I just looked through a recent magazine on an article of an N scale layout, the background town was magnificant, I had to really squint to see if it was an actual photo, but there it was, an N scale diesel pulling a freight and it has these oversized, massive, out of proportion handrails that I’m sure you could see from 50 feet. I then turned the page to see an actual photo of a real loco and the true proportionate scale of the handrails to the locomotive, what a difference, can’t makers of N scale add scale size handrails to their locos? I have thought of N scale but until they improve this one major flaw, I’m with HO. anyone else notice this on their locomotives??
Even Athearn blue box locomotives have had horribly oversized handrails in HO for years and years – and shiny metal to boot, so it’s not only N scale that suffers from this.
In case you haven’t noticed, the products of late ARE coming out with much smaller handrails. The new Atlas engines are a good example.
What bugs me the most is when you see a nice photo of an N-Scale layout with great locos and rolling stock only to see Micro Trains couplers with that *** trip pin sticking about 6" above the knuckle and and about 3’ below it!!!
Now I use MT trucks and couplers on all of my rolling stock, BUT the first thing I do is to pu***he pin down level with the top of the knuckle and then trim about 50% off of what’s left. I then paint the pin black and put a drop of paint above the knuckle and then paint just a tad of silver at the end of the pin to make it look like the glad hand.
Since I never use the magnets and use a small skewing stick coated with graphite, trimming the trip pin causes no problems for me…
gtr
We’re still having a hard time entering the 21st century when it comes to handrails. I’ve always been partial to metal handrails, and bent alot of wire and soldered a lot of brass stanctions in the process. But I’m impressed with the latest plastic handrails, in HO, at least. Their thickness and level of detail are superb, and they certainly are durable. My only gripe is with some of the colors they are molded in. The Kato DM&IR SD-38’s and BLI ATSF RSD-15’s come to mind as a couple that look particulary garish. It’s hard to make vitually translucent plastic look like painted netal!
Mick
They have made great progress in HO recently, and I expect N to follow suit quite shortly.
And from a Tyco ad in a MR from the 60s…
“The Century features…Richly gleaming handrails”
Si there yoiu have it! 