Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

With wood prices thru the roof, building a second stand alone O gauge layout was not in the cards.  But I do have a slug of old second hand G scale rail on hand.... LETS dual gauge the railway!!!   As of this typing, while I take a break and watch the evening new, I have about half my loop done, and that includes taking a crack at making the O gauge pass thru the switch into my engine house.  And while its not a pretty set up, it works, the G scale goes thru fine both ways, and the O gauge passes thru pretty smoothly.   How am I doing this you might ask?   I am taking LGB ties, and cutting off the ends with the rail chairs intact.  Then, I drill a new mounting hole at the end of the tie.  I am using a Lionel freight car truck as my track gauge(this is coarse scale, so the gauge can be a bit loosey goosey and things run fine).   I set the rail to gauge, then run a screw down into the wood under the track.  My final test is to push the old Super Enterprise live steamer thru that new section in both directions.   There is no center rail, so no 3 rail running, its for live steam, clockwork and battery conversions of 3 rail locos. 

Nice looking railroad, especially that locomotive! Would love to see a few more photos. Is this in the USA? My club actually has a set of O gauge rails on our Highline track in Hudson, Wisconsin.

This sure makes your railway more useful!

Nice work so far.

Gil

A very clever well executed solution, well done!

A huge thank you goes out to a forum member here for the donation of a pair of Bowman 234's to my friend and myself for our new tinplate group and layout we are planning to display in the near future.  My friend chose the red LMS engine(still needs a tender, so I am hunting for him) to pull his Hogwarts train.  The LNER will stay at my place and join my old BL Super E.  I got the LNER running both on blocks and a short and very fast run(on 5 wicks, I have now capped the front 2 wicks to slow her a bit). The Crimson LMS will get its track test tomorrow, it ran great on the blocks.   Both are missing the oiling felts that wrap around the rods, is there a hack or a replacement for them?   While not the most pleasing engine design, they are one powerful beast!  Gonna have to use a length of chain between the tender and cars, these really are gauge 1 on O gauge track.  Its a shame the original Bowman coaches are so hard to find.    Thanks again to the forum member, my friend is super excited, once I track test his, I will send it on to him as he lives a couple hours from my place.  Our first loose lay train layout will be at the Danville, Indiana show this coming November.     Mike and Anthony. 

Looking forward to your gauge 1 railway when you build it.  I love gauge one, but with my curves and my friends limited space, O gauge fits better along with LGB on my G scale track.  The LMS engine is repacked back up and ready to send to my friend.  If anybody comes across a spare Bowman tender, prefer LMS or a beater one I can repaint, please let me know.  Next will be something clockwork or electric for days like today, its way to breezy to run pot boiler live steamers outdoors.