Walter:
I wasn’t disputing the fact that 30" gauge RRs were in the extreme minority, nor that most narrow gauge RRs were 36" gauge.
I just did not agree with your statement that “. . . In either case the gauge is wrong, it’s about 2 1/2’. So no matter what you decide to do it’ll be wrong (as in “not prototypical”).”
Here is a link to Wikipedia where one of the California 30" railroads is described:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Short_Line_Railway
It was certainly short-lived, but one of the cars still exists at Railtown 1897 in Jamestown, CA.
The others (I am aware of at least two) here in N. CA were very early industrial and logging RRs, with scant documentation. Sometimes they didn’t even have names, and were certainly short lived. I have a pix of one that was built for mining some mineral, but can not find it at the moment.
While 1:43 in used for 0-scale in Europe, most American 0-scale is modeled in 1:48. See the NMRA’s scale & gauge page at:
http://www.nmra.org/beginner/scale.html
And the Wikipedia page where both European 0-scales of 1:43.5 to 1:45 are presented, along with the American 0-scle of 1:48:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_scale
IMO, non-railroad 1:48 models are the most common, especially here in the U.S. The aircraft models I referenced above are all 1:48, along with numerous diecast and plastic vehicles ranging from antique autos to modern construction equipment. Then to prove that there is always something outside of what we think is the ‘standard,’ there are lots of 1:50 scale diecast models.
All of the above is not meant to say that anything a modeler does is wrong, but just to show the varieties available.
BTW, The YSL used two 30" gauge Porters!
Happy RRing,
Jerry