The (On30) Monster That Ate My Wallet!

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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.


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[-] The following 1 user Likes Off The Rails's post:
  • Super
Oh, she is a beauty for sure. Love the engines details and especially that cab roof which extends over the tender to keep the weather off of a shoveler. Speaking of Tender, this one is massive and look at those detailed chains...wonder what were they used for? Nice addition OTR, hope your aren't moving on too fast.
[Image: super-smiley-emoticon.gif]
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  • Off The Rails
Nice to see someone else dipping their toes in the ON30 waters, I still love these models, not just the locomotives but some of the carriages, cabooses etc...

If you look for 'Hawthorne Village' trains on eBay you can pick up some really nicely decorated models at pretty reasonable prices - even Disney and Christmas themed ones, ideal for the little ones Smile
Happily collecting things all my life... Big Grin
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(12-15-2018, 07:22 PM)Super Wrote: Oh, she is a beauty for sure. Love the engines details and especially that cab roof which extends over the tender to keep the weather off of a shoveler. Speaking of Tender, this one is massive and look at those detailed chains...wonder what were they used for? Nice addition OTR, hope your aren't moving on too fast.

Nah, I still love Plarail trains way too much! This is an awesome locomotive but it’s likely to be the only one in this scale I buy for a while. I might get some freight rolling stock but I just don’t have the room for much of a layout right now.


(12-15-2018, 11:09 PM)Nigels Wrote: Nice to see someone else dipping their toes in the ON30 waters, I still love these models, not just the locomotives but some of the carriages, cabooses etc...

If you look for 'Hawthorne Village' trains on eBay you can pick up some really nicely decorated models at pretty reasonable prices - even Disney and Christmas themed ones, ideal for the little ones Smile

I’ve been really tempted by some of the Hawthorne Village items but once I had the money, the supply kind of dried up. Maybe after Christmas I can find them again.
(This post was last modified: 12-16-2018, 07:29 AM by Super.)
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  • Super
I got my Baldwin Ten Wheeler out of the stash and finally ran it on our little oval of HO gauge track. It runs nicely and is quite heavy but with my little MRC DC power pack, you don’t get lights or full on DCC operation. I have some narrow gauge passenger coaches but I really need a longer run of track to do even a small consist any justice. While I really like this locomotive, I’m not sure how much more I’ll delve into On30. I would love to have a similar Baldwin Ten Wheeler in HO scale standard gauge and Bachmann DOES make one but it’s a bit out of my price range for now. For the near future, I’ll probably stick to post-war, mid-20th Century diesels in standard gauge HO scale.

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My daughter insisted on doing the scenery, so there’s a Peppa Pig dollhouse and a little purple castle in the background of the second photo! Big Grin
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  • Finno, Super
Still beautiful
Happily collecting things all my life... Big Grin
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  • Off The Rails, Super
I love the scenery. [Image: nodding-yes-by-a-very-happy-smiley-emoticon.gif]
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  • Off The Rails
We ran this engine and an HO scale Southern Railway RS3 after school today and really enjoyed the little session. I need a more permanent setup for the track to avoid damaging it.

I should post pictures of the RS3 over in the HO section. It’s a custom Atlas model with Kato drive components and is probably one of the best running HO locomotives I’ve ever owned.

(03-29-2019, 09:18 PM)Super Wrote: I love the scenery. [Image: nodding-yes-by-a-very-happy-smiley-emoticon.gif]
Oh yeah! I’m setting up a Plarail layout next and I’m going have her set up the scenery.
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(03-30-2019, 12:46 AM)Off The Rails Wrote: Oh yeah! I’m setting up a Plarail layout next and I’m going have her set up the scenery.

Looking forward to seeing it.
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  • Super



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