Thanks for your response Kevin. I didn’t mean that NMRA killed the G29 labeling; only that they went in an entirely different direction with their alphabet soup that you refer to. From memory I think it was about the same time that NMRA was trying to get their standards accepted that Aristo stopped using the G-29 logo. I don’t have any of the old boxes to check; I might be recalling the G45 circle with 29 inside.
PART of the reason they don’t put the scale on the box is, in many cases, it would only be a “suggestion” - LGB isn’t the only company with a "G"ummi ruler.
I carry one of those little 3’ keychain tape rules around with me when I go to flea markets or hobby shops. - It doesn’t do me much good on fleabay, though, but most sellers will measure stuff if you ask nicely.
My basic theory is, as long as everything is fairly close to the same width, your eyes will tend to accept it as “right”.
B’mann’s (1:22.5 nominal) Bug Mauler stuff is 4-7/16" wide, Kalamazoo (1/24 nominal) stuff is 4" wide, Older Lionel is 4-3/8" wide, LGB (1:22.5 nominal) is 4-1/2" wide, Delton (nominally 1/24) is 4-1/4" wide. (Those are all I have here)
Hi Guys, I must admit new to the large Scale hobby, I thought Gauge 1 was the way forward, but it seems that 1/29th has a bigger market, of rolling stock and Locos. I only have a MTH 1.32 Dash8 at present and NO rolling stock. just wondering if I will notice the difference, as where i live ther are NO shops to compare sizes…
cheers
Andrew.
It seems to me that a 1:29 car looks comically oversize in a 1:32 train and a 1:32 car looks whimpy in a 1:29 train. You wouldn’t think there’d be that much difference but it must cross some boundary in the space-time continuum or something. Either pick on and stick to it, or go with both and keep them separated. If you look at one, then turn to look at the other in a separate setting, you might not notice.
Well, I will take some issue with Tom
[soapbox on]
Agreed that a 1/32 engine looks wrong with larger cars. However, (oh no, he’s going to say “back in the day”) back in the day, I remember varying sizes of boxcars going by. Today, everything is uniform and dull. In my book, as long as the freight cars are smaller than or equal to the scale of the engine, it would look right for a freight “back in the day.” (He said it twice! Good grief!)
[soapbox off]
They run fine on my RR. I would prefer all 1/32 scale and that’s probably where I’m heading. No rush though.
Real trains come in different sizes!
Andrew Beattie said:
Hi Guys, I must admit new to the large Scale hobby, I thought Gauge 1 was the way forward, but it seems that 1/29th has a bigger market, of rolling stock and Locos. I only have a MTH 1.32 Dash8 at present and NO rolling stock. just wondering if I will notice the difference, as where i live ther are NO shops to compare sizes…
cheers
Andrew.
In regards to Tom and Lou’s post…Well…this is going to be dependant of how much scale butt-puckery each person has.
Example: if you are running old steam or early diesel era and are using older type freight cars, then yes Lou is correct, you can get away with running a mix of 1/29 and 1/32 cars as back in the day older smaller cars were run with newer larger cars all the time. This is true as well for us narrow minded folks who run 1/20.3 with 1/22.5 stock because again in olden times rolling stock could vary greatly in size depending on where each RR was getting its rolling stock from, most often used and purchased second hand from earlier defunct lines.
However you mention that you have a Dash-8 which is very modern, which by default means your line is going to be very modern? Which to most would mean you should try to get correctly sized stock behind it. Otherwise its might look odd, there is a big difference in sizes on some rolling stock between 1/29 and 1/32. I would suggest try to see if you can pick up MTH stuff second-hand on Ebay or try to get to a local train show so you can size compare,this also applies to any 1/29 stock , also maybe see if you can pick up one or two typical 1/29 cars used for cheap on Ebay, this way you can place them behind the dash and see how they look to your eye, this way you can get a feel for scale without biting to hard on the budget, but…
…and like Kim Kardashian this is a very big but, the simple truth is that it is YOUR railroad, and therefore you feel free to run whatever you want behind it. If to your eye running 1/29 cars behind the dash-8 looks fine then by all means go for it. Because no matter what any of us will tell you the truth is we are all 1000 miles away and will never have to live the result of whatever “advice” we tell you. Trust your own judgment. So here are the two MOST fundamental rules of model railroading:
1: Its Your railroad, run it how ever you want.
2: There is NO wrong way to build or run a model railway, if it achieves your goals and you are pleased with the end results.
Hope this helps (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
I second Vic’s 2 rules.
Heretics!!! I am calling the Scale Police and having you all charged with…uhmm…hmm. Okay I know there is a term for it and you are all guilty.
Of course the 1/32nd guys will do less time than the 7/8 guys because of the difference in scale. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
All this talk about scale and gauge makes my head spin. Did anyone notice the partially filled glass of cold beer setting on the table at the last National Garden Railroad Convention?
Someone from the NMRA Standards crowd said that it might symbolize unfulfilled requirements. The rest of the NMRA-ers began drafting a document to explain what it meant and how they should handle the issue.
Someone from the 1:20.3 crowd started calculating the exact percentage full. The rest of the Fn3-ers were soon busy counting the bubbles, calculating how long it would take to evaporate, go flat, or warm up to room temperature.
A member of the 1:29 contingent stared at the glass and boldly proclaimed: “The glass is half empty.”
A member of the 1:32 group stared at the glass and responded: “No, the glass is half full.”
The rest of the 1:29-ers and 1:32-ers became embroiled in a bitter argument. They all begin citing case studies to prove their respective positions.
Both members of the LGB contingent unanimously agreed that the glass was too big.
Finally, someone from the 7/8 n2 crowd went up to the table, drank the beer and asked, “What was the question?”
It all boils down to a matter of personal taste. I strongly agree with Vic’s rules … just do what makes you happy and drink the beer!
Bob
I don’t know what happened to the original pics, but I had 2 of them in my Freight shed.
1:32 standard gauge box car and 1:20.3 standard gauge box car on 45mm track. Both 40 footers
Lets see, that’s a GR LGB boxcar behind the critter, its close to 1:29, then I have a 1:29 Aristo boxcar, a USA 1:24 reefer, an Aristo 1:29 tank car and a 1:32 MDC caboose.
Boomer may be having seizures after seeing this, but to my eye, it looks ok.
David Maynard said:
Lets see, that’s a GR LGB boxcar behind the critter, its close to 1:29, then I have a 1:29 Aristo boxcar, a USA 1:24 reefer, an Aristo 1:29 tank car and a 1:32 MDC caboose.
Boomer may be having seizures after seeing this, but to my eye, it looks ok.
Looks more like a rainbow to me… (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
Andy, A.K.A. Grumpy, its my commemorative train, each car is a commemorative car for something. I thought I had a picture uploaded here of a more normal train, with a mix of Aristo and MDC boxcars, but I couldn’t find it.
My point was/is, is that mixed together in a train, different scales don’t have to look out of place.
Edit again four my sell chequer
Mostly because I have them and lack the budget to replace them with proper scale cars, I run some 1:24 cars with my 1:20 stock. I use the following as my excuse to do so…
Daktah John said:
And if you want to go the other direction, running smaller cars there is always this prototype practice showing cars of two eras together…
I use that as the justification for using 1:24 cars in my 1:20.3 trains…
I still need to up-scale the details, but as you can see from the picture, they aren’t too bad as-is.
There is a how-to thread here: http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/17251/thinking-about-body-mounted-coup
And, for the same financial reason I’m running Bachmann 1:22passenger cars in my 1:20 trains too…
I looked up Radder’s contribution:
http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/17251/thinking-about-body-mounted-coup
I don’t see how you could get a more complete or more successful description of the issue or plausible solutions than that.
Bookmark City.
John Bouck said:
I believe in the eye test, myself. This is stretching the believable factor, to my eyes in my humble opinion…but if the cars are on different parts of the layout I don’t think it would matter. I have some steel 1:20 boxcars I don’t let anywhere in the neighborhood of the wooden reefers, which are something like 1:24 or who knows what. Just my opinion.
David Maynard said:
Lets see, that’s a GR LGB boxcar behind the critter, its close to 1:29, then I have a 1:29 Aristo boxcar, a USA 1:24 reefer, an Aristo 1:29 tank car and a 1:32 MDC caboose.
Boomer may be having seizures after seeing this, but to my eye, it looks ok.
With the 2 larger cars getting forshortened because they are turned away from the camera, it minimizes the differences, but the tank car bigger than the reefer, and a weird scale bobber, honestly it looks awful to me.
It distracts me from enjoying the train because things don’t look right even at a glance