So, after an extremely brief foray into HO scale railroading that ended with my son crashing and damaging a couple of locomotives, I’m back for more punishment!
While I still have a couple of diesels stashed away, I decided to spend a bit of my two most recent paychecks on some On30 models. As Nigels has explained previously, these are O scale (1/48 in the US) models running on HO gauge track (1/87 in the Americas and much of continental Europe). This represents trains running on 2 1/2 foot or 30 inch wide tracks; fairly common in the Northeastern US but a bit more narrow than the typical 3 foot/ 36 inch gauge common in much of the US and Canada. Still, because of ease in modeling, you can find 30 inch gauge models of many famous real life 36 inch gauge railroads like the Denver & Rio Grande Western, Rio Grande Southern, White Pass & Yukon and the Eastern Tennessee & Western North Carolina, aka “The Tweetsie”.
My newly acquired locomotive is a Baldwin 4-6-0 “Ten Wheeler”, supposedly based on a surviving 3 foot gauge prototype that runs on the Tweetsie. There are additional parts to set it up with alternate funnels, lights and even fuel (coal, oil or wood). I haven’t run it yet but it’s quite beautiful just sitting there. I plan to run it with three coaches which are currently marked for the Great Northern but everything to eventually (hopefully) be marked for a fictional narrow gauge short line.
![[Image: 99-A50973-4-C67-4-F08-A449-8-CA6-BB13-E6-E1.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/TKw8BdcS/99-A50973-4-C67-4-F08-A449-8-CA6-BB13-E6-E1.jpg)
While I still have a couple of diesels stashed away, I decided to spend a bit of my two most recent paychecks on some On30 models. As Nigels has explained previously, these are O scale (1/48 in the US) models running on HO gauge track (1/87 in the Americas and much of continental Europe). This represents trains running on 2 1/2 foot or 30 inch wide tracks; fairly common in the Northeastern US but a bit more narrow than the typical 3 foot/ 36 inch gauge common in much of the US and Canada. Still, because of ease in modeling, you can find 30 inch gauge models of many famous real life 36 inch gauge railroads like the Denver & Rio Grande Western, Rio Grande Southern, White Pass & Yukon and the Eastern Tennessee & Western North Carolina, aka “The Tweetsie”.
My newly acquired locomotive is a Baldwin 4-6-0 “Ten Wheeler”, supposedly based on a surviving 3 foot gauge prototype that runs on the Tweetsie. There are additional parts to set it up with alternate funnels, lights and even fuel (coal, oil or wood). I haven’t run it yet but it’s quite beautiful just sitting there. I plan to run it with three coaches which are currently marked for the Great Northern but everything to eventually (hopefully) be marked for a fictional narrow gauge short line.
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