NEW : industrial light railways in Hon2 avaiable from BUSCH

[Waldbahner]

Hello,

I don't know if you know... BUSCH just delivered the first sets of the new industrial railway system in Hon2 (H0 scale with z-scale tracks 6,5mm)
Like the mining railroad two years ago, the loco is equiped with a hudge magnet to get her smooth running on the tiny tracks.
I couldn't resist and bought my starter set with some additional cars.

More informations can be found on the catalog at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.busch-model.com/download/prospekte/2012/2012-feldbahn.pdf">http://www.busch-model.com/download/pro ... ldbahn.pdf</a><!-- m -->

Here's a short video of my train set, tested on the kitchen table. The oval track is just 10" by 15". The loco runs on 3 volts, powered from two bateries in the control panel. The noise of the auto focus function of my old camera is louder than the train itself...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://youtu.be/CnqlV9lrmSE">http://youtu.be/CnqlV9lrmSE</a><!-- m -->

One day, I like to build a micro layout with this train set.

Cheers, Gerd

[jwb]

I was noticing the mine set at Walthers. Be interesting to see what comes in now.

[railohio]

I was ready to pick up some of this to play with. Until I saw the prices. Ouch.

[Herc Driver]

Very interesting set! Lots of possibilities to incorporate it into a layout...or by itself.

[jwb]

The revived Minitrains line is more prototypical for North American industrial operations anyhow, though it probably can't get around the small curves of the Busch stuff.

[railohio]

Aren't they different gauges?

[jwb]

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 -->

[Waldbahner]

Hi,

I wanted to start a discussion this way about prototypical narrow gauges.
I agree that 2"-gauge is not so common in the USA and the Maine-Two-Footers are a kind of there own.

But I thought some might by interessted in the new stuff.
Turnouts and more tracks will be avaible at end of september as announced by Busch. So the oval track from the starter set is just the beginning.

But I want give more oil to the fire :-)

Cheers, Gerd

[faraway]

That new Busch system reminds me at the "Egger Bahn" I owned as a teenage boy. It was a small add on on my H0 (Trix Express) layout.
It was not bad but the endless current pickup problems are remembered very well.... The big 0-5-0 was constantly pushing the tiny little 0-4-0 diesel engines over the rails.
However, it is a great little system for very carefully adults running a layout in a clean environment.

[jwb]

Some of the 600 mm gauge 0-4-0Ts from Europe made it over to the US after World War II. Many of those had been used to haul away rubble from the cities and were then sold off for US tourist and amusement park lines. There was one in Alton, CA up near Eureka where I got a cab ride about 1986. The steam pressure gauge said "KKStB", which was the former Austrian state railroad pre-1919 -- the gauge must have been salvaged from a standard gauge loco.

I was browsing the Minitrains site, and they are going to have European locos, quite possibly updates of Eggerbahn, in the line as well.

[faraway]

You might be interested in this page http://www.egger-bahn.de/english/index.htm

[MountainMan]

The extensive frontline railroads used during WWI were two-foot gauge (60 cm) and a lot of that equipment found it's way into service afterwards not only in Europe, but in America, particularly at American military bases.