Plow:  Caboose body on freight car chassis, scratchbuild a blade, done.  Already mocked one up.   Hardest part is making the curved blade, but maybe thin styrene added to a cheap HO plow blade (like the IHC one) would be suitable.   

I've never had a problem selling On30 on there, although it helps if your engine is OOP or not being sold by TFS.   You won't get rich on them, for sure, but unless you price them beyond belief, they'll sell.

I'm most of the way through scratchbuilding an RPO based on plans of Denver & Rio Grande car 51 from a 1964 issue of RMC.  It's made with Evergreen styrene, some Plastruct 1/4 round, and Grandt Line corner posts, steps, platforms, trucks, windows and end doors.  I even made the floor, although if I'd been smart I'd have stretched it by a few boards somewhere and made the shell to fit the Bachmann coach underframe.  Not that it's hard to make a floor, it just would have saved some work.  It's rolling around the layout, but I need a couple more side windows and to either find or make side doors to finish the body.   This car has a round roof, which made it easy to build.  I'm tempted to do a baggage to match, I've found pictures of similar style baggage cars used on the Catskill Mountain Railway, but I also have plans for a Carson & Colorado car with 2 side doors and no vestibules that's close to the Bachmann cars otherwise and looks fairly simple to build.   

I suspect the next projects will be a car based on some WWII era plans in MR for a Rio Grande reefer, or possibly a take on SR&RL coach 20 simply because I picked up a couple of Grandt Line window and door sets for one.  (that car runs about 50' long, so it's liable to be shortened a bit; the roof on it looks challenging as it's humped up like a clerestory but it's rounded with no small windows). 

And frankly if I can do this stuff, anyone should be able to, I had no real scratchbuilding experience before this.  It's mostly just measure and cut, and styrene is easy to work with, even to cut windows into a panel - often I position them by photocopying a drawing I then cut up and use as a template.  Grandt Line makes so many other detail parts that finishing a car off isn't hard either.

Thanks....  I was just trying to be lazy about it.   I even pulled one out of one of my cabooses to check length...  same length, but it gave me the idea while I was standing there to make a new cupola for it that's the same width as the carbody - which is a huge improvement over the original, it takes the caboose from looking goofy to looking real - even with the circuit board and wiring visible.  I can't think of anything better Bachmann could do to improve that caboose....   

Wow, nobody?  Screws are usually referred to as a 1-48 or 6-72 or along those lines, that's what I'm looking for. 

Anyone know offhand what size the screws are that hold the trucks in on On30 freight cars (Boxcar, flatcar, tank car)?  I need to scare up some that are the same thread but a tad longer, I'll probably need to get some washers to use them since I doubt I'll ever find any with the same heads. 

This because I redid the tank car eliminating the flatcar deck and shortening a leftover frame in it's place.  The result doesn't look bad, same length as the hopper, mine needs walkways, brake wheel and steps added yet, but with a tad longer screw I can even put it back together using the holes  that originally held the tank to the deck.  The bonus is I get another flatcar out of the process. 

You would think they could take their data for the HO 44-tonner and scale up some tooling for an On30/O/O hirail version that share shells with one another.  The On30 would need a smaller cab and different deck and each one would call for different running gear. 

Motors may vary on these, mine's a fairly recent purple box issue.  Fit right in the plastic boiler of my static kit and like I said, sizewise is almost identical to the small 4-4-0. 

I think you'll find the IHC Premier 2-6-0 will also fit.  I tried the 4-4-0 version (because I had one handy) under an old static kit boiler that's about the same size as the 4-4-0 and it will work with fairly minimal modifications.  The only advantage it offers is sometimes you run into them at shows pretty cheap, and they're not bad runners. 

Quote from: Kevin Strong on September 02, 2010, 06:19:56 PM

Quote from: Royce Wilson on September 02, 2010, 02:21:59 PMthe fact that neither has been made is probably due to  not being able to get the 4-4-0 to take 18" curves and the geared engine problem for the Heisler.

I'm not sure I understand your argument. Bachmann already makes a 4-4-0 in On30. (For that matter, the Forneys, which are essentially 4-4-0s with the boiler on backwards.) I'm not in On30, so I don't know if they can take an 18" radius or not. If they can, then why would there be an expectation that any other 4-4-0 would not; if they can't, why the expectation that another one should?

As for the Heisler, I'm not sure what you mean by "geared engine problem." Mechanically, I can't imagine it any more difficult to power a Heisler than the Shay they already produce. I know I've seen other On3 Shays, Heislers, and Climaxes sitting on the store shelves. Rivarossi made an HO scale Heisler. It's definitley been shown possible in terms of drive.


Later,

K

In fact there have both been the tiny inside frame 4-4-0 and the larger outside frame 4-4-0 (which was primarily an export locomotive IIRC) and both handle 18" no problem, so why another one wouldn't, who knows.

But the gear issue is with regard to the gears cracking in the Climax and Shay locomotives, also the rail truck.  Sure they can make a Heisler, but can they make one that won't be out of service in need of replacement gears in 6 or 12 months?  (FWIW, they're not the first to have this problem - most Athearn HO USRA 0-6-0s from the early 60s don't run today because of a cracked main gear). 

I guess that depends on what sort of railroad you're trying to model, if you're not set on a specific prototype, you may as well just go with code 100 or code 83 that are readily available in ready to use track products. 

Personally, for the expense, I just went with On30, O buildings since there's tons out there, and the usual 1/43-1/48-1/50 vehicle assortments since again, there are tons out there. 

I'm setting up the layout so I can swap out the structures and things and run the HO trains if I want, rather than sell off some 25 years of collecting them. 

Evergreen makes an O-scale car siding that seems to match up to most of the Bachmann cars fairly well.  Once you make sides, a roof and ends are a snap -

I used to use the Scalecoat stripper for that stuff, but it's not cheap.  Brake fluid will do it but can sometimes make the plastic brittle.  On the other hand, you could just give the sides of the tender or cab a coat of it and put it in a sealed tub, come back, scrub with toothbrush, and if it doesn't all come off, give it another shot. 

I'm sure Bachmann will send you a factory sheet with the exploded view diagram of this engine if you ask them.  Seems like the cab is glued on and takes a lot of patience to remove. 

Odds are when they're released one of the magazines will review them and publish all those specifications - just have to be patient I guess.