1975 Atlas N scale by Keith Wills W
ith the exception of TT (remem- ber that?) and S, our modeling scales have primarily been Ger-
man imports. Gauges I and O were. HO, originally for a 1920’s Bing toy, was a mix of 16.5mm track with 4mm oversize trains because clockwork and electric motors of the day weren’t small enough to work within properly proportioned scale models. Some Americans liked the larger size, so they corrected the track gauge accordingly and called it OO while others worked to produce smaller 1:87 models, modern day HO. After World War II, TT seemed the tiniest size anyone would want to make or go to because motor technolo- gy did not yet permit anything smaller. By 1964, however, excited articles be- gan to appear in the hobby press about new, more miniature-sized trains made to run on 9mm track. Initially known as OOO, it was formulated a year later by the NMRA as N with 1:160mm scale models for 9mm track as it had been rapidly accepted by our hobbyists. An early 1963 ad for an imported German line, Arnold Rapido, showed very crude models in an attempt to manufacture American prototypes, re- ally toys rather than scale. A Baldwin diesel switcher had its solid front rail- ing molded directly onto the body shell, and freight cars had trucks too far in- board to be convincing. N wasn’t really new, only to us. Some- thing similar in 1:150mm scale had been around in Sweden since the late 1930’s, and a 1938 Model Builder photo showed a diminutive British 0-6-4T Southern tank steam locomotive lying in the palm of a hand. In 1962, British Lone Star, in business since the 1950’s, made OOO, Treble-O trains, which ap- peared for three years from 1962 to 1964 in the Montgomery Ward Christ- mas catalogs. It was 9.5mm gauge, later 9mm, and 1:150mm scale. Models in- tended for U.S. acceptance were crude to say the least. With the NMRA having set standards for what N would be in gauge and scale here, it was possible to order from Sears 1968-1969 Christmas catalogs very good-looking Revell and Aurora N gauge trains sets with EMD and Alco FA-units, a Pacific steamer and EMD GP20 road switcher. This was far superior in appearance than any- thing from Treble-O and Arnold Rapido.
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Rolling stock consisted of a standard boxcar, reefer, cattle, tank, gondola and
1963 ARNOLD
ALL THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE FROM 1975 ATLAS
caboose. They had a long way to go be- fore losing toy-like status and finding acceptance as a true hobby scale. In a small 1975 Atlas HO, N and O scales catalog, we observe how in just
twelve years since Arnold’s first ads appeared, one manufacturer moved ahead with a wider variety and better models. First, let’s admit N was initial- ly reduced tinplate of a sort. Like tin-
OCTOBER 2012
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