AmFlyer posted:To see what might run on a Gilbert layout I experimented with an American models passenger car. The car is 13.25" long and the three axle truck mounting points are 9" apart. These cars run fine on original Gilbert track as well as SHS and Fastrack, all of which is nominally 20"radius. They will not operate on a smaller radius since the couplers are right at the stairs. At 10" between the truck mounting points the center of the car hits the Gilbert switch housings. At 11" the car center hits the housing on the uncouplers.
To calculate the maximum freight car length with two axle trucks I used 1.25 inches in from the car end as a typical truck mounting point for freight cars. That calculates to a maximum freight car length of 12.5" that will operate on a Gilbert layout unless the trucks are mounted non-prototypically farther in from the car ends. A postwar American Flyer boxcar is about 8" long so these would appear quite large in comparison. Any S gauge freight car that will not run on a Gilbert layout will be selling into a much smaller market so they would have to meet all the expectations of the S scale modelers to be viable. I do not see that as Lionel's S gauge strategy.
I think that is an excellent analysis. S-scale is such a small market that it does not make business sense for Lionel to further fragment their market.
