Severn posted:In real life the grab irons are what? Maybe 1/2 inch diameter. Scaling these down would make for very thin wire, too thin to be workable. What's there then approximates the real life engines in a reasonable way. Nothing wrong with that.
Not really; that's about 0.012" and workable - I have used that and 0.015" brass wire and also steel wire in the latter size - all perfectly workable. The HO guys can do it.......