On30 locomotives with O-scale and proto 48 conversion posibilities

[nwtaylor1953]

It has been very interesting watching the products you have been producing in the ON 30 Steam Locomotives over the past few years.  I model in 2 rail O-scale proto 48, and I have converted one of your Mogels to on3.  It would be interesting sometime in the future to see the Bachmann move into the O-scale locomotive, but with the capability of converting to Proto 48 or back to On3.  There is absolutly no proto 48 steam available and it would be great to see someone  step up to the plate with say, a Prarrie type 4-6-0 as North America has a great amount of such realestate.  I'm sure that you folks are swamped with many peculiar requests, and mine may top the list, but if you remember back in the 50's, Lionel trains were leading the sales in electric trains, and many of us are still around.  The proto 48 movement is small at this point, but growing. This would be a tremendous boost for us.  There are plenty of regular 2-rail modelers who would like to see more available reasonably priced steam loco's, and I think it would be great to see you folks kick some caboose in the O-scale department.  Well thats it.  I'll just sit back and see if there are any other O-scalers who will contribute to this little splerb.  Happy Rails to you all. cheers.       

[japasha]

I don't think you hafe a problem there. As built, while the prototypes have been altered for very small radius operation, most On30 lends itself to bashing to On3.  The prototypes were small freight cars from the Ohio narrow gauges. They were smaller than the Colorado prototypes.

I believe there are no plans to offer more than Williams for now. If they did a normal 2 rail ssomething, you could convince them to make the parts for a conversion to proto48. That's the most practical. The current On30 offerings don't make the conversion to standard gauge. On3, yes but nor standard gauge.

[scottychaos]

Yes, depending on the prototype, most of the Bachmann On30 offerings are quite adaptable to On3..if the prototype was 3-foot gauge anyway, like the 2-6-0 or the 2-8-0, widening the wheels out to On3 shouldnt be too difficult.

With the Bachmann Forney, which is based on a TWO foot gauge prototype, some people are attempting to regauge to On2:

http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychaos/On2index/index.html

regauging to On2 is a lot more difficult than regauging to On3..because with On2 you also have to narrow the frames, not just the drivers..going from On30 to On3 you can pretty much just widen the wheels and you are all set..

It should be noted that On2 and On3 are both "Proto-48" scale/gauge combinations..the gauge of the track is correct for 2-foot or 3-foot..
and "Proto-48 standard gauge" is modeling standard gauge trains to the correct track gauge.

On30 isnt quite "proto-48" because the gauge is slighty off..
it actually scales out to 31" gauge..
thats because of the HO scale track gauge used for On30..

Scot

[Hamish K]

Scot

The Bachmann ON30 2-8-0 is based on a 30 inch gauge prototype!

Hamish

[japasha]

Hamish, the 2-8-0 is  Baldwin catalog engine that could be made anwhere from 2ft to 3'6" gauge. Buyer specified gauge. There were some meter gauge versions made for South America. A couple were 3' for other places. This was a common feature for many Baldwing catalog locomotives.

[ebtnut]

While I applaud the thought of considering P48, I don't see it happening within Bachmann's mass-market approach.  Several things come to bear--One, with true P48, the track guage is different than tradtional O gauge, being narrower to conform to the true 56 1/2" track gauge.  Second, the wheel and track standards are much finer than for O gauge, so the two are not compatible.  Finally, O scale modeling is a small part of the hobby, especially for standard O gauge.  I really don't see any kind of big market - it really is a smaller piece of a small part of the pie.