I went to Wikipedia and most interurbans used standard gauge, called narrow gauge by some, but not as narrow as ON30. Thank the stars that i am not a prototyper.
Perhaps you didn’t check widely enough?
In Belguim there was an extensive system of city and interurban lines called the “Vicinal”. These were one metre gauge (which I agree is 9-3/4" more than 30") but not enough to render the principle invalid.
There is a prototype for almost anything, since prototype engineers are as resourceful as modellers.
the lack of standardization is mind boggling, but i will accept your argument that using on30 for an interurban has a prototype.
as far as i can tell, no interurban tram car is currently made in on30. Spectrum has two shorty trams, which maybe i could use, but would they pull freight cars? That would look funny. If they even have couplers. Bet they dont. So, for now i will pull freight and passenger cars with a bachmann spectrum on30 loco. An excursion passenger car seems to fit the era.
You know man, let me tell you something, it’s your layout! You do what you want and what pleases you, don’t worry too much about scale or track gauge or anything else. “If it feels good, do it!” Or, “If it looks good, so what?”
Rmember, the whole point of this hobby is to give pleasure to yourself, everything else is nonsense. I’ve gone over to the “Model Railroader” site and it seems to me most of those folks are just looking for something else to worry about. Who needs the agita?
Hey, I’ll run some 19th Century 4-4-0’s on my layout along with 20th contemporary diesels. My excuse? “There’s a Civil War re-enactment going on in town! Deal with it!”
One possibility is that you could build a an interurban car by combining two of the Bachmann single truck cars into a single body, and use an HO scale doodlebig or RDC chassis. This may or may not be within your comfort zone…
The Vicinal used enclosed steam motors. Looking through Beebe’s “Central and Southern Pacific Railroads”, apparently the SP picked up a narrow gauge operation that used Baldwin Steam dummies built to 36" gauge. Something like that could be built using an O scale Baldwin steam motor body and an 0-4-2 On30 chassis.
I know european “steam trams” are available in G scale and what they call HOe (HO on 12mm track). There may be at least a kit in On30…
my skills for modfying plastic cars are limited to i am reluctant to mess up a nice car. However, the interurbans had wood bodies so maybe i could make a shell with balsa and drop it onto an HO chassis. Perhaps an HO passenger car chassis would be long enough.
your suggestion about the O scaled Baldwin steam dummie body might be the best idea, but why not put it ontop of an HO loco, covering the loco body like an overcoat.
Since my father confirmed the Wabash tracks were parallel to but separate from the FWWV interurban tracks, i have ordered the parts necessary for changing my layout to a circle within an oval. No additional space is needed. The traction car or cars can whiz around the inner circle while the freight train chugs along the outer oval, perhaps in the opposite direction.
Hey, remember back on the 21st I mentioned how floor trains were usually beyond the scope of what we discuss here?
Well, yesterday I got my latest, action-packed edition of CTT and lo and behold, what’s on page 20? An Auburn Rubber Company toy floor train from the 50’s! And with a good back-story with it. How 'bout that?
Looks like something I wouldn’t have minded having as a kid at all!
because of your regard formthe Mogul 2-6-0, i have been looking into them. The tender on this mogul looks a lot like a gondola. it is about half as tall as a box car and seems to have straight sides. very simple.
Attache are two photos, one the Bmann and one original. They have the same tender, gondola style.
The #1114 Caboose was cataloged from 1919 through 1935 according to the Greenberg guide. As you can imagine there were a number variations. Your example has Type Va trucks (8 wheel, no journals) which were used from 1927 - 1930. Your example is listed as 1114(J) in the book. I think that the brown cupola walls were more common on the 4 wheel versions of the caboose.
Glad to help. [:)] That is a great price. If you go back to the antique store you should take some photos of the engines that are available. Inquiring minds might be interested.
That antique store was the Mercantile in Marshfield WI. They had maybe a dozen cars, including some large diesels.
I will not be back in Marshfield for a while but they are nice people so if you called them and asked about the inventory of train stuff, i am sure they would be happy to help. They admit to being clueless about trains. They said Marshfield has a train club but apparently those guys never sell anything to antique stores. A recent estate sale provided some inventory for them, if i remember the story correctly.
that book you cited is expensive. Kalmbach is offering the volume that goes up to 1927 for a hundred bucks.
It has been out of print for quite awhile, however you can find it on the secondary market, and it can be quite expensive. It shows up on ebay frequently. It has errors and isn’t complete on variations but it is still the best resource on Prewar American Flyer O Gauge in print. It is the first resource I turn to when trying to identify a piece of Flyer equipment.
Come visit the thread here on the CTT site for more information about Prewar Flyer and to ask questions. I don’t want to hijack this thread anymore than I already have.
regarding the Mogul 2-6-0 and their use by the Wabash RR in particular, Classic Trains wrote this:
“Four 1899 Moguls remained in service until 1955 because their 124,000 pound weight was the maximum that could be carried by the Illinois River bridge on the branch to Keokuk, Iowa“.
So, that is why they were using a smaller loco. My Dad said he was working steam engines before he went to Korea but when he came back, the steamers were gone.
You know, weight wasn’t the only reason some steam engines lasted as long as they did. For example, the Rio Grande narrow-gauge lines in New Mexico and Colorado that eventually became the Cumbres and Toltec and Durango and Silverton tourist 'roads kept steam well into the 1960’s because the Rio Grande was planning to abandon the narrow-gauge lines anyway, so it made no sense to order custom-made narrow-gauge diesels to replace the steamers.
And wasn’t that lucky for us and the rest of the railfan world?
