run his trains, and if I go over to George's house, well, I can run my stuff on his tracks.

This country itself once engaged in scale envy on a national level, although it was more of a matter of "Gauge Envy;"  That ended relatively quickly with the end of the Civil War and the invention of the notion of "Standuard Gauge.  Naturally it helped how Sherman and others completely tore the south apart.

But we are not so serious; if your trains don't run on my layout, the nation will not fail!!  Indeed, we are all free to model in any scale desireable, and that is beautiful.

I'm one firmly rooted in my chosen scale; Its a nice happy medium between too small and too big, which makes it perfect for me.

Women are hte ultimate rulers of the roost up to a point.  They must have a set amount of space, and anything below that means you will not have space at all yourself!  But once you get that base space habitable, I do believe there comes a nice peace...but what do I know!

--------------------------------------------------------

Benny's Index or Somewhere Chasing Rabbits
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joef MRH Founder 17,549 posts
joef

There's also the truth ....

There's also the truth that if mama's not happy, nobody's happy.

Us men-type modelers would be wise to remember this saying, cuz I find there's a lot of truth in it!

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

[siskiyouBtn]

Read my blog
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Jefferson Central Railroad New member 2 posts
Jefferson Central Railroad

Model Railroads

Many say "Hey! Its my model railroad!"

I moved into my home in 1968 because my wife Mary's health was bad and I needed a house in town so that my son could walk to school. One corner had a bank, another a Grocery store and another, our church. Very Nice!
 
I built the Jefferson Central in our basement, but had to provide a TV room, as Mary didn't want TV in our living room, plus the washer and dryer is also down there. Otherwise my model railroad and my office are all in the basement. Mary has always been 100% behind me modeling in S Scale. At one time, I had thought of changing to HO, but she talked me out of it.
 
Like, Roy, I model in S Scale and have a permanent layout. Over the years I have hosted conventions, clubs and other social organizations and have found my guests to be very courteous as well as curious about my scale of modeling. For that purpose I have a board with all the scales on it and that seems to help. I also hold in the palm of my hand various model wheel sets & couplers and that really shows the difference in scales.
 
I also offer each visitor an S Scale brochure, enclosed in that is a write up of the purpose of the my model railroad, what to look for and also included is  a very accurate four page copy of a magazine article on my model railroad. 
 
Anyway, my model railroad layout is now getting old; the times have changed to model railroads having more accurate buildings, trains running in DCC and so on. You see, I’m from the old school and am not sure that I want to change over, for if I do, I would tear down about 70% of my layout, rewire everything (posibly replace all my hand laid track and place modules in each locomotive, a monstrous job at my age 80.
 
Frankly, I don’t know how Roy does all that work! The Penn Western is an absolutely beautiful model railroad and Roy is a masterful builder as you can see by looking at the images from his web-site.
 
 Me? I’m not sure where I am at this stage of my model railroad career.
Nice work Roy!
 
 
 
 
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