Don,
What you need to model the D&S (and the Rio Grande that came before) on the Silverton Branch is HOn3 track (10.5 mm gauge), which is 3' gauge in 1:1. Micro Engineering makes it in several flavors, weathered and unweathered, and Peco offers it, too. There were some others whio produced it in the past you may find, like Shinohara and PSC.
Using N gauge track for HO is HOn30, which is 9 mm gauge. That's usually used more for industrial lines and to represent 2' gauge prototypes (although it's too wide for that actually, it allows use of N scale mechanisms.)
I model the Silverton Branch in a more modern and busy state.
Some more pics here.
https://imageshack.com/a/0Apl/1
My Durango is dual gauge, as it was briefly a century ago. And I also model the Mears lines that ran north from Silverton to the mines.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Don:
I do not do this myself, but from what I have seen at shows, the narrow guage locos and rolling stock is built for that size track.
A standard guage coco will not fir on narrow guage track.
Hello Everyone,
I'm a newbee looking to get into the hobby. I'm interested in building a layout simular to the Durango & Silverton narrow gauge line. From what I've read, to model this in HO scale, you would need to use N scale track. Is this right? How would HO scale locomotives & cars run on an N scale track?
Thanks,
Don