Hi, I have seen a lot of very cool and advanced layouts here and was wondering if any of you have done this. our local hobby shop has an HO layout and at on end they have a little “N” gauge mining engine with a string of little hoppers and every so often it pops out of a mine shaft with its load of coal and then goes back in the mine. I thought it was very cool and wondered if any of you guys have tried this with “O” gauge. would you use “S” gauge? the “N” gauge was about perfect with the HO trains. on their layout it came out and reversed all by itself. If you have done this I would love to see photos!
Scott: If I may add something to your request for the guys on this forum…If you have used a “timing device” ( that is, something that will hold the train for awhile and then let it go back sort of like on a trolley) what is it called and where did you get it? THANKS.
I just finished adding a loop, O gauge, onto my layout that is 90% hidden. It comes out of a somewhat undersized timber portal, is exposed for 3’ at most, and then back into another “blasted out” portal. It’ll have a Porter, 3 ore cars, and a bobber caboose, all weathered. I have it set so that it creeps along and wired so that it comes on when I turn on the layout power. The Porter is conventional and my main layout is TMCC.
The mining train you saw was most likely HO narrow gauge. Bachman makes a line of On30 narrow gauge equipment which is O scale equipment that runs on HO gauge track. I don’t know about mining equipment. Most of it is logging and Colorado style narrow gauge. Bachman’s On30 trains run on DC electricity. The electronic automatic reversing gear that is sold for HO will work with it. The hobby shop where you saw this is likely sells the electronic gear, can order it for you, or can tell you where they got it.
The On-30 equipment by Bachmann that 3rail guy mentioned would be a good choice as the scale would be the same, just modeled after smaller equipment. I am not POSITIVE, but I do believe that Bachmann also offers both flat side dump cars similar to gondolas as well as V-Dump cars, which both are modeled after the similar cars that Bachmann offers in Large Scale ( commonly called G-Scale, which is one of about half a dozen scales that run on Gauge #1 track)
Some small HO Locomotives may be an option, most mining equipment was considerable smaller than anything not constrained my mine use, what might be noticeable though is the cab will appear too small for your O-Scale people, you can make a very small mining engine, but the operator wouldn’t scale down in the real world either, so the cab on real mining equipment could look out of proportion to the rest of the small engine.
This does sound like a GREAT way to add another bit of interest to a layout. Please post some pics if you do give this a try, I as well as others I’m sure would like to see what you come up with.
Bachmann does offer the wood sided dump car (similar to a gondola) and the V-Dump cars in On-30. They looked really nice on their website. go to bachmanntrains.com and click on the On-30 link, then the rolling stock link, then the mining and logging cars link, and it will show pics of them which you can enlarge. They appear to have very nice detail, come in a set of three and the catalog price was $68.00. I forgot to look at the Locomotives, but as I recall, they offer a small side rod diesel that may look good for what you want.
Most mining equipment is electrically powered to avoid the exhaust fumes in the mines, and before that, horses (at least their exhaust could be shoveled up [:D]) were often used as well as good ole manpower. Even with a diesel it would still be a FUN addition to a layout.
What would be really cool would be to essentially have a single loop with a passing siding hidden in a type of processing facility and a mountain so you see a fully loaded consist leaving the mine entering the building then an empty consist backing into the mine. [8D]
I’ve never mixed scales (lie HO and N, as you’ve said), but I did have a trolley line that was automatic on my last layout. I used a board made by Depotronics called the electric (electronic?) engineer that ran a point to point line automaticly. I know Burns Manufacturing makes a similiar “station stop” relay system as well. I don’t know if this was the intent of your question though.
You asked about using S guage to make your mining train look smaller. Using S gauge would likely make the trains look smaller depending on what O gauge trains you run on your layout. Another approach if you run O scale rolling stock on your layout would be to use traditional sized O gauge equipment on your mining line. This would allow you to use the same track, perhaps with tighter curves on the mine line.
If you are already running traditional sized O gauge trains on the rest of your layout, then I’d recommend the On30 previously mentioned, or HO equipment. As others have stated, if “scale” is an issue, you may have to modify the cabs of HO equipment to make them large enough to make an O sized person fit inside of them.
Keep in mind that O27 curves are sharper than HO (or On30), so if you’re looking to downsize to save space, you might do well to stick with O27 if there’s not a lot of straight track on that mine line.
Our club,The Ocala Three Railers,have a memorial park with an “N” guage train ride.A friend put benches in three “N” scale gondolas and “O” scale people fit in nice.With an engineer sitting in the first car behind the engine, the effect is great.The only problem we have is putting the small trains on the track.
Our layout has an On30 branchline–Ozark lead mines rather than Colorado gold–and will have an On18 (O scale on N gauge track simulating 18" gauge) train actually coming out of the hill under which the mine is located. The On18 motive power will be a simulation of a battery-powered locomotive such as were used in the mines and will be built on an N-scale diesel power truck.