Hello all 17/64th er's
Thank you for your kind words ... and ruler measuring the K4 ......
Clearly there was great confusion among the troops in the 30's as to what was "O" scale ....
the 1930's was a time of great public layouts that attracted huge crowds ( the days before TV, and in the deep of the depression ) . The real railroads seemed to have real money to throw around creating these monster layouts to promote train travel ....and indirectly model trains . Many of the early manufactures both competed and worked together filling the various layouts with engines and rolling stock .
Scale Craft .. had their K4's running at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 at the Pennsylvania Railroad display... re-motored by Icken for the following years run . So 17/64th's or very close to it was running ...despite the Scale Craft flyer claiming 1/4" scale . In 1934 when the Scale Craft Hudson was introduced 1/4" again was advertised ..but this time ( save the huge headlight ) close to 1/4" was modeled.
Fun to try and dig to find more information about these early days of discovery in the O scale world .
Here are a few photos of a Scale Craft K4 17/64ths and a Scale Craft Hudson 1/4" and a Min- I -Scale Hudson 17/64ths .
Ads from January 1938 ... Hobby Shop offering both 17/64ths and 1/4" Hudson's ...also note the invasion of HO and OO gauges.... first signs of O scale slipping from the masses, losing them to the little trains ...
Notice the price difference ...O scale was big time expensive compared to OO and HO. AC Gilbert took Josh Cowen to the laundry offering his HO Hudson for half the price of the OO hudson
1939 lets review why few stayed with O scale
Ed Alexander, Hudson, custom built O scale 175.00 up
Lionel 700E 75.00
Min- I - Scale Hudson 70.00
Lionel OO Hudson 25.00
AC Gilbert HO Hudson 12.50
Cheers Carey
