What is your idea of what "High Rail" means ?

At a local train store the term 'High Rail' refers to "O" track.  Low rail is 027.

1 inch to the foot it think ? toy : No it is 1:48. 1inch = 48feet 

I first saw the term "High Rail" back in the late '70's or early '80's regarding "toy" trains in realistic scenery. And they were referring to HO scale using code 100 sectional track and deep flanges! Or maybe since that was where I was in the hobby at that time I took it they were talking HO scale. Since then I've figured any scale looking layout using "toy" track and trains was High Rail, regardless of the actual scale of the layout.

Our last rehashing of the term "Hi-Rail" in this 2 page thread:

Hi-Rail thread

About all that was agreed on was that it means different things to different folks depending on how long they have been into trains.

It definitely was coined well before the modern era - at least back into the 40's and 50's when folks decided to make their scenery as realistic as possible on their Lionel postwar layouts.

Jim

My first thought is over sized flanges/track, on a realistic layout.

I thought everyone went through this subject only a month or so ago!

I have a Toy Train Display....

Marty Fitzhenry has a High Rail Layout

And a very fine one it is.

Oh golly, it's (this topic) like a revolving door !!!  

Enjoyable though.

'Sid Quin Nostrum'

This is a recurring example of why o-gauge trains suffer from lack of standards. Nobody can agree on anything and everybody resents what the other guys likes from the manufacturers.

I think this hobby was doomed when Lionel C.  got the idea of adding the middle rail.

Here's my hi-rail definition:

"Realistic scenery with unrealistic trains running through it."

Matthew, I would agree with your analysis of Marty's layout. He has the best application of O-Gauge tubular track I have ever seen and a superb track plan. The scenery is first class realism.

Way back when you say? Had it not been for Standard Gauge.............The one that started it all . There's only two kinds of trains, highrail and tinplate ,(carpet central,too)

Martin,

You took it all wrong. I was giving you a hard time, I knew what you had on your mind. There are times when I still wonder JLC had in mind. (four different sizes of Std Gauge? In some of those, how many sizes of rolling stock? ) 

Here is the way I look at it:  let those actively engaged define it and go along to get along.  I probably said this in the last thread, but here it is again: figure this out for more important things, like minorities or ethnic groups, and make the effort to use their preferred terms.  For example, if Kermit no longer wants to be referred to as a frog, go along with it and refer to him as a "Green American". Opinion, of course.

Toy or semi-scale trains in an otherwise scale environment. Track can be O-27, Standard O, or Gargraves/Ross/Atlas/ScaleTrax. The curves aren't necessarily as broad as what would be used with 3RS.

The operating environment is scale, but not necessarily the trains and track. We had a forum member who had a 4x8 with O-27 track that had the most brilliant scenery and structures I have ever seen. Hi-Rail goes WAAAAYYY back with 3-rail trains -- even before WW2.

High rail to me is realistic scenery with realistic structures in it, and scale rolling

stock running through it, with only the third rail, and the large flanges and couplers,

seen close-up, as aberrations.

To me, it means scale locos and rolling stock, and all the detail I can build - or want to build, on three rails and wheel flanges that are, strictly speaking, a bit overly large for scale. 

Per my post above:

Hi-Rail -- Vintage Lionel pre-war O gauge (TMCC installed):

3RS:

To me, it's funny how some see high rail as meaning scale proportion trains, since the term was coined long long before command control and true-scale proportioned trains.

Frank53's layout is a superb example of a high rail layout, where traditionally proportioned (non-scale) trains can be made to appear so much more real than they truly are.

The HO focused magazines still use the term high-rail in general (and sometimes with derision) as meaning anything toy trains or tinplate. With the manufacturing and electronic advances, sometimes it seems to me that some want to erase the entire history of 3-rail trains and turn it into "oversized HO" or as some of my HO friends laughingly say "HO with a center rail." I've chatted with the guys about this and their response is "no matter how realistic or scale proportioned the new 3-rail trains are, they are STILL toys."

I often wish there was another forum for "high-rail SCALE" because the term high-rail in its' inception means 027 and traditional 0 trains as much as anything. Nothing against the current trends towards scale proportioned trains. But they wouldn't even exist if not for the kinds of trains that made Lionel into Lionel.

And the more the merrier. I'm not a buyer of scale trains, but the interest in these new trains has definitely helped contribute to the softening of prices on the used market. Which absolutely benefits an 027 high railer like me.

Amen, brother!

Really? I thought 1:43 scale is 1 foot = 48 feet. A 48 foot long car (theoretically, of course) would be one foot long in a 1:48 scale environment. Am I wrong? Thanks for helping me clear this up. 

Gary, you're 99% correct. O Scale 1:48 (American) is a proportional unitless ratio. It's inches to inches, or feet to feet (as cited correctly in your example). When you mix the inches and feet you need to correct for 12"/ft. For example: A scale 21" car is (21*48)/12=84' prototypical length.

European Marklin O scale is typically 1:43.5.

Gilly

BTW, Hi-Rail is the level of realism to which I aspire....

1/48 =.0208333333, which is one scale inch. Multiply that times twelve and you get .25, which is one scale foot in O scale. .25 x 48 = 12" for a scale 48' freight car. An O scale 40' boxcar is 10" long.

Jeff C

"I've chatted with the guys about this and their response is "no matter how realistic or scale proportioned the new 3-rail trains are, they are STILL toys."

Honestly, these are the most annoying types of guys in our hobby. As I have said before, if your trains aren't pulling actual freight or passengers, they're ALL toys.

I USED to think it just meant larger O scale 3 rail track. Now, my understanding is that it is connotatively used to describe more prestigious and realistic looking O scale layouts. But, I wouldn't even bet against myself to know that I was right.