Have any of you run any of the piggyback flats from Oley Valley? I purchased a couple at the Nashville National Garden Show and they are nice cars. Scale 89’ 1:29 metal cars. I am not sure where to find any trailers to put on the cars, other than scratch build some.
Aristo used to make trailers. I recall seeing on the Oley Valley Facebook on page that they are looking into making trailers.
I was pretty close to buying a couple of the 89’ cars until I emailed them and asked what coupler height they use. They mount everything at the G height vs the #1 that I use. And in the email conversation it sounded like it wouldn’t be easy to make it fit. But they are really nice flatcars.
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Like Craig says, I seem to remember them saying they would be making them as well. Just happened to notice Walmart is selling 1:25 scale Fruehauf Cola Cola trailers for $29.97 which may have possibilities.
I once had the bright idea of taking a 1/25th trailer kit and cutting it down to 1/29… Yah, I never finished it. That was in my early days of scratch building. I’m sure I could whip up a scratch built trailer much faster now.
Too bad we large scalers can’t convince the rest of the plastic modeling world that 1/24, 1/25, 1/32 and 1/35 needs to be consolidated into the “perfect” scale of 1/29. 
i doubt, that this “consolidation” will ever happen.
there are much more 1:35 war lords in this world, than largescalers. (very well served with comercial products)
1:32 is around for more than a century (for those guys with the fat purses) and has a valid scale to gauge ratio.
1:25 and 1:24 “the” scales for diecast vehicles and thousands of figure types from child’s farm and wild-west toys to bikini (or less) dressed toys for old men… at least they are more or less compatible to some lokal gauges.
and in the middle of these small “largescale” products there is a big black hole, a vacuum, only broken by some Marx soldiers and classical figures in 1:30 and the infamous 1:29. mainly diesel locos and some roling stock.
all the “byproducts”, 1:29 is missing are established world-wide in other scales.
i simply can not imagine all these comercial toy makers to start over from zero to satisfy the needs of a consolidated 1:29 largescale.
i am afraid, “the rest of the plastic modeling world” is too big and too lucrative, to give in to this moonshine idea of one american toymaker.
so, i’m afraid, your second smiley hits the nail on the head:
There was actually an R/C Tractor Trailer made in 1/30 by a company called Galoob (Or Daishin) in the 1970’s. It was a Kenworth tractor with a reefer trailer. One of the paint schemes was from the popular “Movin’ On” TV show with Claude Akins. Ones in good condition sell for $200, but maybe you could find just the trailer for less.
Korm,
Exactly my point…
Like many things in this hobby ( trains as a whole) in minor compared to the rest of plastic modeling.
I’m not holding my breath for 1/29 vehicles.
Can somebody please explain the superiority of 1:29?
I kind of like the simplicity of measurement of 1:24 as I can convert 1/2” to 1’ in my head.
Does it all come down to how the rail separation looks relative to the models? And we are stuck with that separation?
Or what?
In the early-ish days of large scale trains (early-mid 1990s) that Im familiar with, we had some VERY vocal people about “we must keep the spacing between the rails the same!” This led to a BUNCH of compromises, including 1:29. Legend has it manufacturers took HO scale (1:87), divided by 3 and got 1:29, to make it easier to manufacture (somehow).
Some of these people were also in the “I can run my LGB (1:22) with my Bachman (1;24) and my 1:29 stuff and it looks fine!” These people shouldn’t be allowed to possess sharp objects, but that’s just my opinion.
Ideally, we would have 1:35 for mainline stuff (to bring over the plethora of wargaming, etc, already available), then maybe 1:24 for narrow gauge. Let LGB have their 45mm/1:22.5 scale. There was also a very vocal “We dont need/want the NMRA telling us what to do!” which has also exacerbated this nonsense.
If I were to start over today, with what’s available commercially, I’d either do 2-rail O scale, or probably some flavor of 15mm/2 foot Euro narrow gauge.
[end rant]
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Bob,
I’m with you. If I started over for some reason I’d go with 2 rail O or Proto 48. It has the heft of large scale and you can still see details. Ironically O has similar issues as us… O can have 1:43 or 1:48…
But doing O would require having a space indoors for a layout.
From the Train Collectors Association website: “In 1988 Aristo-Craft teamed with Railway Express Agency, Inc. (REA) and created a new scale of 1:29 for trains running on 45mm ‘G’ gauge track. This G45 development filled a need for mass-produced American prototype trains in a market that had been dominated by European outline trains. The choice of 1:29 was an attempt to create cars and engines that would compare favorably in size with existing LGB rolling stock which at the time dominated the hobby with 1:32 scale trains. These trains were originally created for branding and sale by Lionel. Aristo-Craft’s products, at 1:29 were 30% larger by volume than the 1:32 products made by other manufacturers. In addition 1:29 was exactly three times the size of HO scale making it easier to enlarge existing scale model drawings for consumer construction of accessories and scratch-built engines and rolling stock.”
I kind of like the simplicity of measurement of 1:24 as I can convert 1/2” to 1’ in my head.
Blockquote In South Africa there is a group of modelers that follow 1:24 and refer to it as Cape Gauge 1
But doing O would require having a space indoors for a layout.
Blockquote There are folks that run O scale outdoors.
I used to put those together when I was growing. Had shelves full of model trucks. Wonder how a 1:25 would look on a 1:29 flat car? There is not but 006” in scale factor difference.
Seems like I remember a club or someone who had a large layout and ran intermodal trains with scratchbuilt trailers and pups. They had spine cars also.
I have purchased several of the 1/25th kits and i have a couple of 75 foot flats for my railroad. like mentioned earlier in the string the intention was to cut them down to scale. too much work. the 1/25th look huge on a 1/29th fat.
15 years ago or so there was a 1/29th offering by “Testors” and carried by Wallmart and some hobby stores as " Metal Models" they were diecast kits that scale out real close. you can find them on Ebay occasionally way over priced. I bought every tractor and trailer I could find.
Hopefully the photos worked. i also have 1/25th and 1/32nd examples and i will include a comparison.
Howard
Follow-up to the scale question on my previous post;
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this shot shows 4 scales, L-R 1/24, 1/25, 1/29/1/32
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over head showing difference in width of 1/29 and 1/32.
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side shot of a 1/29 to 1/24, note size of wheel this red truck is a GMC COE tractor.
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over head of 1/29 - 1/24 much larger mass
5.Over head of 1/25-1/29 this is the Mack B tractor and should be smaller that the black Peterbuilt tractor.
- side shot of 1/29 Pete and the 1/25 Mack B, note tire size.
The tires on the 1/25 Mack and the 1/24 GMC are very similar to the tires in the plastic model kits that are readily available. Also the tires and wheels on the New Ray 1/32 widely available trucks seem to be what was used on the Testor “Metal Models” trucks (I also believe the same trucks Aristo craft sold for a short while prior to their demise). So it would seem that there is a lot of economy of volume in the scale diecast market with the exception of the "High Quality’ models from the better diecast makers like First Gear and the like.
So my observations so far are that the 1/25th trucks riding on 1/29th flat cars are on the large side, the 1/25th are approaching the same width as the width of a 1/29th freight car and i will dig out a 1/25th trailer to illustrate this later and the 1/32 scale New Ray trucks will work and are a little small. The Aristo RoadRailer trailers "Swift " trailer in previous post are 1/29th scale “they are close” they would be the bench mark at this point.
I will be doing a trailer comparison soon under a separate post.
Not intending to hijack this topic.
Howard
A long time ago I bought a 1/32 truck and trailer combination to see if I could live with the smaller trucks with the 1/29 trains. It just didn’t look right. 1/25 was the next trial. And to me if you place the vehicles right and use a bit of forced perspective the 1/25th stuff looks better than the 1/32 with the trains as static models. I haven’t mocked up any vehicles next to 1/29 structures to see how they look yet. I’m crossing my fingers that they will look okay.
My long term, long term should I ever run out of modeling ideas is to take the 1/25th kits and downscale them to 1/29 using a the 1/25 kit parts are a pattern for a 3d print/scratch build. That’s a long term 30+ year type of project!