S Scale Model Railroad
You want to know what’s really at the crest of model train hobby? What’s about to break that has every model trainer sleepless with anticipation? What scale of toy locomotive do collectors go coo coo for?I could go on and on like this, but let me just let the train out the bag: it’s s scale toy trains. Yeah, that’s right, s scale? You don’t even know what gauge that is, do you? You couldn’t tell me if that is as large as g gauge locomotive or as small as an n scale, huh? Alright so here’s what you need to know for your next model railroader’s meeting:
Two words, “American Flyer”:
In a sense it starts and ends with this. Nostalgia explains a lot. American Flyer’s s scale locomotives had their best days right after the Big One when the baby boomers were starting to sprout up. This was in huge part an attempt to keep up with Lionel’s O gauge who was the king of the roost at the time. S scale toy railroads are a little smaller than the Lionel O gauge. Real world locomotives are 64 times huger than s scale toys whereas real world trains are 48 times the size of Lionel’s O. These are still pretty substantial trains but not so much so that you would have to have them only outside. You can still really get into detailing with these big toy trains.
You don’t stumble across s scale much these days:
Another reason that it has gained such a wide following is that s scale is uncommon. American Flyers are simply the exclusive kind of locomotives that were mass produced in this gauge and even American Flyers were only made in this gauge for a short period just after World War II. That means there are not that many vintage s scale American Flyer trains. This also means that those hobbyists of the s gauge locomotives in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s had to make most of their replacement trains from scratch and to meticulously maintain their trains since replacement parts in the pre-web era were virtually impossible to track down. The nature of this devotion has just made the trains that much more sought after.
American Flyers are about to enter the model train market again:
American Flyer’s adversary Lionel bought them out in the 60’s and is now looking to reinvigorate both brands by releasing the vintage 1950’s toys that are so cherished by collectors. The s scale toys they are due to re-manufacture should take the toy train world by storm. It might not be long before we have to make way for s scale as yet another common size in the toy training world.
Now’s the moment to put your chips down if you want to cash in early on this tip. If you want to say “I told you so” to your model train buddies you should jump in now. Don’t say I didn’t give you the low down later on. Remember when I told you about this little coffee house called Starbuck’s. And you said no one would ever shell out more just for some coffee.
Here is more information on Model Train Scale. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.
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