N Scale Overhead Crane in HO Scene

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Is there any reason why the Walthers Cornerstone N Scale Heavy Duty Overhead Crane could not be used in HO scale?

I would omit the operator’s cab and only use one of the trolleys.

It will fit nicely in an interior scene I am planning to build.

My gut feeling is that it will be just fine, but I do not want to overlook a hideous error.

-Kevin

2

Gidday Kevin, if, for instance your scene is depicting a boiler being removed from a Big Boy, then it may not be visually pleasing.
That said, overhead cranes come in all sizes and I’m sure that you’ve been around the traps long enough to know what’s appropriate.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]

3

Seems reasonable to me. I have a small harbour on my small HO layout and HO scale vessels just seemed too large and overwhelmed the scene so I used an N scale barge and a Revell tugboat that I think is 1/140 scale. To my mind they work fine. CN Charlie

4

Yeah, the N scale version might be okay for HO, although you might want to modifiy the cab to accommodate an HO scale operator.

I built my own in HO scale, based on features of several on which I worked…

It was originally meant to represent one of two cranes in a scratchbuilt model of a blast furnace cast-house, but when I realised how big the model was going to be, I had to cancel the project. I was working from blueprints of the real one, and regret not having saved those blueprints.
The casthouse itself occupied nine square feet, and the stoves, scrubbers, baghouses, and stock house would have eaten-up a lot more real estate than that.

Wayne

5

I don’t plan for it to have an operator’s cab at all.

The large overhead cranes inside a fabrication/erection company here in town (SMS Steel) had drop-cable controls and no operator platform. They are rated at 50 tons. SMS was owned by a man named Archie that was a pretty good friend to me (and my career) when I was young.

I am hoping this model will pass for something like that.

The size is nearly perfect for what I am planning, and it looks like it scales down OK. It will be inside a building with large windows, so any view of it will be somewhat obscured.

-Kevin

6

Okay, I had forgotten about those operated from ground level. Most of the ones which I ran had cabs - some cabs were stationary at one end of the bridge, while others were part of, and moved with, the trolley.

Wayne

7

The Revell Harbor Tug is 1/108.

Revell also offered this much larger prototype