I entered a drawing at a local restaurant at Christmas time and won- a Lionell O gauge starter set. So now I have a basic 1940s era train. And to my warped mind it looks pretty close to 1/48. Is “O” gauge compatible. If so, I have visions of a flat car with a couple 1/48 tanks as part of my train. Any input please?
Yo stik
This the type of thing where I think something like wiki excels. Check out what they have to say. If it’s '40s era it can be from 1/43 to 1/64.
I have in the past had a conversation with the guy and my local train store about HO, the HO coming from Half of O gauge, and the info jives.
Well it’s a new production train so to speak. Brand new in the box, not a vintage set. But the train locomotive and cars look in 1930s - 1940s styling with a steam locomotive and such. Not a postwar diesel type locomotive. The figure in the locomotive appears to be around 1/48. Now I see that there is a difference between O gauge and O scale. So theoretically an O gauge flat car should fit a 1/48 tank. Thanks for the link.
I just compared the locomotive engineer to a couple Monogram 1/48 figures. Exact size match… I see some 1/48 armor in my future.[^o)]
Stik, please stay away from the light, please stay away from the light.
gonna play the devils advocate here. my dad has an O guage layout and the tamiya 1/48 scale stuff fits lionel flatcars perfect. the correct scale for oguage is technically 1/50 scale…but some older style stuff is far from correct size. dad had me build him some 1/48 shermans and some duece and a halfs to put on flat cars…on a 1940’s era Union Pacific flat car they look AWESOME! if you plan on getting any more flat cars, may i make a suggestion? there are some that com with loads of pipe on them that have little “ratchet binders” (made of springs and chain) like you see on flat bed semis. the flat cars that have these usually dont cost much more that a bare one and those ratchet binders look mighty convincing attached to the tow buckles on a sherman. i attached the armor and trucks to the flat cars with a little rubber cement and it worked aweome!
Regards,
Logan
I will keep the UP Flatcar w/pipes in mind…[8-|] Oh I am having visions now…semi assembled P-38 or P-51s…[^o)]
Must… be… strong… [:|]
Note: MM = 1 Scale Ft means that so many millimeters in a given scale would equal one scale foot.
| Scale | MM =1 Scale Ft | Millimeter | Railroad | Inch Scale | Inch height |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/32 | 9 | 54mm | G / #1 | 3/8 | 2 1/4 |
| 1/35 | 8 | 50mm | G / #1 | 1/3 | 2 |
| 1/29 - 1/30 | 10 | 60mm | G/#1 | 7/16 | 2 1/2 |
| 1/24 | 12 | 70 - 75mm | G / #1 | 1/2 | 3 |
| 1/48 | 6.5 | 40mm | O | 1/4 | 1 1/2 |
| 1/60‡ | 5 | 30mm | S | ||
| 1/64 | 4.75 | 28mm (28.5mm) | S | 3/16 | 1 1/8 |
| 1/72 - 1/76 | 4 | 25mm | OO | 1/6 | 1 |
| 1/87 | 3.5 | 20mm | HO | 1/8 | 3/4 |
| 1/100 | 3 | 18mm | TT (UK) | 7/64 | 5/8 |
| 1/120 | 2.4 | 14mm | TT | 1/10 | 6/10 |
| 1/144 | 2.25 | 13mm | 3/32 | 1/2 | |
| 1/160 | 2 | 12mm | N | 1/16 | 7/16 - 1/2 |
| 1/220 | 1.38545 | 8.3127 | Z | .05454 | .327 (1/3) |
| 1/6 | 50 | 300mm | 2 | 12 | |
| 1/12 | 24 | 150mm | 1 | 6 | |
| 1/18 | 15 | 90 - 100mm | 3/4 | 4 |
‡ 30mm figures are often used with 1/64 scale trains. According to most 3/16"scale O gaugers, 1/60 is the largest allowable tolerance for use with a scale railway.
Although scale and gauge are often confused, Scale means the ratio between a unit of measurement on a model compared with a unit of measurement in corresponding full size prototype, while gauge is the distance between the two running rails of the track. About 60% of the world’s railways have a track gauge of 4 ft 8-1/2 in (1,435 mm) known as “standard gauge”, but there are also narrow gauge railways where the track gauge is less than standard and broad gauge railways where the gauge is wider. In a similar manner, a scale model railway may have several track gauges in one scale.
Yes your train is 1/48. the gauge, ie width between the rails is wider than scale. model railroads are notorious off misusing scale and gauge references. The root cause of that is because no one lays their own rail any more, and since the prototypes ran on all kinds of gauges of rails, preformed rails in a particular gauge are used for models in lots of scales.
Lionel is pretty standard tho.
A company called MTH (i think it was them) made cars a while ago that had Corsairs and i think P-51s that were disassembled for travel. the quality of the planes were pretty bad (the screw together ones that were supposed to be toys instead of display models) but the quality of the flat cars and the “wood” framing the planes were in was top notch. it the jigs were painted to actally look like wood they would be pretty convincing. the flat car even has sprung trucks (although thats pretty standard now) but it takes ALOT of weight to depress the suspension. i tin they were 35-45 bucks each, but those jigs come off, and if you cast stuff in resin you could make copies to put on plain cars to hold aircraft. or you could copy them with wood.either way i would highly recommend them if you can find them (wou will need a seperate flat car for wings though)
also, another tip for the 1/48 armor: if you depicting a “long haul” like from a Ford factory in detroit to a port in California, Machine gus were at least covered (usually stored in crates or inside tanks) and main gun muzzles were often covered too. in most pictures i have, which are mostly Union Pacific and Great Northern which ran through the mountians, this is usually how vehicles were loaded. and alot of the time if windshields could be lowered or removed they were.
Yes I was watching one of my “Victory at Sea” DVDs last night. The Guadacanal episode had lots of “arsenal of democraccy” type footage including some nice railhead shots. All the AFVs were tarped up to a cetain extent and markings were minimal so I am really getting some good ideas here. Based on pics I have found so far and film footage it looks like one tank or two half tracks per flat car.
thats usually the way it was. i’ve seen a few exceptions, but bigger flat cars were few and far between in the 40’s. the only one that i found real tricky was the M10 and the M5 Stuart…the m10 had one or two and the stuart was the same way.