Coarse Scale O Gauge

[Robin Brasher]

]This topic is for people who enjoy playing trains. There has recently been an upsurge of interest in coarse scale 0 gauge trains. It is as if Hornby had developed their O gauge trains instead of leaving it to stagnate and concentrating on Hornby-Dublo. Ace and Darstaed have developed ranges of coaches that are the envy of the 00 gauge manufacturers and locomotives that have been built to last.

One example is my Darstaed SDJR Jinty 0-6-0T with a rake of Hornby goods vans running past a Hornby Windsor Station. The club layout has 4 tracks and we regularly have about 40 people on our club night. There is a huge variety of locomotives and rolling stock. The coaches range from pre-grouping six wheelers to modern Mk1s. There seems to be a far wider range of rolling stock than is available in 00 gauge. Some of the locomotives can pull 40 wagons and can be left to run all day.

Edited April 3, 2014 by Robin Brasher

[Il Grifone]

I had one of those Southern Milk Vans when I was small and it was still a current stock item. I'm still looking for a replacement.

 

The problem I find with this scale is its size. SWMBO thinks my 00 stock takes up too much space   - but every so often a new item gets sneaked home!

[Robin Brasher]

I had one of those Southern Milk Vans when I was small and it was still a current stock item. I'm still looking for a replacement.

 

The problem I find with this scale is its size. SWMBO thinks my 00 stock takes up too much space   - but every so often a new item gets sneaked home!

I have bought my milk vans recently at Hornby Railway Collector meetings or at sales stands. That is something you cannot do in 00 gauge because no-one makes them. You can also have the fun of opening the doors and putting milk churns in. My 0 gauge stock does not take up as much space as my 00 gauge stock because 0 gauge is more expensive: I paid about £30 for a good boxed milk van although I have bought some for about £15. I keep them in Post Office boxes in which I have built dividers. On June 5th from 5.30 to 10pm there is a meeting of the West Essex and East London group at St John's Scout Hall, Church Lane,Loughton, Essex unless the weather is inclement. There should be a sales table there.

[Robin Brasher]

For further information about Ace Trains please see http://www.acetrainslondon.com then click "Enter Site" and then an item like "New Coaches". You will see that Ace are planning to produce coaches like Southern Railway Bulleid coaches complete with a restaurant car, a nine car Coronation blue set and a Bulleid Tavern car that 00 gauge ready to run enthusiasts can only dream about.

 

Similarly if you see http://www.darstaed.com and click on "Download Coaches" you will see that they are producing pre-grouping coaches from CR, SECR, LSWR and GER.

[Il Grifone]

I have bought my milk vans recently at Hornby Railway Collector meetings or at sales stands. That is something you cannot do in 00 gauge because no-one makes them. You can also have the fun of opening the doors and putting milk churns in. My 0 gauge stock does not take up as much space as my 00 gauge stock because 0 gauge is more expensive: I paid about £30 for a good boxed milk van although I have bought some for about £15. I keep them in Post Office boxes in which I have built dividers. On June 5th from 5.30 to 10pm there is a meeting of the West Essex and East London group at St John's Scout Hall, Church Lane,Loughton, Essex unless the weather is inclement. There should be a sales table there.

 

I remember mine came with a couple of churns, which were indeed great fun to load. I have a 1920s LNER one (in strange colours with a gold 'NE' on the solebars). I also had a bauxite LMS cattle truck, but no cows to load in it. My aim is to replace all the items I had, but Grifone funds are limited....

[Robin Brasher]

I remember mine came with a couple of churns, which were indeed great fun to load. I have a 1920s LNER one (in strange colours with a gold 'NE' on the solebars). I also had a bauxite LMS cattle truck, but no cows to load in it. My aim is to replace all the items I had, but Grifone funds are limited....

My funds are limited as well. I pre-ordered an Ace Trains BR SR Q class 0-6-0 goods locomotive for about £250 which seemed very expensive. While I was waiting for it to arrive for about a year I occasionally bought a Hornby goods wagon for it to pull. I ended up with about 20 goods wagons and found that I had spent more money on the goods wagons than the locomotive without realising it. I have never regretted buying them. I have taken the Q class to exhibitions and run it with heavy loads for three days. The public like to see 0 gauge trains running and I think more people watch our layout than anything else. At Blandford the lady Mayor came back to our layout after she had been round the exhibition and spent the whole afternoon watching the trains going by.

[Il Grifone]

They have a certain 'weight' to them which is lacking in the smaller scales.

[Robin Brasher]

O gauge tinplate trains simulate the weight of the real trains but Hornby O gauge also had more play value than Hornby-Dublo.  The cattle, milk vans and goods brake vans had opening doors so you could put cattle, milk churns or guards in them. There was also a side tipping wagon. The locomotives, goods and passenger brake vans had brackets to put lights on. You could load Dinky Toy lorries from Hornby open wagons using either Dinky Toy or Hornby cranes. The goods depot and engine shed had opening doors.

 

My first venture into 0 gauge since my childhood was when I bought a Hornby LMS goods set at an auction for about £40. The spring had broken but someone repaired it for about £20. The engine would only do about three circuits at a speed that would do credit to Mallard but you can buy electric mechanisms for about £150.

[Il Grifone]

The Dublo range also had opening doors on the SD6 horse box and the SR utility vans - very delicate unfortunately - they are frequently missing - and on the goods depot, which also had a working crane. There was also the working (sometimes!) TPO and the breakdown crane.

 

I got round the headlights by using the 0 gauge ones and glue - Durofix or balsa cement made them easily removable - and never mind the scale. Then there were those wretched (and nowadays rare and expensive) headboards and self adhesive coach destination boards (often found in a tatty state on coaches and very hard to remove without damaging the finish).

 

My LMS 0-4-0T will only manage a couple of circuits at a sedate speed, but then she is nearly 90 years old. (I do have a second one - a year younger - but she has a broken spring and is missing a few parts.)

[5050]

I reckon the best running layout at Warley last year was the Hornby clockwork and electric one - especially with the strategically placed diamond crossing that often and cunningly attracted 2 trains at the same time!  Operators needed to be alert to prevent cataclysmic accidents - which wouldn't have harmed the stock but probably made one heck of a mess to untangle.

[Robin Brasher]

The pictures show a couple of my Hornby 0 Gauge Milk Traffic Vans at the Hornby Railway Collector meeting last Tuesday.  The vans had sliding doors and milk churns made for them.  Hornby made the blue van with a black underframe from around 1935. I use it for my Somerset and Dorset Railway trains. The Southern green van with the lettering on a panel on the lower left side was made after the war. These matched the Southern green coaches. I am surprised that no-one has made them in 00 gauge as they were a common sight on the railways before insulated milk vans and later milk tank wagons were used.

 

For further information please see pages 186 and 187 of The Hornby Gauge 0 System by Chris and Julie Graebe.

[Il Grifone]

The blue van is similar to the one I have, apart from the later base and the Southern van is identical to the one I used to have. I also have the GWR version from the thirties, but this doesn't have open slat sides - they are represented in the lithograph.

 

I had one of those LMS containers too. I've replaced it with a GWR one, but am still looking... (SWMBO just said they're too big or something??????????)

Edited April 20, 2014 by Il Grifone

[Ian Abel]

This is a new topic (and scale/gauge) to me and I really know squat about it! (Side note: I'm in the US so British outline "ANYTHING" is rather sparse, and therefore this probably more than most! I'm essentially OO DCC)

 

Having said that, there's an opportunity to get a Bassett-Lowke BR Royal Scot (Limited Edition supposedly??) around here and I was half-heartedly considering buying it. Can I run it on regular O gauge track that I could get from the local hobby shop? The loco is described as "course gauge/scale?", so does that make a difference? DO I need anything in the way of some diabolical contraption to actually power/run it? Or is a 12V standard DC controller likely to provide enough ooomph? I do also have a G-Gauge power supply I could use?

 

Just thought I'd stop in and chuck that fuel on your fire, I'm sure it's a nutty idea?

 

EDIT: Is it worth buying as an investment even? Is it worth much/anything? Beats me, just looked nice as it's shiny and new/never run, and a lot bigger than OO

Edited April 24, 2014 by Ian Abel

[Robin Brasher]

I assume that this is a new Corgi Bassett-Lowke Royal Scot that is designed to run on 2 or 3 rail track. I do not know what you mean by regular 0 gauge track but it would probably go on Peco 0 gauge track but not through their points. You could buy a small length of regular 0 gauge track and see if the deep flanges foul the sleepers. On our club layouts at the Isle of Purbeck Model Railway Group and the Wessex Branch of the Hornby Railway Collectors Association we use coarse scale 3-rail track made by Middleton in Australia which is compatible with Hornby 0 gauge 3-rail.

 

Alan Levy, who makes ACE Trains, advises against buying any model railways as an investment on page 125 of his book Brilliantly Old Fashioned, The Story of Ace 0 Gauge Trains. They are not stocks and shares and they are there to run. Ace Trains are not produced as limited editions but some of the production runs are very small, they are made of metal which has a long term appeal and they are high quality items. I have seen some Corgi Bassett-Lowke items and I think the same applies to them. They seem to hold their value on EBay.

 

I don't think an 00 gauge controller would provide enough power to run 0 gauge engines for a prolonged period. I have two Gaugemaster controllers designed for 0 gauge models and they are guaranteed for life. At a three day exhibition at the Brighton Centre the club's Gaugemaster controllers overheated and we had to borrow G Gauge controllers which worked well.

 

I hope that this information helps.

[Il Grifone]

Lionel track should be available in the States, but I've no idea as to its compatibility with B.L.etc (beyond 0-27 being definitely not due to radius).

[Ian Abel]

Thanks guys...

Yes, this is a "new Corgi Bassett-Lowke 2/3 rail" item. Since any UK outline models are pretty non-existant here at swap meets/trains shows, when I saw this I half-heartedly thought it might be a nice thing to put up on a shelf for a while, run up and down a bit on a short piece of track, and then maybe sell on at some point...

 

Was as much a desperation thought given the lack of "things to buy" mentality, but without any idea as to even some track I'd need to display or run it on, I thought I'd ask.

 

I'm probably much better off just ignoring/avoiding it

Edited April 25, 2014 by Ian Abel

[welsh wizard]

Thanks guys...

Yes, this is a "new Corgi Bassett-Lowke 2/3 rail" item. Since any UK outline models are pretty non-existant here at swap meets/trains shows, when I saw this I half-heartedly thought it might be a nice thing to put up on a shelf for a while, run up and down a bit on a short piece of track, and then maybe sell on at some point...

 

Was as much a desperation thought given the lack of "things to buy" mentality, but without any idea as to even some track I'd need to display or run it on, I thought I'd ask.

 

I'm probably much better off just ignoring/avoiding it

Just got around to reading this section and its great to see the modern 0 gauge coarse scale getting a mention! there are two forums worth looking at the Ace trains forum and the classic 0 gauge index, also Dave Upton sends out a free monthly newsletter called just the ticket well worth a read !  as an aside to running corgi/basset lowke on peco track check out Roy James you tube videos of his dream city railway ,he runs Ace B/L Darstaed on peco 0 gauge track and doesn't seem to have any issues.

[jbs]

I understand Roy James used PECO code 124 Bullhead track on the original section of his layout, but has since used PECO flat bottom rail track on the remainder. He advises removing check rails on points and this allows locos and stock to run through without any problem.

I agree with Welsh Wizard in that it is great to see coarse scale ( I prefer the description standard scale as there is nothing coarse about modern offerings) getting a mention.

Ian, if you buy the Royal Scot you may find yourself getting into standard scale Gauge 0 as I did. I have a BL Mogul and Peckett and they are both good engines if you want locos that run well.

John

[APOLLO]

I have a North American O gauge layout, 2 rail 12V DC using all Peco bullhead track - yes its wrong for the USA but it works. Many of my freight cars are old Atlas O gauge that have coarse scale wheels with oversize flanges &  knuckle couplers (Atlas Locos 12 V DC have a finer flange). Using the adjustable wing rail feature on the Peco points (to widen the flange way adjust 2 screws on each wing rail), all my stock (including finer stuff from Inter-Mountain, Weaver & Rivarossi) runs OK with no derailing though some coarse scale cars bounce a little on the frogs (just like real US railroads !!).

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/52775-rock-island-in-the-rockies/

 

I have a few USA 3 rail freight cars that are incompatible and have undergone wheel / bogie changes. As 3 rail locos are AC I have never bought any so no experience.

 

Tennents model shop in Halesowen stock US tinplate track and some stock. A good shop, never visited but have bought things by mail order occasionally - They always have an advert in the Railway Modeller mag, here is there website.

 

http://www.tennentstrainsofhalesowen.co.uk/

 

There is a companion to the American Model Railroader mag titled Classic Toy Trains magazine that deals with coarse scale American O gauge

 

http://ctt.trains.com/

 

My brother had a lot of old Hornby O gauge tinplate back in the 60's, I was only around 10 years old back then, it was fun to set up / play with and pack away. The "rot" set in when I got for Christmas a Tri-ang TT gauge Jinty and two coaches boxed set. No more "winding up " !!!!!!!!!

 

Hope this is of help.

 

Brit15

Edited May 1, 2014 by APOLLO

[Robin Brasher]

I don't think that we have got the equivalent of Classic Toy Trains in the U.K.  The Hornby Railway Collectors' Association produce an excellent monthly magazine called The Hornby Railway Collector which is devoted to Hornby 0 Gauge and Hornby-Dublo. It includes advertisements for Ace Trains and Darstaed.

[Robin Brasher]

Hornby Trains Tank Goods Set number 40 in front of a Quality Backscenes No 2 Country Halt. The locomotive is not a very accurate representation of a BR 3MT 2-6-2T but the lining, handrails, lights and weight of the model capture the feel of the prototype more than new plastic models. I used 3M Photo Mount to glue the backscene on to the MDF and it has dried without wrinkles that would have appeared if I had used wallpaper paste or PVA.

[PatB]

Hornby Trains Tank Goods Set number 40 in front of a Quality Backscenes No 2 Country Halt. The locomotive is not a very accurate representation of a BR 3MT 2-6-2T but the lining, handrails, lights and weight of the model capture the feel of the prototype more than new plastic models. I used 3M Photo Mount to glue the backscene on to the MDF and it has dried without wrinkles that would have appeared if I had used wallpaper paste or PVA.

 

I think there is much to be said for the "impressionistic" approach to model railways. When you get up close to a real steam loco, even a small and elegant one, it is far from delicate. The wheels are massive circles of cast metal, the rods and motion are huge chunks of steel, fashioned into relatively simple shapes, steam pipes are colossal things the thickness of your leg. Even the relatively thin platework is 1/4" steel sheet, held in place by rivets with heads like half an apple. As for track, Code 75 it ain't. Two steel girders secured into more castings the size of a decent dog, bolted with more gigantic hardware to sleepers half as long again as the height of a tall man and weighing about the same. The whole picture is one of hugely oversized components making up a whole which exudes solidity.

 

Whilst a Bassett-Lowke Duke of York, sitting on Bonds track may not pass the micrometer test, it's proportions do a pretty good job of expressing "railway", IMHO.

[Il Grifone]

AC locos are perfectly happy on DC (the motors should strictly be called 'universal'). The only problem is reversing (as on AC). Either use the same reversing system (varies with make) or suitably connected rectifier diodes* will serve instead. (Don't tell the TTRCA, but I've just done a Trix 0-4-0....)

 

* It has to be arranged that current always flows in the same direction irrespective of polarity in either the armature or the field winding. (Märklin use double wound field coils which make conversion simple). As only soldering is involved, the conversion is reversible (provided you remember where you put the bits....).

 

EDIT for finger trouble.

Edited May 30, 2014 by Il Grifone

[graveand]

I have recently purchased some ETS trains from the Czech republic an impulse bargain buy from Ebay .

 

Some questions the locomotive is fitted with a sound system that I found annoying when run on DC I thoought it should have a switch to turn off the sound any ideas where ? I can't find it. at the moment snipped off one of the wires to the speaker in the cab

 

Seems to require a fairly high voltage to get started - lights on but no movement then it suddenly starts up. Is this usual or is the controller that i use at fault ?

 

The frame of the locomotive looks to be made from PCB type material - not metal as the ones on the ETS website is mine an early example and any instructions / advice on how to dismantle it for cleaning and oiling  ?

 

And finally I have a circle of ETS track but no points will ETS track work with Peco points ?

 

Overall I am very pleased with the locomotive it runs very well just the noise from the sound system got on my nerves after a bit.

 

any advice on the above appreciated

[brianusa]

If anyone cares to check my profile it will reveal my interest in old Hornby electric O gauge trains along with US trains which run on the same mixture of Lionel and Hornby track.  Hornby because of nostalgia and Lionel because we now live in Lioneland where we have a round the wall layout.  Perhaps a bit incongruous but they're only toys!

 

Hopefully this might restart this section.

 

Brian.

HRCA1851.