Personally, I'd compare the dimensions to those for standard gauge cars in S scale.  I already converted a $1 die cast S scale steel flat car body to On30 by adding a set of On30 trucks.  I'm considering converting some of the common American Flyer 630 hoppers over, too.  Width is the same, height is the same, the length is just a little odd compared to the Bachmann On30 cars.  I think the 40' flat car in S works out to like 34 feet in On30.  (I'm too lazy to do the math to figure out the exact length).

So it might be possible to use an S scale steel box car as a starting point for a model of one of these cars in On30.

I don't think it would be too challenging to scratchbuild some of the simpler cars, either, I was thinking of doing a Carson & Colorado combine/caboose from some ancient RMC plans and maybe to save some trouble fitting it to a Bachmann coach frame.   

If the switch is bent, you could try clamping it between two pieces of wood and forgetting about it for a while, but it might work better if you used boiling water to put a little heat into the plastic; it probably warped as it cooled out of the mold.  You could also try returning it.

I'm not familiar with the items by product number..

My Forney also doesn't like tight curves going forward, if I go too slow in one spot it uncouples.  One thing that would help is gong to Kadee metal couplers.  Another thing that would help it is a longer shank at the rear - if the Porter is longer, try switching them out - but the Porter may just have shallower coupler boxes. 

The Forney doesn't like 18" going boiler-first, it can come uncoupled or even derail the first car, although the one tight spot on my layout it does that so far all it does is uncouple at low speed or make the car wobble a lot at higher speeds.  With a light car as the first car I could see where it might derail though.  Tender-first it doesn't have this problem. 

The small 4-4-0 is fine with the tight curves, I had to adjust the drawbar a bit (bent down) as it kept derailing one tender wheelset.

I can't see where the climax or shay will object to 18" curves, they're no longer than most HO scale 4-axle diesel locomotives.   Even an Athearn SD40-2 will take an 18" radius curve, they just look rather unrealistic in the process. 

I've been running the Forney on my HO layout (which never got past one working loop of track).  They need a tad more curve clearance, but run around 18" curves okay.  I do have one tight spot where the rear will come uncoupled, or if I go fast it wobbles the first car a bit. 

As for clearance, the HO was intended to be a double-track main line and has some side-by-side track with one inch or so added between #6 switches.  The On30 cars clear but just barely, and the Forney in particular hits stuff on the curves. 

Besides Peco, Micro Engineering makes On30 track.  Seems like someone else was, too, but I can't think who. 

Or you could just bury the ties on your Atlas code 100 in the ballast so they're invisible, and live with it.   Given I can buy 25 used Atlas HO switches for the price of one Peco turnout, I expect to use all the ones I have on hand. 

You could always hand-lay the track, too. 

Well, for the heck of it I hooked this up to my HO loop and got out the Forney and 4-4-0 and ran them.  This worked fine to run both seperately or doublehead them, it took me about 5 minutes to figure out the basics.  I even reprogrammed the Forney to a different address number with it - both come set default to #3 apparently.  (I couldn't find the paperwork for it right away). 

So I put away the HO stuff and put some O buildings out and ran both engines around for a little bit.  The clearances on what was built as a double-track HO mainline are a tad tight (particularly with the rear of the Forney on curves) but it was fun to watch them roll and get used to the throttle.   

I picked up a mostly complete plastic static kit of the Southern Pacific RR's first locomotive, a 4-2-4T known as the C.P. Huntington (preserved today).  This is a tiny engine even in O scale, it's about the same height as the Bachmann On30 Mogul, maybe a little wider, but shorter than the Forney. 

Having trouble figuring out who made the kit, I think it was MPC that did this and a General 4-4-0 in the 70s but no one's had one on eBay lately.

After comparing it to an early 60's Aristo-Craft HO Reading 4-2-2, I think I could turn it into a 30-inch gauge inside frame 4-2-4T without a lot of trouble, just by cutting up the frame from another of those 4-2-2's (I have two more that have lost tenders in various stages of disrepair) and doing a little trimming and filing.  The main frame under it is just slightly wider than an HO wheelset.   The 4-2-2 drivers are tall enough to do justice, the only tough point is making counterweights and so on that all work.  But it would look reasonable.  I suppose some extra pieces from a Bachmann Forney (trailing truck) would make it work. 



Question is, was there any similar prototype for such a thing?  I'm sure it would have been fairly limited in pulling capacity and slippery with just two big drivers as it was.  But if it will pull two cars that's enough.

Odds are on an On30 layout it's not likely I'd run more than two engines at once....   I'll have to hook it up to my HO loop and run my 4-4-0 or Forney with it and see how it works. 

Probably the biggest reason I've avoided DCC is the cost - a base system tends to be $200 plus, then you have to add decoders to each engine - for a bunch of features I don't really need as one guy running a small layout. 

Picked up an O/O27 Supermarket that's shallower (or skinnier, the side walls are shorter) and has a centered door with windows on each side on Sunday.  Is it the original version of this building?   It has a BB logo on the back wall.   It's missing one side wall, too, but I wonder if the HO gas station can provide the replacement.. I'll have to dig one up and see.

At the same time I picked up a couple of the O version that are just like the HO one with the door on the right and the add on sign piece with the overhang.  (mostly because I didn't realize the first one was missing that, so I got one that does have it).  They have longer side walls with two molded in windows.

I also got a Plasticville Bank.  Thought maybe it was OOP, don't remember seeing another one, but I see you can get it built up as I look on eBay.  I got it because it looks pretty good, I've seen quite a few older bank buildings that it resembles pretty well. 

I'd kind of like to see Bachman do an NF210, the EMD units built for the Newfoundland Railways.  Although they were built to 42" gauge, the 6" or so difference per side shouldn't be that noticable, they have a big plain frame rail that hides a lot of the trucks and so on from view.  So it might be fairly simple to tool up with an existing HO drive - the cab and hood are adaptations of standard EMD stuff.  I suppose with a drive that copies the Athearn/P2K axle setup, with split axles on a plastic center section, it could be made so if someone wanted to widen it to 36" or 42" they could do so fairly easily, also.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_NF210

They have some international marketability, too, as after CN abandoned the line some were sold to Chile, Nicuragua and Nigeria.

And the Newfoundland Railway itself had a lot of interesting narrow gauge equipment that existed nowhere else.  Steel Santa-Fe style cabooses, long distance passenger cars, steamers that look like slightly scaled down standard gauge engines...   worth checking out.   

From what I'm hearing it's pretty basic and outdated, but the base might accept running more modern throttles (should I find one of those crazy cheap).  But all it has to do is make them go, make them stop, maybe once in a while run two at once. 

Obscure:

The Hayt's Corners, Ovid & Willard was a narrow gauge line in the Finger Lakes region of New York and later aquired (and standard gauged) by the Lehigh Valley.  I happened to dig up one picture to see they had an 0-6-0 with a slope-back tender.  Something like that would make an interesting and different model, presuming drawings or good photos of it could be located.  Unfortunately the book I found the photo in doesn't even note the builder of the locomotive. 

I happened on an older MRC DCC transformer and control for a rediculous dirt cheap price at a train show - a Lionel guy selling off his kids HO and didn't really know what he had - and I'm wondering how difficult it will be to operate my On30 Forney (no sound) and small 4-4-0 with it? 

The controller is marked AD490 and uses a rotary switch to choose what numerical address to operate; it has four function keys as part of a 9-key pad.  The base is marked Prodigy DCC and has a switch to go between programming and running.  But no manual with it and frankly I'm not that DCC knowledgable, I tended to ignore it with my HO stuff due to the large added expense of using it, plus the work involved to add decoders to older locomotives. 

Edit:  Although no manual, there are stickers on the back of the handheld control explaining how to run, set consists and program decoder-equipped locomotives.  I finally un-rubberbanded it and looked -

Looking at pictures made me wonder if we got this engine because it was relatively cheaper to tool up by sharing some pieces with the 2-8-0, but I'd want to compare the two side by side before I'd try to say they actually share say the boilers.  I bought the smaller 4-4-0 instead, I like the lines better - this one looks funny with the flat boiler and the tall cab. 

In the meantime, one could try kitbashing one from an S-scale plastic boxcar kit.. the width will be about right, the length will be kind of odd and the ladders and trucks need to be changed -