At one of the shows I attended recently I purchased a handful of assembled N scale structures to fill space on my under construction layout to give me a visual idea of how things will fit. One of the items I picked up is an N scale station that resembles the Atlas N scale station kit:
The station is in rough shape and is in now way planned to be a permanent structure, but it has certainly caught my curiousity due to its size, it seems to be to large for N scale, but is certainly not HO scale. There are a couple of N scale figures cemented to the platform, and upon investigation of the model, you can clearly see the doors and windows to the structure are much larger than they should be for the N scale figures, but they are too small for HO. See pic here:
I did confirm that the doors/structure are not HO as I own an HO scale model of the Atlas station which is much larger than this one, but as you can see, it is clearly not N scale as the figures are. Any suggestions? This one is baffling me.
Are there any indications as to the location of manufacture on it at all? I’m thinking it might be TT scale - which was slightly more popular in Europe than the States before N came along and eclipsed it.
From that pic the N scale woman is barely about doorknob height, which is generally 3ft. In HO that would put her just under 6 ft. Are you sure it’s not some plasticville “out of scale” HO station? It would be too small for S. At any rate , this station surely won’t work on your N scale layout except in the “land of the giants”.
I have a model of the Atlas N scale station as well as a model of the larger station and it is in HO scale. My HO station is exactly as the one in your picture with the exception of the people. The walls, platform, roof with dormers, windows and doors are all the same as on my N scale version. And I know the HO station was on an HO layout for many many years.
Control question : did you compare the door heights of your mystery building with the door height of a H0 scale building, or did you compare the size of the buildings, while making the assumption that the buildings should have been about the same size?
If the figure is N scale, the building looks H0 scale. But to find the scale, assume that door is about 7 foot (84") tall in reality, and measure height of door on model.
Scale is 84" divided by (measured height). If measured height is about 0.5", then scale is about 160 (N scale). If measured height is about 0.95", then scale is about 87 (H0 scale). If it is something wildly different, the building is some other scale
I thought so too. TT is an interesting thing on its own. The figures that you have almost would work but I be thinking TT here
I have a trainshed that was made by Graham Farish that is for both N and TT scale. When I looked at my N scale people and then placed them by a side door I got just about the same size discrepency in that photo.
I forgot about TT scale, its such an obscure scale, at least for me, never really having experienced it. The structure may very well be TT scale. As for size comparisons, the doors on the my HO scale version are larger than the one in question, and for further comparison, I pulled out a yet to be assembled N scale kit and compared its door size, which is much closer to that of the height of the N scale figures on the station platform. I’m not sure who the manufacturer of this structure is, but judging from the discussion here, I think TT may be the answer. Considering I paid $1.50 for it as is at a show, I"m not really worried, it won’t be around for much longer. At this point it was more a matter of curiosity. Thanks everyone for your help!
That’s the New York Central RR’s Hillside NJ station. It was made by Atlas in HO and N scales. I doubt they ever made it in TT. If the figures are N scale the station is HO scale. NYC stations had waiting rooms with very VERY high ceilings.
It would be interesting to see a pic of it next to the Atlas N station and an Atlas HO station, to see which one it is closer to in size.
Atlas has changed some products over time (like their 9" turntable" so maybe this is a very old version of the station kit which was undersized HO scale, or oversized N?? Many early “N scale”-labelled buildings and accessories were grossly oversized as I recall…for example at one time many HO scalers use “N Scale” signals, because they were so out of scale that they actually were about HO scale size.
I doubt it’s TT either. Having been involved in N way back in the beginning, I am more inclined to think it’s early N. A lot of the N strucuture kits that were put out in the first days were junk because there were simply no industry standards for the scale.
I don’t know why i put down NYC, it IS Hillside NJ, but it’s a Lehigh Valley station. must be getting too old or something. the mind is the second thing that goes… i can’t remember what the first is.
Perhaps it’s 1/8 inch scale?? Years ago I built this station when I was modeling in N and quickly decided it wasn’t to scale. Overall too small for HO, but the doors and details seemed HO size. Or perhaps it’s no scale at all but something the manufacturer put together quick and dirty to sell for the toy train/kids market.
It is HO scale, though grossly out of proportion. I think it is an early Pola or Heljan kit, although I cannot confirm this. I remember it being advertised by AHM in the late 1960´s and 1970´s.
In those years, it was quite common, that low-budget structures were not to scale at all.
