So far 14 have said yes; but, making sure all have a chance to make your mark on this TrainBoard 10th Anniversity poll question... Click Here --> What Scale <-- Click Here :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up: :thumbs_up:
Where is the poll? Yep, I do! Armchair: Nn3, HOn3, On2, and Fn3 Active: On3 I have also dabbled in On30...as in converting it to On3 or On2. I've also attempted to get into H0e (European HOn30) on a budget. Gn39/Gn30 were of interest as well, in childhood. Michael
On3! Started in HO, then switched to HOn3, but I wanted more detail than was practical for HOn3 so I switched to On3. Now I have trouble seeing the those details so I have to use an opti-visor to do my assembly. :disapointed:
Just started today ( no kidding ) . I ordered 1 Bachmann Davenport ( from Micro-Mark ) and purchased some HO Peco flextrack and 2 turnouts from my local hobby store. My 1st plan is to start small ( very small ) and to build a 39" X 8" micro-layout from Carl Arendt's website. Here is the link: http://www.carendt.us/clinic/peekpike/index.html I'm left with one problem, Bachmann only sells 4 axles On30 cars and in my case space is at a premium, so could someone please suggest a specific brand and model ( if possible with a Kadee #5 coupler ) for an affordable 2 axles boxcar ? Jacques
That may be a problem. Granite Creek makes some 4 wheel cars, but they're pricy. What I can suggest is maybe a On30 truck and some stryene? It would be a pretty straight forward build.
Thank you Art for taking some of your valuable time to reply. I just found that Peco sells a 4 Wheel Wagon Chassis Kit O-16.5/On30. That looks interesting. Jacques
I starting point for a 4-wheel car could be one of Grandt Line's passenger car trucks. Replace the wheels with long axle On30 wheels (NWSL could do a set of On30 wheels with On3 axles for around $8 for two cars worth). Take the passenger car truck and remove the equalization...so that it is basically just a frame with Pedestals. Then construct a new box on top of it from your favorite material (I'd use scribed styrene and styrene strips). Grandt Line (and, in the past, B-man) have offered 4-wheel dump cars. Michael
I have done narrow gauge on and off for many years, building a new HOn3 layout, just shifted from a C&S focus to ET&WNC. Cheers Mike
That would be a good start. You could add a super structure on top of it. Or do what Michael suggests.
In spite of my Erie avatar, I have been buildinh HOn3 equipment since 1964. Started out with Southern Pacifc and later switched to Rio Grande Southern. In the last few years have been selling of my RGS & D&RGW stuff to concentrate on buiding an N scale layout. Still have all of my SP equipment. Four steam locos, one diesel and about 70 freight cars. Most have been scratchbuilt with a few boxcars kitbashed from Rail Line cars. Have a small moduler layout of Keeler in HOn3 under construction. Went to the Australian narrow Gauge convention last year and took out second in freight cars with my 45 year old model of SP stock car #168. Would anyone be interested in seeing some photos of my old SP models? Gary
SP HOn3 freight cars OK Guys, Here are some photos of some old SP HOn3 models: Boxcar #131 is of wood construction built the same way as a LaBelle kit. The floor is built up from individual beams and scribed wood. Roof is individually planked with scale 1” planks. Truss rods are one length of nylon fishing line. Yes, most of the SP cars had no turnbuckles fitted to the truss rods. Westside brass trucks were fitted. The couplers are from the very first batch from Kadee and were molded in brown delrin. Lettering is dry transfer from Valley Car Works. Paint is Floquil box car red broken down with about 5% reefer white to give that faded look. I did not see a color photo of SP narrow gauge cars until 1982 when Mallory Hope Ferrell’s book was published. I am still happy with the color. You will notice that there are no stirrup steps and coupler lift bars. This was my first scratchbuilt car and was built in 1964. Stock car #168 was built up from individual planks. There are over 600 of them. The wastage was incredible due to cutting many of the planks a little bit too short. Building this car was a great learning curve on how not to do things. After much thought I developed some nice “shortcut” methods to speed up the building process. If anyone is interested I could post some construction photos that illustrate some of these methods. If you look closely you will see this car has a broken truss rod. The only car that has ever had a broken truss rod. This car took out second place in freight car section at Australian Narrow Gauge Convention in 2009. Good result for a 45 year old model. This was my second scratchbuilt car also from 1964. I thought I would only post to photos to start with. Gary
I have a soft spot for the SPng/C&C...it and the NCNG were awesome railroads. Thank you for the post and please post more! Are the steam locomotives #8, #9, #18, and #1? Michael
Great photos Gary! I model narrow gauge too, but due to relocation I just sold my freelance Welsh OO9 layout, shown here with an HOn30 loco (same 9mm gauge) I will undoubtedly do more narrow gauge in the future, probably still in OO9/HOn30, just for what you can do scenery-wise, that you just can't in Z scale (my "main" scale) Cheers, Phil
More HOn3 SP freight cars As requested a few more SP cars. A Frame gondola #331 is of wood construction built up board by board. Sorry to say that the doors do not open. They are just fixed in place. Westside brass trucks were fitted. Again the lettering is dry transfer from Valley Car Works. This car was built in 1965. There were no commercial drawings for this car. My references for this car were Don Graff’s drawing of 30’ gondola #305 in the March 1960 RMC and the photo of #313 on page 80 in George Turners book. From these two sources I was able to produce a dimensioned sketch for this 28’ long car. Low side gondola #225 is one of a group of low side gondolas that had a lift-out door added to one side to allow unloading with a small bucket loader. They have extra diagonal bracing on the sides to help stiffen up the body on either side of the door opening. This is a recent model from 1990 and is fitted with stirrup steps and coupler lift bars. Low side gondola #222 is only partly finished. Also needs the side door and all of the bolt heads to be added to the side stakes. All the timber is pre stained with an alcohol based leather dye just to give an aged appearance. Have yet to add the brake cylinder, brake wheel & staff, stirrup steps and coupler lift bars. I have another 8 of these in different stages of assembly. Boxcars #88 and #126 are kit bashed from Rail Line styrene D&RGW #3000 box car kits. SP boxcars cars sat much higher above the rails than D&RGW cars. The coupler pockets were filled with styrene strips, new bolsters added. New doors from scribed styrene were added with new SP style lower door tracks. The original roof and roof ribs were cut and sanded off. New roof from scribed styrene was glued onto the bare roof. New roof walk was built up and attached. Both of these cars were built in 2005. Matching the color of the earlier cars was difficult. Current Floquil box car red is more of a brown color than the original boxcar red. The best color to start with is Floquil ATSF Mineral Brown. This is more of a red shade than box car red. Again the color was broken down with about 5% reefer white. Lettering is from my old stock of Valley Car Works dry transfers. I kit bashed these two cars just to see if they could be converted to SP cars. Want to see some more photos of freight cars under construction? Gary
Yeah Gary! Under construction photos are always interesting.. Phil, great looking layout! And always good to see another HOn30 modeler on here!
Not yet.... But eventually we'll add an Nn3 trolley line to our N layout. Will be some time before we get to that city though.
