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Believe it or not, the bottom three freight cars shown in the accompanying picture are all Lionel "O Gauge" boxcars.
The second from the top is a typical O-27 "Baby Ruth" boxcar from around 1950, No. X1004, and is a little over 7-1/2 inches long. The one below that is an O gauge car, No. 6464-425, from around 1957 and is about 9-1/2 inches long. The bottom car is a "Standard O" boxcar, No. 17204, was made in 1991, and is just under 13 inches long. Just for the record, the Greenberg pocket price guide shows their values (in excellent condition) as $11, $90, and $30, respectively.
The car shown at the top of the picture is an American Flyer freight car, No. 629, from around 1950, also about 7-1/2 inches long; and it lists for $30 (in excellent condition.)
The interesting thing is that all three Lionel cars run on the same width track, O gauge, even though there is a substantial difference in their sizes. So it is useful to keep in mind that while track gauge and scale are usually related, they are different. Gauge refers to the distance between the wheels or track rails, while scale refers to the relationship between the size of the model vs. the size of the original train or car, which the model replicates.
(See more on gauges in my previous artice, "Gauges through the Ages," at http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y202/m07/abu0075/s06.)
For example, if an actual train car was 48 feet long, and a model was one foot, or 12 inches long, we would say the model was built to 1:48th scale. 1:48 scale is generally associated with O gauge trains, and since one foot (on the original train car) would be equivalent to 1/4 inch on the model, it is sometimes referred to as 1/4 inch scale. But as you can see in Figure 1, scale varies a lot with O gauge trains, from the smallest, which is almost the same size as the American Flyer S gauge car (generally considered 1:64 scale) to the largest (bottom car in photo), which appears to be perhaps 1:45 scale.
I started writing this because in a previous article on train gauges, I did not mention "Standard O" trains. I thought it would be good to get the most accurate information by writing Lionel. So far, my two emails resulted in two, prompt, courteous replies. The first said, in essence, "Scale varies." The second said essentially, "Lionel's Standard O cars are bigger than traditional Lionel O gauge cars." Duh! So now we might say that Lionel trains are made to "interpretive" scale, with a few possible exceptions such as their famous pre-World War II, No. 700E Scale Hudson locomotive and matching cars and perhaps some of their more recent, very expensive models. But that should not deter a serious toy train collector. Someone once said, "It doesn't bother me that "the Lionel "Operating Gateman" is the size of a caboose."
But scale and realism do matter to some people. In fact, even though there is some overlap (maybe a lot), toy and model train hobbyists tend to be in one of three groups, depending on how they feel about accurate scale.
One group consists of scale model train hobbyists. These folks go all out to make their trains and layouts accurately to scale and as realistic as possible. This aspect of the hobby may have started with HO trains, but over the years it has expanded to include O gauge (2 rail), S gauge (American Flyer) and smaller N gauge trains. Some serious scale model enthusiasts, according to what I have heard, make their own O gauge tracks using rails that are much smaller than those found on conventional Lionel tracks. Historically, scale model enthusiasts built their trains from kits. Some still do, but now some companies make their trains available with trucks that have wheels with smaller flanges so they can run on the O scale tracks with smaller rails.
A second group includes hobbyists who love the trains, tracks, and accessories just as they were originally sold. Accurate scale is relatively unimportant to these collectors and operators.
The third group builds and operates very realistic and accurately scaled layouts, but prefers to use conventional trains with wheels that have fairly large flanges, like those on the freight cars in the accompanying pictures. Their trains might be old or new, but they would typically run on tracks that, while compatible with traditional American Flyer or Lionel, are more realistic looking.
For example, GarGraves track, shown in Figure 2 (O Gauge Car on GarGraves Track), has wooden ties and a darkened center rail to make it less visible. Since these track rails are higher than the same gauge scale tracks, such hobbyists have come to be known a "hi-railers," and their layouts would be called hi-rail layouts.
So whether one's interest is in early American toy trains, European toy trains built in the 1800s, toy trains built in the 1940s and 50s, or the most modern computerized models, and whether one is satisfied to simply display their trains or prefers to build elaborate layouts, this is a hobby that has enormous variety. There is always something new to learn.
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