Entrepreneurial T

T is progressing faster than any scale in history. I can make this bold statement because I've been a student of small modeling scales practically since the birth of N scale, which I consider to be the threshold between "small" and everything else. I don't base this on what products have or have not been introduced, or when; it's really just a sense of how swiftly the scale is moving.

But T is not without its problems. Given that it takes a fair bit of effort to keep running at all, let alone running well, it's not well suited for people with little patience. I highly doubt the scale will ever be embraced by model railroaders interested in operation, for instance; it's more for tinkerers who enjoy making things go, or simply seeing trains moving through a setting with a train-to-scenery ratio that's closer to real life than is possible in any other scale.

T may suddenly die. It's at risk. If some of its performance issues aren't addressed in future generations of products, interest may plummet. But for the moment, there's a small but highly enthusiastic group of modelers who are pushing the scale ahead at breakneck speed, leveraging new technologies to bring exciting new products to the market in days instead of months or years.



In particular, one fellow has gone so far as to invest non-trivial sums of his own money in the development of American-prototype rolling stock. He started with a couple of freight cars—complete with proper trucks. Then, inspired by my little F-unit experiment, he's produced an extraordinary, jaw-droppingly beautiful F7 shell that in some ways is more accurate than some mass-produced HO scale products!

Granted, you'd need to be a tinkerer like me to power the F7, so it really represents an experiment or exercise, as opposed to a viable commercial product. But I'm still steering folks in Jesse's direction because he deserves the attention. He's going about things the right way, and the more interest that's shown in what he's doing, the more he'll do. Even better, we may see other entrepreneurs following his lead.

Please join me in this exciting adventure. It's more than just a lot of fun; historically, new ideas in smaller scales trickle up to larger scales, so it's win-win-win for everyone.