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With the number of different narrow gauge prototypes out there do people still go freelance?


MarcD
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009 is closer to 2 foot or 2' 6" gauges than 00 is to Standard Gauge, so is it that big a deal? Spot on for Tallylyn, Corris and Campbeltown & Machrihanish. Locos and stock have moved around and been regauged in presevation days e.g. Upnor Castle.

Loading gauge can be a problem if your stock hits bridges, but even that was encountered in real life, resolved by sawing bit off.

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It rather depends... I've never felt comfortable with 009 representing 2ft 6ins, though most people accept it, to me the track looks too narrow, even though we are only talking about 1mm! Many 2ft 6ins locos are quite hefty beasts and so the gauge narrowing is more noticeable, I suppose, though, than as most 009 modellers came from 00 SG 16.5mm gauge that would appear normal!

 

Linked in with gauge is the track used on the model. RTR track (Peco, Tillig, Roco and Bemo) is all code 80 or 83 rail. Whilst that's fine for modern 750/760mm gauge practice in Mainland Europe it's far too heavy for British practice where 20 to 40 lb per yard was the norm. I'd always suggest that, if you can, you use code 60/55 for handbuilt track and if you really want the best look, code 40.

 

The comments concerning gauge and locos which can be converted also expands into inside and outside frames, several classes of NG loco would have outside frames for the smaller gauges and inside for the larger! If you want the ultimate gauge conversion loco then the Harz Camels are probably the most extreme, a SG BoBo diesel converted into a Metre Gauge CoCo!

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A few years ago I did see a County Donegal Railways layout built using 16.5 Peco track. It looked like a elephant on a bike if I'm honest. 

Is the availablity of 009 and 016.5 track and very few uk prototypes being built to those gauges a reason for going all out freelance?  

 

Marc

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If you're scratchbuilding you could use H0 for British 2' 6" gauge to get the scale/gauge relationship more accurate, or you could enlarge the scale to suit the narrower gauges, e.g. Sn2. In the 1960s GEM more or less invented 5.5mm scale for their narrow gauge kits to use the commercial 12mm gauge. Just by luck I suspect*, it also would work for 3 foot gauge on 00/H0 track.

 

*GEM's own 3ft gauge kits were 4mm scale on 12mm gauge

Edited by BernardTPM
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Why do we make fictitious tv, film and books? There’s a certain amount of pure imagination to modelling. Whether it’s because you don’t have the time or skills to achieve exactly what you conceived or because you enjoy filling in the gaps with your mind or model. 
You may love 90% of the Ffestiniog Rly but want to add another favourite loco or type of stock or your perfect railway might be that stock transported to Cornwall and hauling China clay instead of slate. 
Modelling allows us to go what if and create our perfect little world without the rules we live every other second by ;) 

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10 minutes ago, MarcD said:

A few years ago I did see a County Donegal Railways layout built using 16.5 Peco track. It looked like a elephant on a bike if I'm honest.

Some 3ft gauge stock is much smaller, e.g. Rye & Camber, so wouldn't look quite as precarious. 5.5mm scale would work well for Irish 3 foot.

Edited by BernardTPM
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I am starting to do that, Bernard, I got the maker of the Shapeways Earl/Countess to rescale it from 00 to H0 and will be using an (incorrect wheelbase!) Roco o/s frame chassis on it... As I already have the Liliput Austrian coaches and Hungarian Mav coaches in H0 scale I can make up a realistic train! If only I could get someone to do the SLR and Joan in H0! I believe someone is thinking of making a model of 699.01, though it's Austrian version, in H0e, though it's gone quiet of late.

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1 hour ago, BernardTPM said:

009 is closer to 2 foot or 2' 6" gauges than 00 is to Standard Gauge, so is it that big a deal? Spot on for Tallylyn, Corris and Campbeltown & Machrihanish. Locos and stock have moved around and been regauged in presevation days e.g. Upnor Castle.

Loading gauge can be a problem if your stock hits bridges, but even that was encountered in real life, resolved by sawing bit off.


Off the Loco or the bridge?

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1 hour ago, MarcD said:

Is the availablity of 009 and 016.5 track and very few uk prototypes being built to those gauges a reason for going all out freelance?  

 

Marc


Thinking about my post earlier today (previous page), I suspect it’s more likely to be the other way round:  if I’m wanting to freelance, it’s something I don’t have to worry about - I can use whatever works / looks right for me.

 

With a SG hat on, I have on occasions bought items of rolling stock / building kits I didn’t find particularly exciting in themselves, but bought them because they fitted into a project I was planning at the time.  But, as @PaulRhB noted above, I’m one of those who enjoys the freedom to add something that takes my fancy that I can justify (at least to myself), even when it stretches things a bit far: I find that to be a more enjoyable approach.

 

In the context of this discussion, I’d not really thought of it as freelancing - it’s accidental freelancing more than intentional.  As that’s how I personally enjoy the hobby, I suppose it means that I’m not going to worry too much about my track either?

Edited by Keith Addenbrooke
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I suspect most 009 modellers actually model more two foot gauge prototypes than 2ft3ins ones as there are more of them! So is modelling a 2ft gauge prototype on 2ft3ins track freelance?! :)

 

(Retorical question BTW!) 

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44 minutes ago, Hobby said:

I suspect most 009 modellers actually model more two foot gauge prototypes than 2ft3ins ones as there are more of them!

 

Yes, definitely in my case! All my 009 layouts have nominally been 2ft gauge, except the Hurst Castle-based one which sort of wobbled around between 18in, 2ft and 2ft 6in (although that was an early layout basically running whatever stock I liked and could get my hands on at the time), and a tiny layout loosely based on Malaysian oil palm plantation railways (for which the prototype gauge is 70cm, or a very close 9.19mm in 1:76.2). The oil palm layout unfortunately isn’t very operationally interesting, and requires two controller lines (for two locos operating on separately powered independent tracks) so doesn’t get used much now.

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There are so many interests that if I were to stick to a prototype I’d only scratch one itch and I suspect I’d get bored by it and never finish it. I’ve several layouts and scales from N to 7/8ths and if I tried to model a prototype exactly in each scale I’d have about twenty separate layouts. By compromising and accepting multiple lines and gauges within a certain tolerance I can run my OO as Southern in three periods, Metropolitan and West Highland. My 009 modules feature French, L&B, FR and TR stock plus a module inspired by Camberwick Green! My big HOm layout is inspired by a real line as if it had survived to today using the stock off the rest of the network that still exists. It must be fairly successful because those campaigning to resurrect the real line have taken an interest too. 
I don’t think we should worry about the whys and shoulds but just allow people to enjoy their models. There’s a small clique who think their way is the only way and want to tell the rest of us and there are others that won’t look outside their chosen interest.
Our layouts are as varied as our personalities and that’s a good thing and with a little tolerance allows precise masterpieces of 4:15 on the 6th May to exist alongside the whimsy of the mind. 

:) 

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I briefly did as well back in the 80s. I think there are some more 5.5mm/16.5 layouts around now. Had TT lasted a bit longer in the UK we may well have seen more of it, I feel that it's a good compromise scale between 0 and 00 for narrow gauge, plenty of detail but smaller footprint than 0. Same as TT is for a similar comparison between 00 and N.

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Picking up the gauge part of the discussion. 009,  although accurate for 2ft 3in, can effectively be used to represent a range of gauges from 2ft to  2ft 6in and be closer to scale than OO is. There are of course some very good finescale NG modellers who work to more accurate standards. With NG the real issue is the variety of loading gauges. Layouts  usually look better, in many people's opinions, if locomotives and stock of similar loading gauge are used. On Ryedown Lane I mostly use larger loading gauge stock (in reality I suspect such a line built at the  time I've imagined would more likely have been 2ft 6in or possibly even 3ft gauge). So I've ended up with engines like Kerr Stuart Skylarks, the big Snailbeach Bagnall (2ft 4in in reality), appearances from a Rye & Camber Bagnall ( a small 3ft gauge engine) etc running with largish carriages (mostly adapted from Dundas V of R stock) and Welshpool (2ft 6) and Southwold wagons (again, smaller end of 3ft gauge) to produce something that seems to look right. On the odd occasion I do run something smaller, like Ffestiniog or Tallyllyn stock, the difference is really noticeable. A WD Baldwin is imagined to have joined the fleet post WW1 and even if the track gauge is wider than 2ft there are the precedents of the engines that were regauged for the GVT and Snailbeach lines.

 

Of course, one can argue that we shouldn't be mixing stock of wildly different loading gauges, which would never operate together in reality, all  in order to maintain authenticity but that would be to ignore real locations such as Porthmadog where one can see a Quarry Hunslet or small England tank sitting alongside an NG/G16.

Edited by PatC
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My feeling is that it's the rail used for commercial rtr track that is the issue, code 80 is too heavy for 2ft gauge in 00 scale. It makes the track look too narrow for 2ft 6ins.

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It's the same in 7mm code 100FB is to big. It's great for 7mm SG light railways. I have used code 85 for 0-14 industrial before and it looks ok. 

The problem of rail gets worse for people modelling ffesiniog as that used bullhead rail until well into the 1990's.

Marc 

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I think perhaps I had better show my hand...

 

Dogger Light Railway  using OO9 to represent 2'6" gauge , on a line operated by the military. At this stage a proposal and a collection of stock

 

Discussion up thread about the W&L 0-6-0Ts suggests I might be justified in having one, since the gauge is right and the back story for the line had them starting off with 0-6-0Ts before the military took over

 

I;m also hopin g I can get away with Baldwins stretched to run on 2'6" , given that they were re-gaughed for 2'4.5"

 

However heavy the Peco rails, they ought to look less wrong for a fairly substantial 2'6" line than they would for a smallish 2' gauge line

 

A sort of prototypical operator (the back story suggests that the line doubles as an interwar  training establishment for narrow gauge lines rather like the Longmoor Military Railway for standard gauge operations) , and using ex ROD equipment from WW1 would be entirely natural. I'm also intending to borrow the "CIE collection of relics from other lines" concept , by assuming that the line was partly re-equipped during prewar rearmament in the mid 1930s  by buying up surplus items from the Leek & Manifold and the Lynton & Barnstaple after closure

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At the risk of going off topic, code 80 works out at 6" high in 4mm scale, heavy modern rail used on Austrian and German 750/760mm lines is about 6.5" when I measured it a year or two ago. So I think you'll find its too heavy for the more typical 30/40lb rail used on most British NG. But its your railway! 

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11 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Why do we make fictitious tv, film and books? There’s a certain amount of pure imagination to modelling. Whether it’s because you don’t have the time or skills to achieve exactly what you conceived or because you enjoy filling in the gaps with your mind or model. 
You may love 90% of the Ffestiniog Rly but want to add another favourite loco or type of stock or your perfect railway might be that stock transported to Cornwall and hauling China clay instead of slate. 
Modelling allows us to go what if and create our perfect little world without the rules we live every other second by ;) 

 

We make sense of things through stories; fiction is curated reality.  Model railways do the same for real railways; through our layouts we present to ourselves the essence of the real thing as we wish to view it, tidied up and made to fit, the way fiction tidies up messy reality.

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2 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

What does the FR use these days? I know they've not got much bullhead left.

 

I think a few years ago they had a policy of using bullhead in stations (i.e. where people could see it at close range) and FB elsewhere (FB being easier to maintain, especially in more remote locations). I don’t know if this is still the case.

 

7 hours ago, PatC said:

that would be to ignore real locations such as Porthmadog where one can see a Quarry Hunslet or small England tank sitting alongside an NG/G16.

 

Very true, but preservation has produced quite a few weird situations of this sort that wouldn’t have occurred previously (on SG as well to an extent).

 

4 hours ago, Ravenser said:

Discussion up thread about the W&L 0-6-0Ts suggests I might be justified in having one, since the gauge is right and the back story for the line had them starting off with 0-6-0Ts before the military took over

 

This sounds interesting. So is it a requisitioned line, as opposed to one originally built for military use?

 

On the subject of rail size, I agree that code 80 looks too large. I still use it as I don’t really have the time or skill to hand-lay using code 40 or 60 and not all of my stock would run on smaller rail. I’m not sure how this is any worse, or any less accurate, than somebody in 00 using code 100, with an under-scale gauge (for me modelling 2ft 009 is wide by 1mm, a scale 3 inches, but that seems a much more acceptable margin of error than the 7 inches of 00. Not that I wouldn’t also use 00 if I needed a standard gauge feeder line of course). 

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