hello everyone. well my mom was poking around online today and found a picture of the bachmann american freedom train she bought me years ago. I made a suggestion to start an ON30 shelf layout in my room when we get moved. :tb-rolleyes: Well I got an ok if i can get it to fit :tb-biggrin: I'm up to 4 layout projects at once now but this is gunna be fun. So far I have the bachmann 2-6-0 that came with the set and the combine. these will not be repainted as they are sentimental pieces. In my barn i have a ton of stuff in 20 or so boxes full of model railroad stuff from the 70's and 80's. I have found alot of power trucks and older MDC engines in there before and I was wondering if anybody knows a simple project to start out with in ON30. Like a boxcab or something. Right now i don't know the exact space but i'm gunna estimate off of what i've seen touring the new house that i'll have about 8-9 foot long area. possibly an extension along a wall where i can't put furniture as it would be in the way (a foot wide shelf would work though). Today during our wait for food at the resterant I drew up a fictional map of the "Dynamite Rock and Topeka" railroad (the DRAT RR). It is a primary Silver and iron ore hauler in the mojave desert hills. The era i picked is 1943 when traffic on the DRAT would have been at its peak due to the iron ore needed for the war effort. The line starts in dynamite rock, at dynamite rock there is nothing but 2 side by side tracks and a crossover at one end. this is intended to be the area where the door is. The tracks then enter a short tunnel, cross a dry stream and arrive at topeka where the track plan is almost identical to dynamite rock except the stub end is in the other direction and there is a spur that goes to an iron ore mine (sized down to fit one car). The tracks cross the flat desert (no scenery as this part will pass over my computer desk). then they arrive at the final destination of Dry Gulch where the precious cargo is transfered to the Santa Fe (WWII was the USRA right? or was that WWI?). the layout is kinda based off the "pelican inlet" ON30 layout but wraped around a wall instead: Pelican Inlet Its not the largest nor the smallest ON30 layout ever constructed, but the shelf will be a foot to a foot and a half wide at max. The layout will be DC block control from a single control panel next to my computer desk. I wish I could use the MRC walk around DC throttles i'm used to but they have been discontinued. :tb-sad: Some of the layouts scenery ideas will come from the little train ride next to the royal gorge park. lotsa puns there. the conductor would point out things like "on our right is yellow stone" and it would be a 5 pound rock painted yellow with a sign that said "yellowstone". I intend to borrow a few of the joke ideas and use them on my layout. I did find 2 0-4-0's in the garage that have seen beter days. one is a riverassi docksider, and one is a life-like. My question is, should i take these, detail them so they will work with ON30 and put them to work, or, take them, and make them a 0-4-4-0 or something? ideas, suggestions, and criticism welcome!
In my opinion, steam locomotive conversions usually don't work. The drivers typically are way too small and/or have too many spokes. Do the Rivarossi docksides have valve gear? If so, that is another problem. Your boxcab idea gives me an idea. If you are willing to try a boxcab, why not a boxcar? Ores were usually bagged and hauled in boxcars. We can give you some basic dimensions...and help with finding the details. You could either make an older wooden car or a new (since it is the 1943 war rush) composite boxcar. This is one of my boxcars: If you aren't trying to follow a specific prototype as I was, and you use Grandt Line hardware, it wouldn't require much skill or time to build. Here's a couple composite cars from the WW2 era: The framing is steel while the sheathing is wood. IIRC, the SPng had some composite stock cars of a different design. Michael
Check out this site: http://www.bouldervalleymodels.com/ This is probably the most well known maker of On30 conversions. Perhaps there's an idea which would inspire creativity. Boxcab E50
Quick note from your original post...USRA = WW1. An easy way to remember is the USRA locomotive types: Heavy & light switchers (0-6-0s and 0-8-0s) H&L 2-8-2s H&L 4-6-2s H&L 4-8-2s H&L 2-10-2s H&L mallets (2-6-6-2s, 2-8-8-2s) Note that all have 2 wheel trailing trucks? In the WW2 era, nearly all new locomotives had 4-wheel trailing trucks. Such as 2-8-4s, 4-8-4s, 2-8-8-4s, etc. Most US ng 2-8-0s were built by 1900. 3' gauge 2-8-2s were typically built between 1902-1930. Most NGs were either limping along or actively trying to shut down, so the technology largely ceased before the 4-wheel trailing truck was developed. Michael
unfortunately no, after I moved into the new house I discovered two things. One, the walls I had intended to install the layout on had concrete behind them, not wood framework like I thought, which made installing any shelving on those walls near impossible. and two was, as the other posts above pointed out, converting units to ON30 would be difficult. I stuck with HO scale, and there are several threads in the inspection pit and the HO section of the forums depicting my current HO scale layout.
