08-14-2012, 01:50 PM
Yes, the Minitrains are HOe/HOn30/9mm, while the Busch are Z -- 6.5 mm. The Busch would correspond to 600mm gauge, very common for industrial, small lumber, military, etc tramways in Europe, but much less common for industrial lines in the US. There are a number of clay quarry/brickyard lines documented in the US that were 30 inch gauge, which would make them right for Minitrains. There were some 30 inch sugar cane lines in Louisiana and Hawaii. Coal mine lines in the US were often 3 feet or 3 feet 6 inches -- HOn3 might be a better choice there, but you can't get little Baldwin or Porter 0-4-0Ts in HOn3. I'm not knocking the Busch at all, especially if you like European stuff, but if you want something closer to North American and don't mind spending less money, the Minitrains are certainly a good choice.
Another issue is the lower operating possibilities of this sort of industrial equipment -- past a certain point, round and round gets old, so for instance if you were modeling sugar cane, you'd have to figure a way to send loads one way, empties the other, and build in some switching, which is hard using either the Busch or Minitrains couplers. In some cases, clay and quarry lines were one loco and one or two cars, no switches, just back and forth from a loader to a dumper. You could model it easily, but that might also get old.
EDIT: there are photos of a 3 foot 6 inch gauge operation at the Wanamie coal mine in Pennsylvania that used equipment similar to Minitrains and could be modeled with them at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldwanamie1.html">http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldwanamie1.html</a><!-- m -->
Another issue is the lower operating possibilities of this sort of industrial equipment -- past a certain point, round and round gets old, so for instance if you were modeling sugar cane, you'd have to figure a way to send loads one way, empties the other, and build in some switching, which is hard using either the Busch or Minitrains couplers. In some cases, clay and quarry lines were one loco and one or two cars, no switches, just back and forth from a loader to a dumper. You could model it easily, but that might also get old.
EDIT: there are photos of a 3 foot 6 inch gauge operation at the Wanamie coal mine in Pennsylvania that used equipment similar to Minitrains and could be modeled with them at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldwanamie1.html">http://www.undergroundminers.com/oldwanamie1.html</a><!-- m -->