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I'm going through all my old model magazines and after looking at decades of drawings, articles and advertisements I have noticed the following...

Not one single trackplan seems to hold a candle to the virtual routes I've run. No matter how big, they still can't run prototypical trains in the same way the simulators do. When they are small they are even worse. I can now understand why none of the plans ever really appealed to me when I was building HO scale layouts. For the type of railroading I like you need to fill your entire house with train layout...

In V-Scale I have the space to run lashups of Centipedes (and 100 car trains)without worrying about "minimum radius" or overhang (unless I enter industrial trackage).

Many of the articles I found contain maps of the real area the layout is supposed to represent. While the map is interesting to me, the layout plan usually pales by comparison. In V-scale I can use the map and build the railroad the way it's supposed to be as in this example of the actual track plan from the route Newark & Jersey City Railroading by Teemu Saukkonen...

In the documentation for the route, Teemu apologizes because "Most of Jersey City and Newark area waterfront are included , PRR terminal in Jersey City could not be made because of the tile size problem, but PRR Greenville terminal is included". Only in V-Scale would someone apologize for only including "Most of Jersey City and Newark area waterfront"

The only major advantage to "real" modeling for me comes from building models I can hold in my hands. I don't personally like pawing a finely detailed model. You want to touch them as little as possible. All those scale hand grabs tend to bend or break too easily. And building and maintaining the hundreds of models required for a Class 1 railroad seems too daunting a task to me...

In V-scale an entire train of hoppers requires building only one car. Only the numbers need change, and only if you're a purist about such things. I can spend my time building more variety (and all those passenger trains I love).

For me personally, the cost of a layout big enough to run long freights and passenger trains is prohibitive...No, make that ridiculous! If I had to pay the going prices for my growing fleet of virtual first generation cab diesels I'd have spent the equivalent of several small automobiles. Then there's all the other paraphanalia that goes into a model railroad. Beside the rolling stock, etc, you have yards of wood, pounds of plaster and miles of wire (not to mention the layout room remodeling). Like many other folks today, I can't afford a new wing on my house just for trains. I couldn't justify that sort of expense even if I hit the lottery! In V-scale, even if I buy a payware route, I still get an entire division (or more) and all it's equipment, scenery, structures, sounds, weather, and challenges for less than $100.

I like scratch building virtual models. It's challenging while remaining inexpensive enough to enjoy. I'm just completeting a series of Baldwin cab units including at least one of every model Baldwin produced in the late 1940's

Doing the same thing with real plastic, wood and metal would probably require even more time, more skill, and a lot more money. When I did finish it, it would be confined to running the loop around whatever layout I was able to fit in bedroom, basement or garage. It could run on that route and only that route, unless I carry it to a friends or a club layout (where I risk damaging it in transit). In V scale I can set it loose on one of any number of routes and let it roll. Even better, I can e-mail the model to a friend who needs one. Within minutes my friend has the model up and running on whatever route he chooses to enjoy.

I can model several prototypes. Not just the cars or engines, but the railroad itself. I'm working on a model of GM's Aerotrain in several paint schemes and I test the Pennsylvania version on Pennsylvania rails between Harrisburg and Altoona...

on the PRR Middle Division from Tom Pearce, Bill Aukamp, and Mike DiMaio. To test the other versions I can use an NYC "layout", a UP "layout", and any other "layout" where the Aerotrain operated.

I regularly run my CNJ double ended Baldwin models on the Jersey Central portion of Werner Mueller's Lehigh Valley route. My SAL Baldwins run on any of several routes based on Seaboard trackage...

Then there is a set of ALCo DL-109's I'm developing...

Can you imagine what these would cost in brass? In V-scale they cost me the price of the modeling and simulator software, well under $100. The real investment is my own time, which may total in the hundreds of hours for the entire series. For almost nothing I get months of enjoyment, which is what this hobby is all about.

Not only can I model my favorite part of my favorite railroad, I can model any railroad it connects with. If the Jersey Central interchanges with the Pennsylvania in Newark, I can model significant sections of both roads...

as Temu has done on his Newark & Jersey City route. What's more he has done this with every road that has an interchange with the Jersey Central!

Recently I have heard that it's possible to merge several related routes. Some friends and acquaintences have been doing just that over the past several months.. So far they have about 3000 miles of track covering several states. I have a beta copy and it seems to work very well. It now seems very possible to model most if not all of a Class 1 railroad. In the view below you can see the actual route stats...

Yes that does say four million, eight hundred and eighty six thousand, seven hundred and twelve meters (4,886,712 m) There is NO WAY that could be accomplished in any other scale!

Most V-scale "layouts" are huge by model standards. This is great in my book. You don't have to imagine the train runs from Denver to where ever. It actually does! There is nothing like watching a streamlined passenger train cruise across endless miles of country-side like it was meant to. I regularly test run this model of the M10000 west out of Denver on Donald Karch's Rollins Pass route...

My own experimental Allegheny Eastern is very small by V-Scale standards, but it still emcompasses the entire area of Johnstown, Pennsylvania and will...

include the B&O, PRR, Johnstown Traction and the Cambria & Conemaugh trackage in the city. The terrain you see is produced from actual data of the area obtained from Pennsylvania State University.

All is not rosey, there are many disadvantages to V scale and the various simulators used to experience it, but I have found they are less inconvenient than the obstacles to other "real" scales. Like the others, V-scale requires a learning curve to operation and modeling but this is a minor consideration given the benefits. There seems to be no limit to what is possible. From where I'm sitting, V-Scale sure beats anything else I've seen so far.

Well said, Frank!

As the skills of the route-makers and the producers of locos and rolling stock improve by leaps and bounds, it seems the activity writers are likewise spurred to greater efforts. And so a mere "user" of MSTS gradually becomes familiar -- and then adept -- with the utilities to shuffle things around to his particular liking.
So what this means is that a user like myself can take a steam activity and swap-out the pufferbellies for a nice, grungy, oil-stained, sun-bleached GP9. Then, I can swap-in better sounds for things like engines, dynamic brakes and even the controls themselves.
The result of all this is a complete and varied hobby! And you can take it as far as your persona desires. F'rinstance, I like to maintain folders on each route, with fairly-involved paperwork for each activity. Oh, and don't forget my detailed time log, too.
A devoted activity writer I know was talking about other forms of railroad hobbying, and he summed it all up nicely with a short, sweet statement. He said, "You can't beat MSTS for realism." After running it for a few years, the truth of his observation are obvious, to this hard-core V-Scale operator.

Why V-Scale?