I don’t think O scale ever declined, what happened was the hobby grew tremendously after WWII and most of the new hobbyists went into HO. The last twenty years have seen tremendous product growth for the six popular scales - Z, N, HO, S, O, and G. While HO may have the widest variety, all the others have plenty of stuff.
Enjoy
Paul
edkowal: I have heard about the Bay State museum but have never seen it–an acquaintance on a Yahoo-group send me some photos and a track plan for the old EBMES layout and its Sacramento Northern equipment–most impressive. The current O layout seems to have a lot of traction action–good to see!
mersenne: By “large-scale modelers” I refer mostly to people who model big steam and diesel garden railroads, rather than O scalers…some of the boxcars I have seen cost more than all of my rolling stock put together!
One of the things I’ve always liked about HO, as opposed to O (scale or tinplate) is the abundance of “shake-the-box” kits (Athearn and MDC/Roundhouse come to mind). This allows a modeler the ability to build a huge collection of rolling stock without taking out a second mortgage. It’s a shame no real market for this ever was created or tapped in O. Even S scale/tinplate has American Models and S-Helper Service!
Because of this I’ve always had O tinplate as my “running” scale (i.e. toy trains on a big layout) and HO as my “modeling” (i.e. prototypical, scale models) scale. In addition I still can’t wrap my head around the pricing difference between O (especially “modern” tinscale) and HO - for basically the same product with the same features made in the same factory, just bigger (but not any more detailed). IMHO 3-rail modelers get mugged!
Anyway - 2 rail O was the major scale prior to World War 2, and was only eclipsed in the post-war era with the expansion of the hobby and the post-war housing boom (the building of more affordable, but smaller houses is considered a contributing factor - as much as the Depression killed Standard Gauge in the 1930’s). BTW - Lionel didn’t invent O gauge - O (or 0 - as a numbered gauge like #1, #2, etc., “gauge” was more important than “scale” to early manufacturers) dates back to the early 1900’s as the “smallest practical gauge for modeling”!