ACL O Gauge Modelers

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I am relatively new to model railroading. My first love of model rail road trains is the Lionel F3 Atlantic Coast Line and passenger set. I am also collecting HO models of the ACL plus Seaboard trains and rolling stock. My question is why is there so little discussion of O guage trains and rolling stock. There have been excellent reproductions of the Orange Blossum E8 by MTH and other Southern railroads. I was wondering what were the thoughts of the Society on O guage trains. Do most members feel it is too dificult to model ACL and Seaboard trains on a O guage level because of cost? I ask this because the majority of discussions are about HO scale. Thank you.

-- Jim Simoncelli (bluecomet832@webtv.net), January 06, 2000

Answers

01 Nov 01

Jim. I am Larry Childers in Mauldin, SC. I also like O gauge and I did start with Lionel mfg trains - as many others did - as they were basically were the only O size trains available.

I operate the Southern Coastline Railway System in Mauldin (Greenville County), SC. The SCRS is a Scale HI-RAIL bridge line of southeastern railway lines.

Yes, it does operate on three rail track (Gargraves, Ross, etc.)and the equiptment has oversize couplers. Now that this information has been stated, lets talk model railroading.

I recently received the new MTH built Atlantic Coast Line E-8 A-B-A set. These are really sharp in detail and have the correct ACL colors. The four motored (w/flywheels)units pulled a 29 car freight train with ease during my initial operational checks.

These ACL units now interchange with Southern units (Weaver built E-8 A-B-A's) to handle nine MTH built heavyweight passenger cars, plus a head end REA express car (K-Line built - metal). These units also handle the Weaver built 20" long, five car streamline passenger car train. This is HEFTY model railroading.

The freight cars are all O scale built by MTH, ATLAS, WEAVER and LIONEL (standard O). A long train of these cars also become a heavy train.

As you probably know, the same cars you see on the 1' = 1' trains are now being now built by these mfg's. This makes it very good - to be in this size of model railroading.

Yes, it does take a lot of space and I would like to - more than double - the 20' x 15 space I now have, however... .

Need to go.

Larry Childers SCLRS@MTHTRAINS.COM

-- Larry L. Childers (SCLRS@MTHTRAINS.COM), November 01, 2001.


I love O-Gauge. I guess it is just the feel of something that big and heavy. However, ACL and SAL apparently have not been top priorities with the O gauge companies. There is nice stuff out there, but you have to be happy with what they produce rather than being frustrated that no-one makes an ACL R-1 for instance. Lots of nice F-3's out there though.

As far as excellent remakes of SAL stuff, I have yet to see this elusive passenger set you describe. The MTH set comes with ridiculous citrus schemed passenger cars for the E-8s. They have offered another set recently, again in multicolor rather than the correct silver.

K-Line has out their streamliners in the Emerson Shops purple scheme currently, and they are inexpensive. If you like to operate trains, O is the way to go! Marc

-- Marc L. Hamel (gigsup@aol.com), January 08, 2000.


I model in HO and can only speak for myself.I prefer to model as close to the prototype as possible,this is not possible in Lionel tinplate.

-- Joseph Oates (jlosal@gte.net), January 07, 2000.

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