If you haven’t read the article, why are you going off on TK? Because someone else took umbrage to the article? Wow! Would you have had a more admiring opinion if someone had said the article was fantastic?
Or is TK just the bogeyman du jour?
Andre
This discussion seems to be the same old argument that goes around this forum much to often: who is a real model railroader; is duplicating the prototype the only way to be a real model railroader, etc.
My daughter had a bumper sticker when she was in college: “One should not hold strong opinions about things they know nothing about.” (I know, the grammar; but that’s one reason I thought it was a cool bumper sticker)
Maybe we should amend this; “Model railroaders shouldn’t hold strong opinions about things that are none of their business.”
Ray
The difference in gauge if you use 16.5 mm track instead of 0n3 track= 19mm is almost exactly what the British live with with their 00 scale trains running on H0 track. And there are alot of railway modellers on that island.
I think that they regret this but alot of good modelling is done anyways.
I ebay a lot and I have an HOn3 search, and a lot of vendors throw in their headers
HO, HON3, ON30
and I have to wander thru a mess of stuff thats not even related to my search…
I can’t cross out the On30 from the search because the model could be HOn3, but then it might not… grrr…
I can’t explain the On30 surge except its like where G scale was before. Maybe it makes these cute little engines…ahhn aww naw I better not go there!!!
Well well well
I wake to find more ONE SIDED and UNFAIR Moderation going on,
my reply where I stated my comment was only intended as a joke has been deleted. I also stated that I like Koester’ work and respect his as a modeler, even if that brand od modeling isnt my particular cup of tea.
My apologies to Mr Koester if my joke backfired.
Yet the two attacking posts are allowed to remain including the one baiting me into a fight. I still ain’t biting.
Yeah, I see where the moderators loyalties lay, and its no where near impartial.
I wonder if a similar joke was made about Malcomn Furlow if the same crowd would get all rankled, oh I forgot, he not “serious” .
Lighten up before your arteries harden.
Peace!
Well having now read the column I don’t really see a problem with it. He’s very complimentary of narrow-gaugers, and saying that On30 is probably going to get a lot of new people into the hobby. Saying that On30 won’t be attractive to “rivet counters” since it’s not as precise as On3 would be isn’t exactly a slam on On30.
I think he’s kinda saying On30 may take the place of that the old Tyco train set years ago did for many of us - give us an entry into model railroading that we can start with and learn from. Only now, instead of kids/teens, it may be attracting older modellers and families. His point about retired guys using On30 to get into (or back into) trains is interesting; having recently taken the one-way trip to Bifocal Land I started to see the advantages of O or On30, it is nice to have bigger stuff to work with!!
vsmith, speaking as a user of this forum (I am on vacation and not acting as a moderator) I hope you can accept that I am speaking only for myself, and not as a moderator.
Your use of that poster with its caption was mean-spirited, intolerant, and a put-down to a very vulnerable segment of our society not likely to be represented here to debate with you. So, if I could be permitted on their behalf, you stepped well over the line. I would be very red-faced and ashamed to have to face my friends here the morning after posting a vile message like yours was. It would have been so much more credible for you to have come on line this morning somewhat the wiser after having rested and seen your transgression. Instead, and incredibly, you attack the moderation as intolerant. Wow! Really, that is truly rich. The kettle calling the pot sooty.
Good day.
Fine, I deleted my posts except for my apology to Mr Koester. Sorry to everyone else, See ya around.
I guess I’m the only “O” man who finds this whole argument over 1/8 of an inch totally funny. O gauge (as opposed to scale) has never been right. We simply inherited the distance between the rails from tinplate in the dark ages of the hobby. Standard O gauge works out to about 5ft gauge. The guys who care about this have tried a variety of fixes over the years such as Q scale and 1/4 AAR. Most of us don’t give a hoot and roll merrily along except for when we have to fudge things abit such as steam loco mechanisms because of the extra width.
The On30 guys are operating in the long 1/4’ traditon of a track gauge that ain’t quite right. More power to them. Anything that gets more people involved is good for O scale in particular and the hobby in general. On30 offers a lot of answers to the guy who wants to work in 1/4" and isn’t up to A) spending a fortune, B) building everything himself or C) building a new house with room for those O scale curves. It sure beats waiting for frost to form in hell, which is when you can expect to see mass produced trains at reasonable prices in “real” On3.
If the 1/8" bothers you, leave these guys alone, content in the knowlege that they’re too ignorant not to realize they’re really not having fun, and go torment yourself about which itsy bitsy reporting marks are correct or by filling out forms in triplicate. As for me I’m busy, I got trains to run.
JBB
Some of the threads I have been reading are like pulling teeth, relax its a “hobby” or obsession for others all be it a healthy one. It (the hobby) should be first and for most, be fun. I get a kick out of all the bantering.
I went to the Huge Springfield, Massachusetts show a week or so ago (BIG E), they had two excellent ON30 modular layouts, one was from Rhode Island and the other from Connectiuct, that were very well done, and fun to watch. To bad I live in New Hampshire or otherwise I would join, maybe I start a ON30 club in my Seacoast, NH area?
I found the layouts to be very well detailed and neat. The nice size of the models are easy on the eyes but not to big and the realistic Bachmann steam locomotives and rolling stock were very nice/detailed; and inexpensive if you shop around. I got the word from someone at the show to check out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/On30conspiracy/. So I recently did and joined, its not the rivet counting that so many narrow guage enthusiasts subscribe to. Most of all the two modular groups seemed to be having “FUN” regardless of the scale.
George
Say what, Bro’? I had to read the article twice and even on the second pass, I couldn’t find any relationship whatsoever between what Tony actually wrote and what you’re telling us he wrote.
Tony sez:
“I’m betting that a lot of baby boomers are going to be looking for creative and rewarding ways to spend a lot of their post-retirement spare time. Our job is to find was to attract them to model railroading to keep our hobby vibrant”.
Maybe I’m just dense, but I don’t see how anyone could equate that with “His theme = On30 is ridiculously inaccurate, but if it attracts a bunch of aging numskulls to the hobby, fine-- is expressed with a sniveling negativism reminiscent of a snotty tenth-grader”. There are some things that do remind me of a snotty tenth-grader, but I sure can’t find them in Tony’s piece.
And th
I’ve also been tempted by On30 - I think the Bachmann models are little bloody beauties - but as Chuck noted earlier, On30 need not be disparaged as inaccurate. If you look outside the US, there were numerous railroads in places like South America, Cuba and Africa that used American-built locos & cars, and in general looked and operated very much like US railroads.
To any modeller concerned about the gauge discrepancy - and I believe it’s a legitimate concern - but who wanted to model a US-style road, a look at some of the 30" lines elsewhere in the world might prove very inspiring.
“La Trochita” - Baldwin 2-8-2 of the 30" gauge Esquel Railway in Argentina.
http://www.railwaysofthefarsouth.co.uk/7bthe1922locos.html
http://narrowmind.railfan.net/
Cheers,
Mark.
“Great Sharkey, Colonel God!”
a:
Ech. Just enough of that Woodstock-generational solipsism to leave a hint of bitter taste. I would say our hobby’s future, if we worry about things like that, would be better-served by an appeal to the generation represented by the photo in your sig. But I am just a grouch who doesn’t know anything, and at any rate I don’t bother worrying about such things. They’ll take care of themselves, cause, hey, everybody likes choochoos.
I read Mr. Koester’s article last night and thought that is was actually supportive of On30. It seems like he sees narrow gauge as attractive medium for MRRing. As for those who say it can be too whismical, well Model Railroading is fun and us narrow gaugers like to view llife a little diferently. the whole concept of narrow gauge fires up our imaginations, as Mr. Koester points out.
I enjoy whimsey and, I also enjoy historical research so, I based my freelanced HOn30 & Dual Gauge logging RR on the Johnson-Pollack 30 inch gauge logging RR located at mile post 395.8 on the Klamath Falls branch of the SP in 1912. So, the fun of modeling narrow gauge is providing me both.
Peter Smith, Memphis
After reading Tony’s column I came away feeling that he sees On30 as a big plus for the hobby as a whole. Considering his prototypical leanings (some would say rivit counting) it seemed to me that he’s pretty much supporting On30 and those that are attracted to it.
Andre,
If Tony and his wife had attended a standard gauge convention, he might have referred to “standard mindedness”…or maybe not. The play on words works much better when referring to narrow gaugers as “narrow minded”. Beyond that, I’m in complete agreement with you.
The Other Chip