Can anyone give me a brief side by side rundown between O & S *SCALE,* (not tinplate): Variety of off the shelf items available- Prices compared between the two scales- My interest is 1960's Milwaukee Road & NP RY. Late 1950's M&St.L. Diesels & mostly freight operations. Boxcab E50
Briefly , 'S' scale is cheaper by 20% or so for RRs and erathat you model. Steam is different w/ much more variety in 'O'. This all assumes you can decal to get what you want using 1st gen DEs, etc. (i.e. not dependent upon everything being finished in order to operate a MR) More selection in 'O' scale by far in RTR and Quickits all rolling stock. 'O' scale traction best of all available quality and product numbers of ALL North American modelling scales. 'Sn3' has major edge in cost, and product availability in popular 3ft gauge , for reasons I won't go into here , this is no contest . 'On30' is best gauge from cost and satisfaction for modelling Maine 2 ft. That's it in nutshell, PJB
PJB- At this point, I find myself leaning toward S. One reason being that a little more can be done in a similar space. I did some searching of the 'Net. Am sure I missed plenty. But did spot some O. It certainly does cost more than S. So there is another factor. I'm not in a hurry. So will continue to look at these two scales. If you have any further input, I'm listening! Thanks! Boxcab E50
Boxcab and PJB, I am also interested in this topic. I have recently moved and I am starting to think about my new home layout. I have been modeling on HO, but I am considering larger scales as something different. I have already discussed the possibility of On30 with PJB in the narrow gauge section. Would anyone like to comment on the availability of scale O or S cars and locomotives for modern freight operations? I don't have a lot of space, but I am thinking about a modern industrial switching layout similar to what is done in the large chemical plant where I work on the Houston ship channel. Keep the discussion going....
Don, Just how modern do you want to model? Real contemporary will be a little more difficult, but fairly recent is possible. Atlas O has some nice tank cars that are very contemporary, Weaver has some nice 50’ welded tank cars. Box cars will be a bit more difficult, but Weaver offers a couple versions of 50’ Railbox type box cars. One has a sliding door and the other has a plug door. Atlas has an Evans 50’ plug double door box car and some large auto parts cars. The auto parts cars aren’t the 87’ cars by the way. Atlas and Weaver have some covered hoppers that aren’t the most modern but are still being used currently. Flat cars are a bit thin on selection as are modern gondolas. There are several different open top hoppers from Weaver. For engines, Atlas has a couple of switch engines (SW800/900 – SW1200) and a GP-35 is coming out this fall. Weaver has a GP38-2, U25B, RS11, FA2 and VO1000. Check out the comparisons I put in the S scale forum for some more info. Greg Elems
