Merging O-Gauge Forums?


M

Mixed Freight

Well-Known Member
Question.............. Should the 'Tinplate and Hi-Rail' forum be merged with the 'O-Scale' forum? And re-named as the "O-Gauge" forum?

Reason I ask is because.....................................
There seems to be not a whole lot of difference between the questions asked between the two forums. And I see very little to almost zero 2-rail O-Scale discussion compared to 3-rail discussion.

In my opinion, 2-rail O-Scale is 1/48 scale" (Similar to 1/87th HO-Scale or 1/160th N-Scale, or true-to-scale fidelity), while 3-rail O-gauge could be considered more as "O-gauge" (anywhere from 1/48th scale to 1/64th scale, more or less, since the exact scale is not always that critical). Not to mention the fact that 3-rail track is not really true to prototype, no matter what. While 2-rail O-scale is a very specialized niche in the model railroading hobby, 3-rail O-gauge is fairly wide-spread, and much more common to the general population. 3-rail O-gauge really runs the gamut, all the way from 'pretty near gosh-darned-scale (yaayyy!!!) to toy-train fantasy ridiculous deluxe (boooo!!!).

Since 2-rail O-scale discussion is virtually non-existent on this forum, I can readily see not catering to it here. On the other hand, I'm not sure why there isn't a little more activity for 3-rail O-gauge on this board, but needless to say, I sure wouldn't mind seeing a little more.

Just curious. Any thoughts???
 
JazzDad said:
I model O scale, and run the other way when someone mentions O gauge.
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Yeah, and I can understand that. Even though the forum is titled "O-Scale", there seems to be an awful lot of 3-rail O-gauge posts on it.

Maybe a better thing to do would be to update/rename the forum names............ "O-Scale" can be updated as "2-Rail O-Scale". "Tinplate and Hi-Rail" can be simply renamed as "3-Rail O-Gauge". Then a moderator or other volunteer could maybe go through and separate all the previous posts into the correct forums (E-Z Peasy as long as someone else besides me has to do it, correct? :p)

Regardless, that may start getting more O-gauge/O-scale folks into joining and posting on this model train forum. I would start posting more myself, but I'm not sure which forum to put my O-gauge posts in right at the moment. 😕;)
 
There’s actually quite a few 0 gauge/scalers on here including narrow gauge so there probably should be a forum section. I'm thinking about doing up a two rail switching layout myself.
Not meaning to segregate anyone or anything, I’m sure they’re all good normal people like the rest of us, just bigger aspirations. 😉
 
Re: "... good normal people..."

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Mixed Freight said:
Question.............. Should the 'Tinplate and Hi-Rail' forum be merged with the 'O-Scale' forum? And re-named as the "O-Gauge" forum?

Just curious. Any thoughts???
Click to expand...
Much ado about nothing, other than in my opinion it would be nice to have fewer sub forums (to scroll through or in this case past), and each with more active posts in them.

All of my O size stuff two or three rail is O-gauge. My Atlas diesels are 2 rail, steam is 3 rail, Lionel and Marx are 3 rail, All the AHM is 2 rail, I think all the other is 2 rail. I do not have any Proto-48 stuff with scale size track as apparently JazzDad does. Way too much of a niche for me, and I could contribute nothing there.

In the forums I have learned to listen to the poster and adapt my conversation to whatever their definition of O is. Occasionally I have to ask but usually it is pretty apparent. There are many "tells". Getting harder though as some of the new Lionel (and American Flyer) is now DC. Yipes - confusing.
 
Iron Horseman said:
...I do not have any Proto-48 stuff with scale size track as apparently JazzDad does. ...
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I guess I just love semantics.

My modeling is far from being proto-anything. With the sub forums I can choose to read what I think might interest me. And, I'm probably missing some good stuff by not reading them all.
 
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