Knapford Station for On30 passenger trains?

[gmhtrains]

Has any On30 modeler tried adapting Knapford Station, Bachmann's HO-scale "glass" covered passenger terminal, for use with their On30 trains? Because of On30's overhang on HO-width track, I suspect that the high level platforms would be the first pieces to go. But then high level platforms and back-woodsy narrow gauge trains don't go together, anyway. And I think that the canopy support posts would need new bases to extend their height above On30 locomotive cabs and smokestacks.

So, while the question of whether Knapford Station could be adapted to On30 use remains, the question of whether any/many modelers would want to is perhaps more at issue. On30 modeling attracts more would-be loggers and miners than fans of passenger train operations. Certainly plenty of On30 modelers do run trains with one each of Bachmann's baggage, combine, coach and observation cars around in circles, but how many actually operate passenger and headend trains that set out and pick up mail storage, meal service and sleeping cars en route?

By augmenting a Bachmann passenger and baggage car fleet with cars and kits from Mount Blue, Wiseman and San Juan, an equipment pool for local, overnight, mail and express trains can turn an On30 passenger "train set" into a passenger operation with variety. Bachmann two-door baggage cars and reefers can be relettered for express company ownership. Very few prototype "baggage cars" were actually used for passengers' checked baggage; the vast majority carried mail or express, and usually the car next to the Railway Post Office stored the mail sacks that were being worked en route. Mount Blue makes kits that turn Bachmann passenger superstructures into four-door baggage and RPO cars.

Rearranging the window pattern might be the only change needed to turn Bachmann, Wiseman or San Juan coaches into sleeping cars. Canadian National's operation of the 42-inch gauge Newfoundland Railway was North America's last use of narrow gauge sleepers well into the diesel era. As for converting Knapford Station to On30 use, Merida, Yucatan, had North America's last covered trainshed serving narrow gauge trains into the 1980's.

Gil Hulin     

[Skarloey Railway]

Have you tried looking at the passenger operations of real-life US narrow gauge lines? Only Knapford Station doesn't look like anything I've seen in any book covering US (or British) narrow gauge lines.

Or standard-gauge, come to that.

[GG1onFordsDTandI]

But it is a very cool station! Not everyone models an exact, or real place. I wanted to use one on full Og and came to the same conclusion about post height, etc. I also posted a request for some measurements in the "Thomas forum" last month, but got no help at all. Please post some if you find them. 

[Skarloey Railway]

There's a wide difference between modelling an exact or real place and building a fantasy that never existed in any shape or form on any railway anywhere. Mostly you can sum at that difference as a 'toy train set' approach and the 'model railroad approach'. Few of us have the time or resources to build a real place at anything like real scale so we built might have been railroads of varying plausibility based, sometimes loosely, on prototype railroads and their operations.

Bottom line, covered stations on narrow gauge lines were few and far between. Covered stations that looked like Knapford were non-existent.

I think some people forget what the word 'model' in model railroads means, so here's a definition:
mod·el  (mdl) n.
1. A small object, usually built to scale, that represents in detail another, often larger object.
from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/model

Anything that doesn't fit with that description is just a toy.

[Bucksco]

But that does not mean that a "modeler" can't exercise artistic creativity. No mater how hard you try you will never be able to build an exact duplicate of a real railroad in your basement so have fun with it and don't sweat the details. No matter how seriously you take your hobby all "model railroads" are in essence "toys".

[Skarloey Railway]

Of course not: artistic creativity is essential, unless you have a lot of space and a lot of time and money to create a near-perfect replica, as the record producer Pete Waterman is doing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njO6nCkN28E

But few of us are multi-millionaires and for us the artistic creativity is applied in taking something that's real and interpreting it and adjusting it into something that's modellable within one's space, time and financial constraints. Artistic creativity is not, in my view, doing whatever you feel like 'cos it's your railway, any more than doing whatever you feel like on a violin is ever going to convince anyone you're making music.

I do feel that on both sides of the pond railway/railroad modellers are increasingly looking to other models for their inspiration rather than going back to find inspiration in the prototype and that while this may offer short term benefits for manufacturers, in that they can sell more of the same thing, overall it's unhealthy for the hobby. It is an irony that as the models offered by manufacturers have become increasingly detailed and accurate modellers seem increasingly less interested in creating a 'realistic' railroad for them to run on. And realistic, in this context, doesn't mean a specific location modelled to dead scale, merely that the model is clearly identifiable as something that could have existed in a particular time and a particular place.

[GG1onFordsDTandI]

What do you call a miniature version of a spaceship that hasn't been built yet? A model? But yet it doesn't exist except on paper, Oh, and the model! A visual extension of the engineers imagination, and no more or less real at this point than my glass covered station. Its roofs origin could have been off of a greenhouse, or bus stop for all I care. Im engineering this, and I see my station, its glass.
I add much detail, but often skimp on fine scale detailing, of the details, choosing bold simple methods instead. Scale? Why do I care exactly what it weighs, does it look about right? Scale proportions don't always look right anyhow, often because geometric optical illusions from our less than prototypical "above view" run wild. The lesser detailing leaves me with a folk art look I like, but it is definitely more modeling than folk art, but which is it. I  ............................................
You know, I caught this line again out of the corner of my eye.

  Artistic creativity is not, in my view, doing whatever you feel like 'cos it's your railway, any more than doing whatever you feel like on a violin is ever going to convince anyone you're making music.

Someone should have told Hendrix, or Picasso about this before they wasted all that time. And now I think maybe you've had enough of  mine, as I wipe the other corner, and think of the "State approved" art you would have me bound to..   

[Skarloey Railway]

"state-approved art"?

As for referencing Hendrix, music is (with a few exceptions) an art form that doesn't seek to represent something and so isn't comparable to anything that is 'modelled'. As for Picasso, he was a very great artist who chose to represent the world a certain way but what he did absolutely was not the kind of anything goes approach you appear to advocate.

And yes, many people model fantasy subjects, including inventing spaceships and modelling might-have-been planes the Luftwaffe never got around to building or creating the weird denizens of fantasy war-gaming and I admire their work. In fact, as a writer I invent fantasy a great deal and my blog is ample proof of my affection for the genre: http://bardoftweedale.wordpress.com/the-world-of-tamburlaine-bryce-macgregor/ 

But if what you model is fantasy then call it fantasy.

[gmhtrains]

When I started this topic three days ago, I asked if anyone had already used Bachmann's HO scale Knapford Station with On30 trains. The answer is apparently no, since responses have focused on a reality versus fantasy debate. Apparently Model (with a capital M) railroading is too serious a pastime to allow FUN to creep in.

To answer GG1onFordsDTandI's question about Knapford Station dimensions, The Favorite Spot (a Texas dealer with great Bachmann prices) lists the structure as 10.5 inches wide, 26 inches long and 6.25 inches high. These figures include the three high-level platforms that I would exclude if using the structure with narrow gauge.

Gil Hulin

[GG1onFordsDTandI]

My apologies for my participation, and plead guilty to aggravated  accessory to hijacking.
Thank you for the grounding GMH.

I got those dimensions already in a request thread I posted in "Thomas forum" after replying here.
I'm going to ask for better ones, and will let you know how it goes. (or you could follow that thread too.)
I think that's the overall dimensions given.(but havent compared figures yet)  Height may not be the low point of the roof where a loco or load would hit, but to the top of the roof. Basically I want to figure out what can, and cant be reused, including the platforms, and how I will build off it. I'm using full O gauge in at least one "slot" too.

[GG1onFordsDTandI]

These figures include the three high-level platforms that I would exclude if using the structure with narrow gauge.

Gil Hulin

Just one point to consider, an HO high level platform will seem much lower next to an On30 train. Just a thought....not a very good one, but a thought

FYI- On comparison(same) those are overall measurements.

[Skarloey Railway]

but how many actually operate passenger and headend trains that set out and pick up mail storage, meal service and sleeping cars en route?

As these are typical passenger operations on mainline standard gauge railroads you're much better off using HO or N gauge which represents standard gauge.

Model railroads are not serious in the way that fighting famine and disease or keeping a roof over your head are serious but there's no need to assume that for model railroading to be fun we mustn't take it seriously. Most things in life get to be more fun the more effort you put into them. There are thousands of prototypes out there in the real world for us to be inspired by so to ignore all of them strikes me as bizarre.
Colin.