Before you toss 30" gauge out as a ficticious gauge, look up Company railroads - such as those operating within Mines.   There were thousands of these little railroads once - and the beautiful part is you could almost model the entire railroad operation in a SMALL room!!!

Perhaps never a Class one Gauge, but it had it's use!!! 

Mr. Matt,

Thanks for your interesting article on narrow gauge cars. Although I generally follow D&RGW narrow gauge practices, your article is excellent for modeling lumber company rolling stock that connects to my On3 railroad. It's quite plausible many logging railroad cars were "home built" using commercial trucks, couplers, etc. I've seen photos of some that would make your cars look like a first-class railroad. I like your idea of using readily available material for construction since many On3 car kits can get expensive.

I'd also like to compliment you on your photography...it's my primary hobby with model railroading second. Closeup model photography can be especially tricky. I've recently started using Helicon Focus (stacking multiple captures) with Photoshop to get much greater depth of field than is possible with a single capture (sorry to get off topic).

On a more general note, I really enjoy Model Railroad Hobbyist. My hat's off to Joe Fugate for creating such an interesting publication. I'll certainly try and support his advertisers to help make this e-magazine a success.

Paul Searls