Edithsteam, if you registered before, it was apparently under a different userid. If you remember what that user id was, you might find it useful to resume using it, for two reasons. First, using the new ID does not pick up the earlier registration, and there is a group of users who will be less forthcoming with assistance without the indication that you have a registered version, than that same group would be if your user id displayed the version. Second, there is a subset of forums that may contain valuable information to you, that you cannot access without being known to have a valid registration.
That said, I don't see where anyone has answered your original question. In connection with Trainz, "scale" is mostly a verb, and refers to the process of changing the size of an object so as to creating a virtual representation of an object in real life. For example, along the street on which I live, the sidewalk is 3 feet (36 inches) wide. In game, the distance between two gold lines on the baseboard is usually defined as 10 meters (though it can be defined as a yard) so "scale" here refers to the process of determining what distance in the game represents 3 feet.
In what I call tangible model railroading, where one is working with plastic and plaster (to name two of a wide range of materials used in modeling railroads, scale also means the same thing in some contexts, but it also has a second meaning, which I quote from
this Wikipedia page. "[A] physical representation of an object, which maintains accurate relationships between all important aspects of the model, although absolute values of the original properties need not be preserved". Railroad models are built to a number of scales. The most common are N scale, where models are built so that 1 foot in the model is equal to 160 feet in the "real world", HO scale, where 1 foot in the model is equal to 87 feet in the real world; O scale, where 1 foot in the model is equal to about 48 feet in the real world; and S scale, where 1 foot in the model is equal to about 64 feet in the real world. These are the four most popular scales in order of their popularity, but there are others. There are some whose models are even larger. Some modelers model in a scale where one real foot equals only 8 feet in the real world. There is a group in Arizona, the Maricopa Live steamers, who were the subject of a
forum thread discussion in June 2014 which thread gave their website, which gave photos of large scale model railroad equipment.
That said, there is little differentiation in Trainz between scales. Almost all virtual models in Trainz are to the same scale, so that if you run across a locomotive model labeled as N Scale, you should be able to use it in any Trainz route, and have it be mostly correct in appearance. There are some characteristics that differentiate designs made for "standard" model railroads, and the Trainz variety. First, tangible model railroads almost always are based upon a track plan which is a loop, so that if you follow the progress of a train on such a layout, you almost always wind up passing the same point, while most Trainz routes I've seen (with the exception of those intended to simulate a model railroad) follow a more prototypical "point to point" arrangement, meaning that if you want to pass a location you already passed, you need to reverse direction.
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