Has anyone here layed their own track for On30 or other narrow gauge? I wouldn't mind trying that and would like to ask them how they got started in it. I saw a jig made specifically for HO scale track laying but I didn't want to spend that much for it. If I remember correctly, it was selling for well over $150US, that's even more for us Canadians. Not worth it. I'm a carpenter by trade so I figure I can make my own jig. I also like the looks of the On30 track but those prices are outragious. I think it might a bit cheaper to lay the track myself, and I know it'll be alot more fun this way than with sectional track. What are you thoughts on this?
Was that jig for just track or turnouts? What I've used is On3 ties and rail stripped from HO flex. I like code 100, but I use that in my S scale also. My On30 doesn't have a prototype to pin down the tie size so for me the O scale narrow gauge ties used in 3' gauge look fine. For On30 track, I bought a cheap HO gage to space the rails and use small HO spikes to spike the rail. Also, I've used HO flex with about 1/3rd of the ties removed and re-spaced to more closely approximate narrow gauge track and buried the ties in dirt/ballast so they are barely visible. Hope this helps. Greg
Ya, that jig was for just a turnout. I beleive it was a #6. Don't know for sure though. It was a few weeks ago I saw it and don't remember all the details. One thing I know for sure was thinking it was somebody making this and just looking to make a buck...or lots. Can you buy rail by itself or do you have to strip it off flex track, like you mentioned, Greg? Also, does anyone know what the actual spacing the RR uses for ties? And what are the actual rail spacing they use?
Ok, that's what I thought it was the turnout jig. While it was expensive, how many switches would you have to buy to pay for it? As an aside I did buy one of those jigs and I like it. Also there are fewer switches to choose from in S. So back to your rail question. I'm cheap so I picked up used flex track at model railroad shows. You can buy rail without the ties, but two pieces of rail comes out to about the same price as new flex. If you don't have a hobby shop close by shipping rail might be cost prohibitive. But HO flex is about half the price of On30 flex so two sticks of rail still would be cheaper than one piece of On30 flex. Tie spacing sort of depends. On standard gauge railroads it can be 18" to 24" center to center depending on the use. Mainline class one will be closer and branch lines tend to further. I would guess 24" center to center would be fine for On30. If you are modeling late 1800’s wide tie spacing and small rail. If you are modeling say the White Pass and Yukon in the 1960’s closer tie spacing and a little heavier rail. Nice thing about On30 you can do what looks right to you and rivet counters seem to leave you alone. For cheap turnouts, I’ve seen a couple tutorials on replacing HO ties on Atlas switches with On30 ties and they look pretty darn good IMHO. I’d have to dig through my favorites to find the tutorials but they are an interesting read. Greg
Thanks for the tips, Greg. Very helpful. If the ties are closer together the heavier use the tracks get, then I'm guessing the yards ties are about 18" centers too? Do you cut your own ties or are they bought already to be put down?
Lorne, It depends on the railroad, age of the yard and what goes into the yard. Older yards tend to have wider tie spacing, while newer yards for coal trains will be closer. For ties, I bought bass wood strips that scale out to about 6" x 8" or so and cut them to length. I've also bought Kappler On3 ties that scale out to 5" x 7" x 6'. I don't have any saws to cut my own so I use strip wood and a home made jig to chop them to the right length with a single edge razor blade. Another supplier of pre-cut ties is Mt Albert who are in Canada. IMHO the On3 ties look good to me so I’m going to hand lay some On30 with them to go with my home made turnout. Greg
Yeah and cheap since I got a few sticks of HO flex for a buck each. Since some of the ties were already broken it was easy to remove a few more and space them out further. I noticed that it took on a narrow gauge look and a lot of narrow gauge railroads didn't spend money on ballast. Hence my budding interest in On30. I had track before I ever picked up a locomotive or cars...... Greg
Yup - and I'm so new I got nuthin' at all - yet !!! Spent so much time lurkin' around TB trying to decide between HO and N, and then "Wah-LAH", along comes On30 (guess I'm particularly slow or something)! Everything I read or hear, every picture I see, it all continually increases the "rightness" of the way On30 feels for me. Speaking of narrow gauge, you're in V&T territory, love that area!
This is a good place to lurk. Not only am I in V&T country, I have several narrow gauge railroads that once ran here and are close by. Greg
I'm at the southern part (I think) of the old Dilapidated & Rapidly Growing Worse territory, as we call the D&RGW (with genuine affection). Now that I'm getting into model railroading and narrow gauge in particular, I need to get myself up north a little and take a ride on the Durango & Silverton and the Cumbres & Toltec RR's! Then I can check out narrow gauge tie-spacing, rail, and everything else up close and personal.
LMAO, Jim, you wanna talk about being new...I always thought narrow gauge was just used in RR modeling. By the way you guys are talking it sounds like it's for real. Am I right?
Yes Lorne, There is real narrow gauge out there. There was even a narrow gauge that CN owned in Newfoundland. It was 42" gauge and had EMD diesels. The White Pass and Yukon is 36" gauge and has diesels and is still running today hauling tourists. Denver and Rio Grande had 36" gauge and sold it to Coloradao and New Mexico for tourist operations which are still alive and kicking. Yes narrow gauge is real and addictive I'm afraid to say. Greg
To get back to your question for a moment. I handly all my track and I also offer a free tutorial on it if you wanna go have a look on my website. I don't use a jig or anything. I make my own gauges as well. I hope that helps you out.
Greg knows more about it than me, but he modestly left out the famous V&T, Virginia & Truckee, which handled lots of stuff around Lake Tahoe, Reno, Carson City, Virginia City, and the famous Comstock Lode mines (most of this in western Nevada). Most of anything still running is excursion or tourist related as far as I know. It was a very long battle for what we now call "Standard Gauge" to completely defeat Narrow Gauge railroads and dominate the continent. There were also railroads on gauges wider than 4 ft 8-1/2 inches. To keep this on track with the original topic - a lot of layouts which include narrow gauge will also have a standard gauge railroad represented on the same layout and will prominently feature structures and methods of transferring cargo etc between the two gauges. Many of these layouts have scratchbuilt and/or kit-bashed structures, and of course, hand-laid track.
Hey Steve! I've visited your site before, standard gauge O scale if I recall correctly, lots of impressive stuff. Any time you want to direct the rebuilding of many of our bridges down here in New Mexico you would be most welcome. I'd feel perfectly safe driving anything over what you design, no matter what scale it is.
(Hmmm, I only wanted to quote part of this post...oh well) Jim, what you said about the dual gauge on the same layout has really got me thinking. For what I have in mind for my layout it might make more sense to have this. I beleive this is what most narrow gauge modelers perfer to do anyways to keep with the prototypical side of it. Have the narrow gauge for the logging and mining and go with standard gauge for the town part of it. Start off with the narrow gauge as I'm sure they did in the beginning of the railroad days and once I start modeling the town and more industries, do that in standard. Do you guys think that makes more sense? In the steam days did they use narrow gauge for rock queries as well?
Thanks Jim. Actually the V&T was standard gauge. It did interchange with a couple of narrow gauge lines, one being 30" in fact. It all depends on when you want to model. The earlier you model, era, the more narrow gauge and city switching you can have. Another thing you might consider is standard gauge cars on narrow gauge trucks. There are two examples that real railroads did this. The CN 42" gauge in Newfoundland routinely traded trucks under freight cars. The East Broad Top in Pennsylvania did this also. The EBT was a 36" gauge common carrier that hauled coal for the most part. On the SP they would spot narrow gauge cars on one side of a loading dock and standard gauge cars on the other and trans-load the box cars. The SP also had a trestle that was narrow gauge and they would spot standard gauge cars underneath and unload the narrow gauge gondolas into the standard gauge gondolas. Some people have a small amount of standard gauge just to show the size difference between the two. Hope this helps, Greg
Guys,I'm not sure at this point which of you is taking to using HO flex with ties removed.I don't have narrow gauge at home but am a regular at the superb Slim Gauge Guild is Pasadena,Ca.(very near LA).So I feel my two cents worth here is somewhat valid.It is merely this: If you do use standard gauge track to create narrow the only thing wrong with it is that it may not 'look' narrow because the length of each tie is, in your SCALE,too short. I.E. outside distance from rail to tip will wind up looking only like (HO) standard gauge track,MISSING ties..Don't mean to be nit-picky.Just pointing it out so's you know what you're getting into..The very beauty of narrow gauge IS this 'full-length' tie with the rails closer together,on them.This 'tells' the viewer somthing's different..Hope I didn't insult your intellegence.
