The picture is of a railbus made from a kit sold by Budget Model Railways. 009 is very popular in the UK.
009 trains run on N gauge track, so you can model in a smaller space.
009 is very difficult to find in the USA. However, this is an opportunity for free lancers. An old HO car can be converted to 009 by cutting down the height, length and width. This is an enjoyable project and much cheaper than buying new. Kato sells a powered 009 chassis for only $13.00. The railbus shown above rests on a Kato 11-103.
Not real sure what 009 is, but how is this any different than HOn30, which is HO narrow gauge running on N scale track? Sounds the same to me. Is 009 more of a standard gauge, mainline scale?
OO9 is British OO scale (1/76) narrow gauge, running on 9mm tracks (Peco OO9/HOn30 track, not N scale track), representing a conglomerate of British narrow gauge railways on 2ft. tracks (or slightly wider, like the Talyllyn Railway).
There is quite an extensive cottage industry in Britain catering for the narrow gauge railway modeler (that´s a model railroader in British English). Bachmann also sells some RTR stuff - like a WD (War Department) Baldwin 4-6-0, as well as Rheneas, Skarloey and Rusty from th “Thomas the Tank Engine” series… Heljan markets a 2-4-2 Manning-Wardle engine of the former Lynton & Barnstaple Rlwy.
Don´t forget that HO scale is considerably smaller than OO scale - HO scale buildings, figures and vehicles are undersize for an OO9 gauge layout! You will have to obtain those from the UK! Good news is - there is plenty available!
Just an example of a typical OO9 train - the loco is a scratchbuilt shell on a Kato 2-axle chassis!
It just looks silly, with the ties being too short and the spacing too tight. For my planned “Lighthouse Rlwy.” micro layout, I´ll be using Kato N scale Unitrack, but the track will be more or less buried in sand and the ties not visible.
In the first post, it states that you can cut down an HO car to make it 009. In another post, it states that 009 is larger than HO. I’m still not sure what it is. I’ll do some searching to try to figure it out.
my 009 railbus is smaller than HO but larger than N. I suggest you check out Budget Model Railways, a father-son YouTube channel in the UK. They are freelancers and they produce 009 kits on a 3D printer.
It is my impression that narrow-gauge modelers like those in the 009 Society are not freelancers. They are prototypers. Putting freelancers in with prototypers would be like The Odd Couple.
l really do not see any difference worth mentioning between “OO9” and “HOn30” as far as anything goes.
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Personally, if I was one of those Britsh Railway Modelers I would be looking at HOn30 track because running those models on N scale track looks awful. HOn30 also has a guage of 9mm.
How about HOn30? There is a well-established community of model railroaders modeling in HOn30, thus avoiding the necessity to import OO scale figures, buildings, vehicles. There are a number of HOn30 engines and cars available, which are quite close to a specific US prototype. You´d be surprised what a web search will unearth!
Btw, you can use the inexpensive Kato or Tomytec N scale mechanism for frellance stock in HOn30 as well. It´s all on 9mm track.
This is what I was talking about in my initial post.
The red box car on the right was made from parts. It runs smoothly on N gauge tracks. Behind it is a 009 railbus. The old N scale boxcar supplied the chassis with wheels and trucks. A broken yellow HO boxcar supplied the shell, which i cut down using my trusty dremel. It is not pretty but that is because the worker is clumsy. The principle is sound. Using parts is much cheaper than buying narrow gauge cars.
HOn30, 009, and HOe are all basically the same thing HO scale on N scale track. There are some differences in what they call “HO” as stated with 009 using 1/76 “OO”, but outside that they’re all the same. There are even groups that lump them together as one interest.
HOn30 and HOe are basically the same, with HOn30 being the North American variant and HOe the European one.
OO9 is a different scale and has only the track width (gauge) of 9mm between the rails in common with the other two. OO9 is basically “confined” to British or British colonial railway modelling. While HOn30 resp. HOe represent 2 1/2 ft. gauge for North American models, resp. 750/760mm gauge for European models in HO scale (1/87), OO9 scale (1/76) represents anything from 1ft. 11 5/8 inch. gauge (Ffestiniog Railway) to 2 ft. gauge (Darjeeling Himalayan Rlwy.) and 2ft. 3inch. gauge (Talyllyn Rlwy.)
A 009 layout with HO scale buildings, figures and vehicles just looks silly.
