iHOBBY EXPO OPENS THIS WEEK

Here’s a must-visit zone if you’re in reach of Rosemont, Illinois - the iHobby Expo opens later this week, running from October 22-15. It’s an annual fest that is a popular trade meeting ground, with public days on Saturday and Sunday; kids under 10 go free, which makes family visits easier on the pocket.

This year - it’s the 25th anniversary show - more than 200 vendors are displaying their wares, and there are many extra displays, including the World Micro Heli Cup, the Phoenix Cup Wild Card Airplane Competition, and Chibots, the Chicago Area Robotics Group.

Many familiar companies will be there, including Bachmann, with its superb larger scale model railroads. The video above (great music!) shows how today’s Bachmann products are absolutely state of the art, with detailing and operation on the featured 4-4-0 locomotive that’s second to none.

Here at SMN, we’ve been particular fans of 0n30 gauge for years, and definitely have a soft spot for Bachmann’s little 0-4-0 locos to this scale, and of course the quite excellent sloooow-running Climax.

Visit the iHobby Show here.

Visit Bachmann here.

There’s a pile of Bachmann stuff available on eBay here.

EGGPLANE CRAZY!

We’re long-time fans of Hasegawa’s Eggplanes here at SMN Towers. The earliest ones date back to 1976, but they've been reissued and reboxed, with new visual treatments to suit new times. The latest boxes have the neat and tidy look that's typical of modern Japanese graphics, and feature slinky anime-style girls to set off the rotund shapes of the planes.

Eggplanes are not to any particular scale, which is fine for the cartoon styling that Hasegawa came up with. There are presently more than a dozen in the range, from Zero fighter to Space Shuttle; four are shown in the top picture. Eggplanes are simple to make, mostly with fewer than 20 parts, and some of these combine various features in one. For example, the F/A-18 has wings, tail and missiles moulded as a single part.

Much as Bachmann’s 0n30 trains have spawned a legion of fans who enjoy creating semi-fictional railroads, so there is a subculture of Eggplane-eggsperts out there, who like to customize their Eggs or create new ones entirely. And above we show two views of the really nice ‘Eggswing’, made by talented model maker called Vince, of the X-Plane from Star Wars. What a delight!

Visit Hasegawa here.

Thanks to Vince for the Eggswing.

NARROW-GAUGE 0n30 WONDERS

There are dozens of scales in model trains, from the long-established and very popular 00/H0-gauge to the newly devised T-gauge, but one that combines all sorts of goodness is 0n30, narrow gauge 0-scale trains that can run on unmodified 00/H0 track.

The biggest producer of 0n30 (1:48 scale to the rest of the model world) equipment is Bachmann, and it has a number of delightful ‘olde worlde’ US subjects, all from bygone eras. One of the earliest Bachmann 0n30 products was the 0-4-0 Porter tank engine (shown in the pictures above) based on an eight-tonne narrow-gauge original. It’s a quiet and smooth runner, and pulls very well indeed, considering its size. This one Emily runs on South Hills Lines, a fictitious (but fun!) layout based on the local geography around SMN Towers. The real locomotive is tiny, so even at 1:48 scale, Bachmann’s model is only palm-sized, yet there’s enough room for fine detail, especially inside the light-equipped cab.

Enthusiasts for 0n30 (and this includes SMN of course) reckon that much of its appeal lies in the quaint charm of the models, though this reviewer reckons its popularity is at least as much to do with ease of use and the ready availability of H0/00 track and equipment. The world of 0n30 is not all plain sailing though - sticklers for accuracy point out that many modified 0n30 trains have little or no basis in the real world, being kitbashed freelance models that belong more to the realm of storytelling and fantasy than the ‘real world in miniature’ normally associated with model trains.

What does SMN think? We don’t mind - 0n30 looks good, allows for lots of imagination, is not too expensive, so what’s to lose?!

Visit Bachmann here.