I wondered if anyone has used 10.5mm gauge (ie HOn3) in 4mm scale. I thought it could be used to model Snowdon Mountain Railway, as the gauge scales at 2' 7 1/2" (exactly right) and Ferro-Train do an HOn3 rack railway.
I considered it as a closer promximation to the 2'6" gauge line I'm modelling, but thought again when I started to look into chassis that would be available without too much work required to modify them.
There's an Austrian company somewhere that make HO scale rack systems, not sure what gauge they are though.
To answer the original question, yes it has been done, by Mike Price of British Columbia, who built a 10.5mm gauge 4mm scale "Irish Influenced" layout called the Croagh Valley (I think) Railway that was a freelance 2ft 6" gauge system based on a Celtic sort of island in the Atlantic. This layout, or parts of it anyway, was built in the early 1990's and Mike described it in a newletter he briefly produced called Imagineering. The layout was dismantled and then damaged during a couple of house moves, but Mike kept the buildings and stock and on the last report he had plans to rebuild once settled down after the disruptions to his life over the past 10 to 15 years.
Unfortunately Mike is not a member of the Society (I don't think he is anyway). He is a member of NGRM-Online and an occasional contributor with postings on that forum. He also provided photos of some of his stock in his early photos on that forum around 2009. Members of NGRM will be able to look him up as his user name is simply Mike Price.
Mike's models are freelance, including pugbashes and ratiobashes (and there's nothing wrong with either of those modelling genres!) but have running gear etc based upon American HOn3 items, hence his choice of 10.5mm gauge. He reported that his original desire was to model 3ft gauge prototypes but as he couldn't get 12mm gauge components in Canada he opted for the easier to obtain over there HOn3 stuff. He was still however dissatisfied with the gauge disparity until he had a brainstorm or a "lightbulb moment" and realised that 10.5mm scale is very very close to 2ft 6in gauge in 4mm scale.
Mick
I have a very small ammount (about 9 inches) of "00 10.5". I have handbuilt the strait track using some 2 mm Association track gauges designed for Irisn broad (5' 3") gauge and built a pair of Furzebrooke wagon kits (ex Golden Arrow) using 2 mm association wheelsets. The idea was to build a finescale layout at some point (judging on the progress of Latham's Brewey I may have started it in time for the next millenium ::)) but having built the test peice I wonder if it might look better using P4 standards (and 10.83 mm gauge to be ultra accurate for the line's 2 foot 8 1/2 inch gauge), more in line with the ideas of the Finscale NG Study Group (use 2 mm standards below 2' 6" and P4 for everything else).
Quote from: invercloy on April 13, 2012, 13:22
There's an Austrian company somewhere that make HO scale rack systems, not sure what gauge they are though.
That Austrian company is Ferro-Train. There system is ready-to-run in HOn3, but very expensive. There is also a Fleischmann N gauge one, which would be cheaper but not gauge-accurate. They do their own track, as obviously it needs a rack in the middle. Winco import it to the UK, here are some links:
http://www.winco.uk.com/FTmain.html#HOn3
http://www.winco.uk.com/NewArr.html#HOn3
To make the loco into a Snowdon one obviously some light modification and repainting might be necessary. There's a YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evaC_yQ74sg
Does anyone know where I could find out about Croagh Valley?
Ferro-Train is quite expensive but no more so than anything European. With Euro low at the moment then it is probably a good time to buy unless it goes even lower!
There is a much cheaper system, also imported by Winco, which is basically the same as the Ferro-Train in kit form.