I know several modelers who are very big in On30 and have basement filling layouts of the stuff. I surely is a fun and practical way to get he narrow gauge experience. Bachmann should be commended for their efforts.
I have an On30 set I use for the Christmas Tree Train - and it is perfect for that as well. You know porcelain houses, etc. And while I have plans (and enough porcelain structures) to do a larger Christmas display with it one day, I doubt my real modeling interests could ever go that way.
Many years ago I seriously considered two rail O gauge - but cost and space changed my mind - now I’m happy it did. I am very happy with my HO modeling.
I like scratchbuilding and the bigger size allows me to build just about anything, from rolling stock, locos, and buildings, using cheap materials and inexpensive HO scale mechanisms. Ideal for my very tight budget. I also like narrow gauge quite a lot. There are also a number of kits from various sources, mainly of UK origin. Check this page:
For family reasons, I have not yet been able to build my space saver “layout in a box” This is a display switching layout, based on a fictional island light railway, which will be built in three “boxes”, connected by traversers.
Each box is a layout of its own. I´ll be able to build one after another, but still enjoy a “larger” layout once I have built all three (or four?) of them.
My personal positive bias isn’t to the scale, it’s the track gauge!
Two of my all-time favorite railways are 762mm gauge, aka 30 inches. Both have places on my under-construction layout, but in HO scale. Placement will allow me to selectively compress them to HOe, instead of true 1:80 scale:
Kiso Forest Railway, native to my prototype area, closed 1975 (done in by better roads and self-loading trucks.) My version is the Kashimoto Forest Railway - my wife’s family was in the logging business. Miniature ‘critters’ and about a gazillion disconnects.
Kurobe Gorge Railway, shifted from a couple of mountain ranges north. Catenary power, miniature rolling stock, rock tunnels, bridges that would support a Y6 (or the massive transformers and switchgear the road was built to carry.) renamed Harukawa Electric Railway to protect the guilty.
If something extremely improbable happens, I could shift scales and use the power chassis and wheels from my HOj rolling stock to model either or both in On30. Scratchbuilding superstructures is no big thing.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - one way or another)
I was not being sarcastic Chuck, related to your idea about On30 bodies and On3 wheel set additions. That was a great work around.
The “purist” in reference to On3 was also meant as a super compliment. Few are those MRs in this gauge. Loco’s in this gauge are very expensive and rare, much like Sn3. Anything you can do to ease the pain on rolling stock is a big plus!
I do know that On2-1/2 is the same is On30. I was using the original term for that gauge. On30 is of rather recent vintage. The foot gauge was always the norm. It is rather recent to refer to the inches of On30. If we are talking inches then I am an HOn36 gauger. I think folks just didn’t like the 1/2 they had to add after the 2! I would be curious to know if it wasn’t a manufacturer that started the 30 suffix or whether it was an MR. The origin is probably lost to time.
Thanks, Richard! I like all of what is available in On30 and a lot of it can be used in On3. I did a Bachmann gas-mechanical…it was easy to regauge to On3…
On3 is only as expensive as you let become. San Juan has flex track and turnouts that aren’t much more expensive than the On30 stuff. That is the reason I decided to model 3’ instead of 30".
When I got the narrow gauge bug about 15 years ago, I had to choose between On30 and HOn3. I was coming from the 3 rail O toy train world, so would be starting from scratch in either. I ended up choosing HOn3 (this was before Blackstone, but Bachmann’s On30 was well established). Why HOn3?
track gauge. Even though I free-lance, I strive for plausibility. So the difference between On3 and On30 track bothers me. And given that O scale uses track that scales 5ft wide, dual gauge O/On30 just doesn’t look anything like standard/3ft gauge track should. It looks much more like 3 rail O because the narrow gauge rail ends up just about centered in O/On30.
space for structures and trees. True O scale models of even small structures and trees take a lot of space.
selective compression becomes caricature when carried too far. I see ads for 18ft-20ft On30 cars because the track and the tiny structures look much better along side what is really industrial railroad-sized equipment. Lost is the feel of late 19th Century narrow gauge common carrier accessing the hinterlands and the associated resources on the cheap.
That is not to say that my way is better or is for most people. The On30 folks do a lot of great modeling and have a lot of fun. Because of the gauge/scale mis-match, the fights about whether green boilers were ever seen on D&RG narrow gauge, or the differences between each individual K-27 or rotary plow don’t seem to bother the On30 folks as much as some of the HOn3 folks.
In the review of the new Bachmann 18’ cars in the Jan/Feb 2013 Narrow Gauge & ShortLine Gazette (which I suspect are the cars you’re referring to), Bob Brown notes that although these cars are “cute as a bug’s ear” that they’re also “closely based on prototype Billmeyer & Small designs”. (I know in recent years Bachmann has shifted their On30 line from being primarily based on western 3’ models to Maine 2’ models, so it may be these cars are based on 2’ cars.) It may be like when people criticized the old Walthers / Trainline steam era boxcars as being “undersize”. In reality, they were based on correct 8’-6" high boxcars, reefers and stockcars from the 1910’s-30’s that were in fact shorter than the 10’-6" cars that came in the late 1930’s thru the 1950’s.
I get to learn something new everyday. If the typical car size on the Maine 2ft lines was indeed that small, then I retract my caricature criticism. But I had always believed the more typical 2ft gauge car was on the order of 24ft, scaling to just over 6" in On30.
I always thought that true On2 is a pretty neat scale/gauge. And 2ft wasn’t limited to Maine. Here in Colorado, the Gilpin Tram line served the mines that the 3ft gauge couldn’t reach. On top of that, the Gilpin used Shays as motive power.
