As with art or movies, sometimes the visual suggestion is more powerful than an actual recreation as it allows one's imagination to kick in and do the rest.
My interest in prototypical fidelity goes as far as the tight radius and smaller rolling stock of 027 will allow. What I lose in actual realism, I gain in having something that looks more at home on a smaller layout. I've always admired the engineers of postwar Lionel who did such an excellent job with selective compression, shrinking down the size of a locomotive while keeping the general feel and look of the model.
This is a Lionel RS-3 shell, that I cut down in height and length to fit on a K-Line MP-15 frame. As was, the Lionel RS-3 model certainly negotiated 027 curves and switch tracks, but this one in my eye, looks so much better with the sorts of rolling stock on my layout.
