I conducted discussions with Shane, president of Scaletrains, over a year ago about entering the S scale market. At the time myself and another backer were ready to invest in getting a new S scale locomotive engineered and manufactured. Things changed and we did not proceed. However, in my discussions with Shane I shared lots of advice about the best ways to enter the S scale arena. The S nuance of couplers and wheels was new territory, so we talked at length about this. I touted highly the SHS approach. From my read on the discussions, here is what I think they will offer relative to diesel locomotives:
- A choice of a) DC, b) AC, c) DCC decoder plug, or 4) ESU decoder installed
- Scale & hi-rail coupler compatibility with both included in the box
- Scale & hi-rail wheels included in the box
- Compatibility with traditional Flyer tight radii curves
In other words, S Helper Service.
