Height of the caboose waggon

[UKJ]

Hello there! I´m just wondered that a caboose waggons height is? I don´t have any at home yet. I planning my trackplan at the moment and I need this messure.

[Jimster]

 Which caboose?

On the the "side door wood caboose" you would need at least 3.25 inches. That is from the rail top, not including tie/rail height.
The stove stack is the tallest point, so I suppose you could trim it down.

[UKJ]

Ok thank you for your answer, I will built for 3,75 - 4 inches.

[railtwister]

The caboose is probably the tallest of the On30 rolling stock at present, but I think the 4-6-0 loco is a bit taller. My covered depot had just under 3-1/2" of clearance over the railhead, and a friend's 4-6-0 lacked about 1/32" clearance, even though everything else (including both styles of cabooses) cleared with room to spare. I have since shimmed the depot's foundation up with 3/32" basswood strips, so that should do the trick. It now has a clearance of 3-9/16". Unfortunately, my friend with the 4-6-0 lives about 300 miles away, so I haven't been able to test out the new height yet. I'm not real sure, but 3-3/4" will p-robably even clear one of the big D&RGW K's, as long as you have the clearances to the side.

Bill

[Mister Lee]

I'd highly recommend using something like the ET&WNC 4-6-0's height as a tool for planning vertical clearances. I'm a member of an On30 modular club here in South-Central Texas and we've just learned that a highway bridge/view block was too short to clear the ten-wheelers. Fortunately, the module in question was still in the track-laid and extruded foam stage, not where the module was fully scenicked and the highway bridge emplaced.

[railtwister]

The best thing to use for setting up clearances on your On30 layout or module is the On30 clearance gauge offered by the NMRA. This dandy tool uses an HO stainless steel clearance gauge for rail & track clearances, that fits into an injection molded plastic overlay that is the profile for On3 tunnel, bridge and platform clearances. Since many On30 models are simply re-gauged On3 models, these clearances should clear anything you might ever use in On30. For presently available Bachmann On30 equipment, some "cheating" can be done with both the side and overhead clearance dimensions, but only if absolutely necessary. As an example, for my covered depot, which was loosely modeled after the SR&RL depot in Kingfield Maine, the On3 clearances were just too big looking, while the scale dimensions were just too tight, since the available On30 rolling stock is slightly larger than scale On2 equipment would be. I purposely made my depot's openings just tall enough and wide enough to clear both my Bachmann cupola and my Mt. Blue Models bay window cabooses. Even though it's unlikely that the prototype would have run a caboose through the depot,  I knew that since this depot was going to be on a module used in a club setting, it was quite likely that someone (probably me) would forget that fact and do it anyway. When we tried the 4-6-0 (very slowly), and I saw that it lacked only about 1/32" at the stack of making it through, I raised the Depot's foundation with some 3/32" strip wood to allow for clearing that loco with just a bit of additional "breathing space" left over, even though at this point, I have no plans to ever have a 4-6-0 on my own roster (you never know).

Even the prototype station's clearances from the rails had to had to be increased in it's later years by removing some of the framing trim around the doors, after the SR&RL got some new locos that were larger than the ones in use when the station was first built.

Regards,
Bill Nielsen
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Florida On30 Renegades