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A few 55n3 models Following a discovery of a site dealing with 1/55th scale model railroading, using HO standard gauge (16.5mm) as 3 foot narrow gauge, I thought that I would share some shots of models I made around 20 years ago (all gone now). The current term for this is 55n3. The locomotives use HO loco chassies as a base, with scratchbuilt superstructures in styrene &/or wood. Most details are lost brass 0n3 castings and some 7mm English ones - the rest are scratchbuilt in styrene. On3 Grandt Line details are used a lot, with the occassional HO detail. Kadee #5's are the couplers Quite a lot of my rolling was double sided. My layout was a shelf switching one so you only ever saw one side of the cars. The other side had different numbers, styling and even names on. This effectively doubled the size of my fleet (this was also used by John Olson on his old Mescal Lines HOn3 layout). I am not a great photographer as is evident by the images. Some are in grayscale as I probably only had some B&W film at the time so used it.
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Click to display
Box car 1
Box car 2
Box car 3
Box car 4
Box car 5
Class A Climax
Cooke Mogul Mix
Gondola
Flatbed Truck
Mogul #2
Conny and Combo
Railcar
Shay
Van
Rail & Tie car
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Morlen Southern Box Car #4568
Scratchbuilt from styrene, loosely based on D & RGW 3000 series. The arch-bar trucks I use are made by Ratio in the UK and work out just right for narrow-gauge ones.
Morlen Southern Box Car #3745
A scratchbilt car based on a Colorado & Southern prototype. This is the other side of C & S #8098
Kooche Lake Box Car #3119
Pure scratchuilt, no known prototype (but then this is narrow gauge so you can do anything). The flooring is matchsticks (because at that time getting basswood 'anything' was near impossible in England).
Cortland & Mandell #1198
The flip side of KL #3119
Colorado & Southern Box Car #8098
C & S Rosters do not list this car. A missing box car number gave me the license to do this and keep the C & S name. The lettering would probably be right for the 809x series cars.
Class A Climax with flat
Model Die Casting's old Climax was a noisy, cheap loco and is the basis for this. Here it's pulling a freelanced flat car with matchstick bed, over an MDC box car chassis and trucks.
2-6-0 with mix
Based on a Leadville & Gunnison Cooke mogul. On MDC 0-6-0 chassis. The mix is 2 box cars with the combo taking up the rear. Scenicking is unfinished. New tree bases in place for positioning (which is why they are bare)
Gondola
D & RGW Series 3000 gondola over an MDC chassis. There were 3 of these
Flatbed Truck
Made of spare bits of HO stuff and scratchbuilt. I figured if Mic Greenberg could scratchbuild trucks for O Scale, I could do it for Fn3 (55n). As you can see it's sporting a new set of wheels.
Mogul #2
This was my best running loco - it crept at amazingly slow speeds. The freelancing of narrow gauge is evident here. The only thing I didn't like about the MDC 0-6-0's was that the main rods connected to the rear wheels instead of the middle ones.
Consolidation
Another MDC base, this time it's 2-8-0 Old Timer. Behind it is my very first attempt at scratchbuilding a passenger car. It's based on Colorado & Southern's No. 20 Combination. I carved the roof from balsa, so it's not quite prototype - but everything else is as close to scale as I could get for 55n.
A Railcar
The remains of a passenger car I turned into a combination for the Yakima Valley layout and scratchbuilt reefer is the idea for this. It sits on an Athearn, 8 wheel diesel, chassis.
Shay #6 at work
When MDC brought out their HO scale Shay back in the 1980's it proved quite a success. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who used one of these as a basis for a larger scale small shay.
A van
Vehicles in 55th are hard to come by, but Lledo did have a few and this is one of them.
Rail & Tie car
This appeared in the Mar/Apr 1988, Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazzette, Gallery (out of print). The prototype was a standard gauge (Canadian National I think - hey it was a long time ago). I "Brunk'd" it. The trucks are MDC ones as I hadn't discovered Ratio at the time this was built (1983, if I remember right).
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