I'm considering the switch from HO. I know Bachmann has produced quite a few cars and engines. I would appreciate any feed back from anyone else who has made the switch and has used Bachmann products. Good or bad. I'm nervous about giving up my Proto 2000 sound/Dcc units. I have several and would sell them off to purchase the same type units made by Bachmann. Anyone have sound units and what is the quality compared to Proto 2000?
I've done quite abit of research and haven't seen any negative stuff about Bachmann ON30 euipment.
Thanks and have a great day from the great white north (Canada!)
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Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I've been accumulating On30 equipment for several years, almost all by Bachmann. They are the major player in the scale, and do offer a nice range of equipment. The sound equipped locos are especially nice, wish I had gotten all of mine with factory sound; I only have the Forney with it. The Shay and Climax are exquisite models, especially for the price, can't get anything comparable for about ten times the price (brass). I tested my Forney on video and placed in on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZtwQYvOj5s Give it a look, and check out my other videos with Soundtraxx sound in the Climax and Shay, and one on the Precision Scale Galloping Goose - especially neat!
Good luck from the Great White North too!
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Thanks for the input. I recall viewing some of your articles and photo's in various magazines.I have been impressed with your modeling work! I have a nearly completed HO layout and my friends think I'm nuts to switch so close to the end! But I made the mistake of seeing some On30 euipment in Winnipeg while visiting and that started the hamster spinning!
Hi!
I recently demo'd my 15 year old HO layout and am in the process of building a new one, housed in the 11x15 spare room. As I am 64, I felt it could be the last layout, and wanted to be sure I did everything as best I could so as I would be happy with it for years to come. During the planning process, every aspect of it was "up for grabs". In example, I decided to go to DCC, something that 6 months earlier I swore I would never do.
One of the first areas of major decisions was, "would I remain with HO?" I've got a huge collection of HO locos and cars and support stuff, but know from experience that I could sell much of it on Ebay and get enough money to support a change of scale.
I had a run a N scale years ago, and it was too small for me then, and certainly too small for me now. That is not a criticism, it is just that my eyes/hands work better with bigger stuff. I also thought about O gauge Lionel, as I have a sizeable postwar collection, but it is too big and I really like more realism.
S gauge was a possibility, but not to my liking. But then I thought of O narrow gauge, and it was a very viable scale for me to jump into. I've certainly traveled the C&T and D&S and other narrow gauge RRs, and enjoyed them a lot. But after several weeks of indecision, I decided that my strongest likes in model railroading was the ATSF (and IC) and the streamliners and long trains. And, I have a plethora of structures and books and knowledge of the roads, and frankly that's where my heart is.
Anyway, Bachmann does have some nice stuff, and while the locos are expensive, you won't have a whole lot of them on a narrow gauge layout (or cars either), so it kind of balances out. If you have no strong leanings to HO or mainline railroading, I would give it a try!
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Great move!
I've been doing On30 ever since Bachmann came out with their line of equipment. Their locos are high-quality, run great, highly detailed, and are very AFFORDABLE compared to HOn3, On3, and especially Sn3. I find that O scale is much easier to work with, detail, and scratchbuild due to its size. For locos and rolling stock check out Trainworld as they are priced well below MSRP. Bachmann locos will negotiate 18" radius curves although the bigger the radii the better.
As with any new layout, I would be sure to sit down and plan out what you want to do - that is, not necessarily do a trackplan etc. but think about what you're going to model: a layout based on 3' gauge Colorado railroads?? A Maine 2-footer?? A logging railroad?? It's always easy when making a switch like you're looking at to go for "one of everything".
Best to "narrow it down" ahead of time (pun intended).
p.s. if you don't already read it, pick up "Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette" at the LHS. I'd say it's best mag around regarding all the narrow-gauge modelling that's out there.
~G4
19 Years old, modeling the Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Cascade Railroad of Western Washington in 1927 in 6X6 feet.
Once you start planning that layout you will also want to check out the On30 track and turnouts available from Micro-Mark - www.micromark.com. They also sell Bachman locos and cars.
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
Hi,
like you I was very enthralled about On30 and even started to build a layout. I got the lil diesel and a 2-6-0 from bachmann line and i was very enthusiast, got myself a boxcar and a tank. I started by using atlas track with every other ties snipped off and peco HO turnout. Everything was going along fine until i started to realize a couple thing. For starter, theres the size issue, its true that everything is big and easy to see but then EVERYTHING is big and EVERYTHING is easy to see. unless you have a large room or are modeling a rather desolate area, it is difficult to fit decent sized building. Always remember that O is roughly twice the size of HO. that lil shanty thats 2 in. by 1in in HO suddenly become 4in by 2in. That means youll need more track clearance, thatll go for everything else. Trees are the same. in HO you can get by with a 9-10 in. pine but that same tree is gonna be roughly a foot and a half tall. that can eat up a lot of real estate.
The other thing that i didnt realize was the fact that while bachmann produces a fine line of product at affordable rate, their pretty much the only game in town when it comes to affordable stuff. In HO or N you can depends on maybe a dozen of manufacturer to make decent, reliable and affordable product. people like atlas,athearn, the lifelike line, DPM, kato etc... and you can usually go to a hobby shop or train show and find those very products , you can go on ebay and find lots of them. If you follow the old construction standby these company give it to you: quickly, cheaply and with quality.
on the other hand, dealing with cottage business is sometime a hit and miss, they'll have unbelievable quality but youll pay thru the teeth, or they'll have quality product at a decent rate but wont be able to ship it because of the time restaints
for me it boiled down to 3 things: availability,space and price. As far as Im concerned ( and those may not be an issue for you) I like the convenience of being in a gauge and scale most people readily recognize or stores stock. I know i can go into 99% of hobby shop and get a boxcar or a truck, or go rummage at train show and find stuff for a few dollar that i can use. Because i like to operate, HO also leaves me with a lot of room to spare and plenty of option for building and switching.I can model decent sized building within a modest footprint and detail my scenes within a monetary scale im confortable with
Dont think im trying to scare you away from On30, it is a very nice way to model and if i had more space and more disposable income , i would readily build a layout in that scale, but for me, because of my budget and restriction, switching back to HO after a short sting was the safer and maybe better alternative.
By all means though, DO get as many NG&SL gazette as possible, they are full of useful information and they have one of the best magazine around
Ranchero does make a good point about size. For me going the other way (from O std gauge to HO) was easy, since even now 20 years later I find when drawing trackplans etc. that I tend to exagerate how big a building will be, and am pleasantly surprised when the building fits in and even has room left over for a parking lot or something.
Going HO to O, you have to remember that even though the trains are not much bigger than HO, the buildings, bridges etc. are going to be roughly twice as big. Atlas makes some O scale plastic buildings, basically O versions of their popular HO buildings. Not sure if they're still making them, but back in the 80's many O scalers used Lionel's 1:48 scale plastic-kit grain elevator, Rico passenger station, or small passenger station on their layouts.
Of course, one nice thing about narrow gauge is you're generally not running trains in heavily populated areas, so you won't need too many buildings to build a layout. But it can be tough to get buildings small enough to fit the layout, but large enough that they don't look unrealistic.
I switched from HO to On30 a few years ago and am glad I did. There are a lot of building kits available but most are laser, expensive but nice. When Bachmann came out with their T boilered shay I was hooked. There are more and more manufacturers of rolling stock all of the time. Remember "O" is 2x2x2 times bigger, ,dont forget the height. Some manufacturers have On3 rolling stock with On30 trucks, San Juan is one. The models are great but the proportions are wrong with Bachmann stuff. On30 is between On2 and On3, the proportions should be in the middle. On2 stuff is narrower and shorter.
Have fun
Dave
Here's a good reason for On30:
Nice work! I haven't made up my mind yet. I had ordered a couple of engines and cars to get a better idea of size and quality. I originally built my HO layout to handle 3 operators. I live in Swift Current Saskatchewan. I moved here 4 years ago and assumed that there would some sort of club.
Well there is but they like to run thier trains like they are slot cars! I'm way too fussy for that and all my engines are Proto 2000 sound units. I have too much money invested to watch them hit the floor! So I'm pretty much on my own. That's one reason I thought of ON30, the layout would be in the same room, 11' x 12', but less buldings more detail etc. Then there are the eyes!
So I'm a little nervous about giving up my engines. I have several CN in the green and gold and those are almost impossible to find. So once they are gone that's it. But I would have to sell them to get the sound units in ON30. Then again I would only need 3 or 4 rather than the collection I have now!
Sorry for the rambling, again very nice work! That would be hard to duplicate in HO!
Appreciate the feedback, comments and picture.
Take Care
Dale
If you like the size of the trains, but don't want the huge O scale buildings, consider S. On30 is pretty close in size to standard gauge S (so close that some in S are buying On30 and swapping the trucks), but the buildings are not as big.
Enjoy
Paul
It would seem to me a switch to ON30 is the ultimate in MR, it's the final step in the hobby, just take a look at some of those old steamers, why wouldn't someone get into it? Most start out in HO and after a few years of drooling over those wonderful ON30 logging layouts finally succumb to the lure of fantastic layouts. I would think there are lots of manufacturers of ON30 equipment other than Bachmann, but you must search around for it, also, as HO is 100 times more prevalent, much of the work has to be scratchbuilt which adds to the uniqueness of the hobby. If I'm not mistaken, I believe ON30 is considerably more expensive than HO, true????
tatans , much of the work has to be scratchbuilt which adds to the uniqueness of the hobby. If I'm not mistaken, I believe ON30 is considerably more expensive than HO, true????
, much of the work has to be scratchbuilt which adds to the uniqueness of the hobby. If I'm not mistaken, I believe ON30 is considerably more expensive than HO, true????
On30 is still O scale, there are plenty of things/structures/etc. out there. I don't think On30, especially rolling stock, is more expensive than HO - have you priced the latest sound and DCC equipped HO scale diesels and steam engines? On30 ones are often cheaper. Check out the eBay seller The Favorite Spot, they have On30 items going all the time - check out the completed auctions for what they have been offering. Bachmann freight cars at around $30.00 or less aren't more costly than HO ones.
Structures and such, being considerably larger than HO models, can cost more. That's why many in the hobby prefer to scratch their own.
If you're thinking of On3, then yes it is more expensive, much of the motive power is brass, and priced over $1000.00. Bachmann sound equipped steamers in On30 are around $250.00!
I just saw Bachmanns On30 layout at the WGH show. The equipment was a lot smaller than I expected. They really pack a lot of train in a small space. It's really not like a Lionel box car running on HO track. I was impressed and really want to switch to it at some point in the future. Here's some pics I took.http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a277/loathar/Bach%20On30%20Layout/?albumview=gridHere's a ton of links and info for ya!http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychaos/OscaleNGResourcePage.html
Keep in mind too that you won't need as much stuff...when I was in O I operated a layout with maybe 15 freight cars and a couple of engines. So if boxcars cost twice as much, but you only need half as many, it really comes out even pricewise.
BTW in 1903 my grandfather came over from Norway and ended up being a fur trapper near Swift Current Sask. He said that when you went into "town" (3-4 buildings) for provisions, you had to have your rifle or shotgun out because wolves would hide behind the corner of the buildings waiting to attack. OK he might have been exagerating a little, but apparently it was pretty remote back then....
The Favorite Spot store on Ebay has excellent prices on Bachmann On30 items. They stock almost everything Bach sells.
Fur trapping around Swift Current, Saskatchewan might have been a little tough as it is located in the middle of one the largest prairie regions in the world, very flat, no trees, very dry, very hot, and very cold. The only fur bearing animals around here are gophers, I think the wolves he may have seen may have been some emaciated starving coyotes. Also in 1904 the population of Swift Current was over 500, that would mean more than 4 buildings, I would think your Grandfather may have been in some other area of Canada. BTW "Saskatchewan" means "Swift Current" in Cree.
tatans much of the work has to be scratchbuilt which adds to the uniqueness of the hobby. If I'm not mistaken, I believe ON30 is considerably more expensive than HO, true????
Wrong on both.
There's no need to scratchbuild on On30, if you don't want to; lots of locos and rolling stock available, and lots of O scale structures, figures, cars, etc.
And a lot of On30 is about equivalent to HO scale in price--Bachmann models are nice-looking and smooth-running for a relatively low cost, but you can also spend a bundle on other manufacturer's products as well, if you so desire.
I switched to On30 about four years ago, but haven't sold off my ACL HO scale stuff, because some day I may want it again.
I like building an O scale layout that doesn't require a huge space for curves, turnouts, etc. (Mine is a 10' by 10' doughnut shape.) I still get to build big O scale structures and details, without having to have 60" radius curves, for example.
I remember back a couple of years ago there was a member here in the coffee shop that stated he would change the buildings on the layout he had when he wanted to switch from HO to ON30 or ON30 to HO but had the layout set up so he could run either and had switches and all the only thing was when he put down the O scale buildings they would cover some of the grass ect. but then when he went back to HO it was completely different as the buildings were about 1/2 the size and he really enjoyed going back and forth.
Me I'm happy with my O gauge and I really don't see the 2 as being close as actually ON30 was built to represent narrow gauge trains just like the G that Bachmann does its suppose to represent narrow gauge.
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