The C&C Project: Can I accept 1:29th Scale?

The Claremont & Concord has long been a favorite line of mine, having spent many days as a lad following red 44 tonners up twisting streets. And I did get to ride the track in Tony’s model, too. I would love to model the Claremont Electric portions in HO.

Anyway, I am moving and have toyed with large scale indoors. I will have it outside.

I have embraced Fn3 (1:20.3) railroading, but would like to model standard guage if I do it inside. There is very little in 1:32 for the serious modeler, while 1:29 models offer more starting points becuase of the market share.

However, I haven’t been able to do what Tony did and spend loads of dough trying to bring my HO-level of modeling to large scale in 1:29 and overlook the fact that these trains run on a very narrow guage track.

Will I ever be able to overlook this? I don’t know. In my mind, I see it as a toy scale, much like tinplate or three-rail O.

Will modelers ever embrace large scale in the numbers that will start a 1:32 scale revolution and solve the problem?

Or do we who count rivets just stick with Fn3… or go totally from scratch in some other scale?

Interesting dilemma.