However....as an owner of several 3-1/2" gauge and 2-1/2" gauge locomotives, I can tell you there are a number of advantages to smaller engines! For one, you don't need to get down on your knees to see the fire, or oil around. You don't get a distorted view of the water glass. Try reading No. 10's water glass from the top of the station canopy and you get an idea of what you see from far above the glass on a ground level track.
On an elevated track, you don't sit with your knees in your ears, and when you want to service the engine, it is at a height just as if it were on your work bench at home. But best of all....when you are not running the locomotive, you can have it on display in your living room! And even more than that...a 3-1/2" gauge locomotive can be easily moved in the truck of even a compact car, and taken to club tracks literally anywhere in the world. A locomotive built to 7-1/4" gauge here in the North East, can not visit club track throught the rest of North America. By the same token, the 7-1/2" gauge fellows can't run here....nor can they run at tracks anywhere else on the world!
See the attached photo of a 2 - 1/2" gauge B&O Pacific, and try to tell me that fellow isn't having a ball. By the way...I saw that very locomotive hauling the engineer and about eight kids, and he was ripping right along too!
Keith
