Forget the 'scale', and concentrate on the gauge. Pre war, AF used 0 gauge, same as Lionel, Marx etc. Post war, Flyer used S gauge. The answer to your question is therefore YES if the item is pre war, or NO if it is post war.
Compatible - the wheels may be, but not the couplers :-)
I looked at this again. Aside from the difference in the wheel base, S scale cars would be only 1/16" scale smaller than O scale. How noticeable a difference is that?
27 is track radius, not diameter - OTOH O72 is track diameter.
Both indicate toy trains, built to tinplate O gauge standards (ie 32mm gauge with round topped rolled tinplate rail) but somewhat smaller scale. (if scale is a word that can be applied to toys)
I must be looking at some odd American Flyer S scale stock then. It all looks like new stuff, but the size of the cars doesn't seem much different than the Lionel Standard O cars.
Or, as some have suggested, the Lionel stuff varies so much that it can be hard to tell.
I read it in an OLD US mr mag from about 1950 discussing "Hi Rail" - semi-scale O gauge modelling for those not into scratch building and hand track laying.
Sure, but some of us differentiate 0-4-0 Big Boys from 4-8-8-4 Big Boys.
I can't get a straight answer from Google. Too many site have strange terms like "O27 scale"; the use of "scale" making no sense. The terminology is so arbitrarily interchanged that it's hard to make sense of it.
I would to! But I'd still play with the 4-8-8-4 Big Boy. I heard about an old guy who buys everything from every Lionel catalog and puts it all into glass cabinets. He owns no track. That seems sad. But to each is own.
As for real modelers such as yourself, I don't have the talent or skill for it. Maybe I'll develop some over time as the space I can devote to it increases.
I want to buy the 120" long Amtrak Acela and then demand a government subsidy. O scale political graft.
"Scale" is a word not understood by 99% of the world's population and only by about 50% of those who model/run/own trains. The word is often used by people who want to say "gauge" so always treat the term with a degree of suspicion if model to prototype proportion is of interest to you. There are currently at least four different "O scales" in use world-wide: (in terms of model to prototype proportion)
- 1:48 USa.
- 1:45 Europe.
- 1:43.5 Europe.
- 7mm:1 foot. UK
- 23mm:metre. France.
Before there were scale models there was "tinplate toys". Maerklin set "O gauge" in 1900 at 32mm between the rails (actually 35mm between rail head centers) and most toy makers went with that standard. The trains applied to that gauge were in assorted sizes, cheap ones were small, ... scalish ones were expensive. Small boys usually liked the bigger sizes because ... Lionel made (and still makes) those trains with "models" big enough to look more or less realistic, but an actual scale model would probably be 10-20% bigger overall. (retires to fallout shelter)
I started with Maerklin, (Germay's equivalent to Lionel) nowadays they make for three distinct markets; the toy train buyers, the "collector" who never runs anything and finally the "modeller". The modeller is obviously a very poor third place these days while the "collector" is where the real money comes from.
We all start with no talent or skill ;-)
It's nice to combine a hobby with a paying business!
Maybe I'm not doing the math right, but I looked up the specs on a C&O Berkshire, or Kanawhas as that company called them, built by Alco. It's
105' 2" long. True 1/48 scale should have the model being about 2.19' long. Of course the model I have is called a Berkshire Jr.
O36 track would scale up to a 144' diameter circle No, it doesn't seem to match up. Even GarGraves O138 track would scale up to a 552' diameter circle. Could a 105'2" train turn in a circle only 5.25 times greater than it's length?
Depends on how many breaks in the frames you're prepared to accept! ;-) The 0-4-0 would go around the 144' diameter circle if you uncoupled the tender.
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