I have been watching this headlong rush into ever larger rolling stock for some time with increasing unease. The days of running dinky “toys” are essentially over and are rapidly being replaced with a more knowledgeable hobbiest, which is not a bad thing certainly.
But with this increased sophistication has come a desire for more prototypical accuracy which has brought about the emergence of larger rolling stock. Still not a bad thing.
But my concern is that our wants are in danger of outstripping our resources and we may start losing fans of large scale because they no long have the space and the $$$$$ to devote to it.
I’ll admit that I have fallen victim to this. I’m a died in the wool D&RGW fan and when the USA Trains F-7 it immediately fell into the “gotta have” category. So I am a proud owner of an ABBA set - all 8’ of it. But how can I swing a 9 car set of CZ passenger cars? Ignoring the cost, that train would stretch 35’ !! Or how many people can put together a freight train worthy of a brace of SD-45s or -9s?
My point is that the sheer size of most modern era equipment has usurped the ability for a lot of us to adequately display and operate it it in a believable miniature setting. So a lot of it, including my ABBAs, sits on a shelf.
I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we have jumped a generation here. What we have is a nice chunky standard gauge 2-8-0, and/or an elegent 4-6-0 accompanied by the shorter cars prevalent during the 1900-1925 period. In my estimation, a manufacturer who would spend a little time concentrating on that part of the standard gauge era would clean up.
(As a point of historical information, the most popular HO locomotive that Pacific Fast Mail produced was a small ATSF 2-8-0)
I’m not complaining too hard about the large modern stuff coming out. I’m glad to see the vibrancy of the hobby support it. But this is self limiting. It can progress only as fast as new prototypes come into service. Sooner or later the manufacturers will need to go backwards in time as a source for their new product ideas.
And we all want new stuff to play with. If the new products don’t come, the hobby will start to stagnate. Couple that with the potential disillusionment related to the the phycical and financial needs of the bigger equipment, and we could have an emerging negative situation brewing. I hope not.
CJ