02-12-2012, 12:18 PM
pgandw Wrote:MountainMan Wrote:The assumption is that everything from 1850 to perhaps 1920 or so was narrow gauge, which is frustrating because Nn3 is a very limited market.
Historically, it is impossible to understand, because the major railroads were using standard gauge everywhere except in the mountains, and often standard-gauged their mountain routes to make them more profitable. When the gold fields surrounding Cripple Creek opened up, the first railroad was narrow gauge, but two competing standard gauge lines immediately entered the competition and eventually drove the F&CCRR out of business.
Yet despite the overwhelming history, only larger scale narrow gauge rolling stock is available except for the Bachmann starter sets I mentioned. But don't talk to the LHS's about it, or the manufacturers either. They just mumble incoherently and wander off to polish up their larger scale merchandise.
Sure, I can scratch build, but I'm already going to have to scratch build a major portion of my layout structures and quite a few pieces of rolling stock as well, so I don't relish the extra burden on my time in the absence of any sort of coherent reply from the market.
Most of the narrow gauge available in almost all scales focuses on the post-1920s rebuilds of the Colorado railroads - because that's what still around to measure and photograph. And bigger is easier to make and sell than smaller models. The 1870s - 1900 narrow gauge (the golden years of narrow gauge) is as poorly served as its standard gauge cousin.
But we can sit around and whine, or do something about it. In HO, there are maybe 400 active 19th Century prototype modelers - and over half of them are Civil War buffs. My best guess is that the numbers in N are considerably smaller. In either case, the numbers are not enough to support traditional detailed molded RTR plastic production. To amortize steel dies takes production runs in the thousands, not hundreds. Or smaller runs with incredible prices (Rapido and Blackstone are examples), with passenger cars fetching close to $100 each. And Blackstone and Rapido passenger cars come from runs of over 1,000 from my educated sources. So e-mailing or requesting or sitting around waiting for a plastic manufacturer to produce your choice isn't going to solve the problem.
What we did in HO was form a group to explore how to get car kits produced at reasonable prices. We ended up commissioning an 1880s gondola in resin as a 1st trial, with everybody kicking in advance orders to fund the project. We figured 60 advance orders (at a discount price) were necessary to get the project started. After 18 months of issues and problems, I took delivery of my 2 kits. And they couldn't include the lead sheet for weights for some technical reasons. But the chain of events directly led to the start of Silver Crash and Amesville production of early rail resin kits.
I submit the same ideas could be successful in N early rail. But it takes a committed group effort.
Another other option is to rework those despised train sets into better quality representations. Again, easier in HO than N. Which is why many early rail modelers move up in scale. The much smaller size of the prototype lends itself to moving up in scale. For Civil War era, O is seen as a better choice than HO for many. HO models of that era are just too small for accurate models with decent drive trains. For N, a true-to-scale 1870s 4-4-0 that runs well is quite a technical achievement. Same with a 4 wheel ore jimmy.
just my thoughts and experiences
Fred W
Pretty much the same reply as before, just differently worded. IOW - do it myself, which I'm already faced with and which does not alter in any way the fact that the early days of railroading have been ignored by N-scale. But if you're right about lack of information and photos, how is it that the larger scales have that information and can produce earlier versions? I don't think that reasoning holds up, since even subscribers to NG&SLG routinely post builders' drawings of 19th century rolling stock and locos. Enough information exists from the Civil War alone to satisfy that requirement. Bachmann itself still issues a 2-4-0 Prairie loco from the 1800's, and cars to go with it - but no caboose - as a starter set, and it's a nice looking set for the money. So they can do it, but apparently don't wish to.