HOn3, 3.5mm = 1' running on 10.5mm gauge track, is HO scale.
Narrow gauge is anything less than (scale) 56.5" gauge.
There is a whole spectrum of track gauges, ranging from 'ride-on' garden railways and (very) skinny industrial tramways to Herr Hitler's 3 meter gauge dream-scheme and some even bigger under ship cradles. A decade or so ago I downloaded seven pages of same from a web site now dead. Standard gauge and 3' gauge are dark lines on that spectrum. So are 3'6" gauge, meter gauge, 5 foot gauge... I personally model narrow and narrower gauges, neither of which are 3' gauge. (3'6" or 1067mm and 2'6" or 762mm if you just have to know.) Everything, however, is built to uniform (1:80, aka HOj) scale.
Very large systems (PRR, SAR, IGR>JNR>JR...) have fairly uniform standards. Smaller railroads, especially those without interchange arrangements, tend to go their own way, often leading to some odd results. The recent problem on the SNCF (French) when the car designers widened some cars without considering the clearance required by existing high platforms, comes to mind...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with high platforms)
As has been pointed out, Blackstone went to a lot of trouble to accurately model the chosen prototypes. Blackstone has gone out and measured surviving prototypes and done an excellent job reproducing them.
Most of Labelle's HOn3 models were designed when such prototype-specific information was not available or in general use. Nevertheless, Labelle kits are generally quite accurate dimensionally, but are not models of the specific still-existing prototypes that Blackstone used. Unless you are comparing models of the same prototype, there are bound to be differences between boxcars and gondolas from different prototypes and different model makers. Narrow gauge is not know for its conformity from one railroad to the next!
That said, the current owner of Labelle has been steadily redesigning and upgrading the Labelle line of kits. Detail parts are becoming finer, and bodies more prototype-specific and accurate. The trick is to find new Labelle production - there is plenty of older production available and unbuilt in both standard and narrow guage and plenty of both O and HO (I think Labelle also made some S rolling stock at one time).
And since I don't model the D&RGW, Blackstone's acccuracy has little bearing on my modeling. It's not as if a D&RGW car was going to show up on my Southern Oregon-based free-lance logging line as interchange traffic. Altering a Labelle wood kit is both easier and cheaper than Blackstone RTR plastic bodies. When I do buy Blackstone, I seek the unlettered and most generic bodies I can find (I have a couple of Blackstone unlettered flat cars that model D&RG pre-1900 version of the car).
Fred W
Blackstone is gorgeous stuff, and as has been pointed out, very accurate. The narrow gauge community is very particular in terms of wanting accurate models. Blackstone’s models are very popular in Hon3 circles.
The stock car in this shot is Blackstone. Ever looked at the typical Hon3 stock car kits out there??? You would be a very skilled modeler to build most of these kits out as nice as this Blackstone car.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
One thing I'm interested in is Blackstone's "Pro-Traxx" HOn3 track system, especially if expands in the near future. I wonder if there will be a lot of people who finally decide to take the plunge to HOn3 because of a reliable, easy-to-use narrow-gauge 'click track' being available?
http://blackstonemodels.com/track/protraxx.php
wjstix One thing I'm interested in is Blackstone's "Pro-Traxx" HOn3 track system, especially if expands in the near future. I wonder if there will be a lot of people who finally decide to take the plunge to HOn3 because of a reliable, easy-to-use narrow-gauge 'click track' being available? http://blackstonemodels.com/track/protraxx.php
Yeah, I keep hoping they'll expand it to include turnouts and wider radius curves. Otherwise it's limited to display ovals.
Paul
I really like Pro-Traxx (made by Kato, BTW). Turnouts are on the horizon and I'd expect to see some movement to bring them to market once the K-36 finally rolls out of the factory. Both have taken a back seat to many other things in Durango, but with the next gen Tsunami II now on the market, things are probably ramping up to these much-anticipated products. It would certainly light a fire under the HOn3 T-track concept to have turnouts and some other options available.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL