Does HOn30 or On30 work on ho scale.
Ho and HOn30 is 1/87th scale. Some run HOn30 on N scale track. HOn30 might be considered 24 inch between rails, Narrow gauge.
ON30 is O scale but narrow gauge. I believe ON30 is run on HO track and may be considered 36 inch between rails.
Do a Google search for each term. Very easy to do. I only have HO scale and HOn30 scale.
Rich
On30 runs on HO standard gauge track. Most American narrow gauge was 3 ft. There was some 2 ft gauge in Maine. Other gauges were used but not very widespread. On30 comes lettered for both 3ft and 2ft railroads. Bachmann is the main supplier, but others exist - a number of On3 manufacturers are now producing On30 along with On3.
Enjoy
Paul
HO = 1/87, O = 1/48, so anything with HO can work together, but all the different numbers behind the “HO” means the distance between the two rails is different. O scale is totally different.
Scale and gauge are two different things.
Scale states the factor, by which something is scaled down. In HO scale the factor is 1/87.1, in O scale 1/48 and in N scale it is 1/160.
Gauge indicates the measurement between the rails of a track.
Standard gauge is 1.435 mm, in HO scaled down to 16,5 mm
The are quite a number of different narrow gauge dimensions. Typical narrow gauge in the US is 3 feet between the rails, that´s 914 mm or 10,5 mm in HO scale. It is called HOn3.
HOn30 is the denomination for 2 1/2 feet narrow gauge. It is also called HOn2 1/2 or HOe in Europe, where this gauge is more common.
In O scale, narrow gauge is correspondingly called On3 for a three-foot gauge, or On30 for that 2 1/2 foot gauge.
Basically, HOn30 is a compromise. It allows 2 ft narrow gage modeling using N scale mechanisms and track. In order to truely model HOn24, the modeler would have to design and build build or kitbash complete locomotives and hand lay track. While this is possible and was common in HO scale 50+ years ago, not many people would go to that amount of effort these days. Most HOn30 equipment is either brass or resin.
HOn30 (or HOe, or HOn762, or HOn2 1/2) is PROPERLY used to model 30 inch gauge prototype rolling stock in HO scale. It’s only a compromise when a manufacturer or a modeler uses it to model something that never ran on 30 inch gauge track.
While 30 inch gauge (or its metric equivalent, 762mm gauge, and close relative 750mm gauge) were uncommon on the North American continent, they were very common in both Europe and Japan.
I will admit that heavy-duty scratchbuilding and kitbashing is uncommon today. It isn’t unknown - and it won’t be dead until I am. And yes, I do model two 762mm gauge prototypes for which there is almost nothing available commercially.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)