"Would it be "better" if it had "scale sized" rails and flanges that I could not make to operate reliably and body mounted couplers that I could not uncouple reliably at all the industries on my layout? Is a layout with no scenery with "scale sized" rail and flanges "better"? Is my layout, that is based on a John Armstrong plan, operates with a fast clock, has switch lists, timetables and 3 classes of freights & 4 classes of passenger trains "inferior" to a railroad that has no operating scheme but "scale sized" track and flanges."
"Better" has to be taken in context. Comparing apples to oranges doesn't help. Sometimes a lack of space for adequate curve radius makes hirail or lionel O-27 in O gauge preferable to scale flanged equipment but the resulting layout while being better for the situation still looks worse than it would if there had been room to widen the curves and use more scale like flanges and rail. Given enough space for curves there's no reason scale wheeled equipment can't run as reliably as Flyer flanged equipment. The N scale guys do it with tiny little flanges on code 55 rail. If S gauge ever wants to capture new modelers it needs to appeal to today's hobbyists who are used to more scale like cars. With no toy train background anchor to drag around an HO modeler looking at a hi rail layout is not gonna focus on the good they are gonna be confused by the message the large flanges send.....DaveB
