Scale and Track size?

[Anonymous]

Hey thank's guys, I know these questions get old but this is a bit confusing at first. I appreciate the time you took to write. Found a Apr 05 issue of GR that has scale info as well. Think I have a handle on it now. The remote radio battery thing is going to take some time to grasp. The only thing I know for certain right now is I do not want track power, need some kind of self contained, or steam, but that's so expensive it may never happen. I live on the ocean and anything outside gets tarnished fast , also I have a 200' by 140' yard and the thought of running a million feet of wire turns me off. Even though it's sand, we have no dirt here. So I have lot's of things to ponder before getting started, I want to buy a engine real bad but don't know yet the ones that can and can't be converted etc. Hard to get started but want to do it right......thank's again, Jerry in not so sunny , Oregon.

[TheJoat]

Jerry,
1:20 is about .59" per foot. (12" / 20.3 = .5911). A much easier way to think about it is 15 mm per foot , since 45mm represents a gauge of 3 ft.

Aristocraft's European track will give you close to the right look for NG track, but you may want to also look at Llagas Creek or AMS for NG track. The Aristrocraft American track is really made for 1/29 standard gauge.

F is the "letter" designation for 1:20.3. Using the 45 mm track, it is typically referred to as Fn3, for 3-foot narrow gauge. Standard gauge track in 1:20.3 is available, but not very common.

Dave Goodson did the conversion for my Bachmann Shay. Everything is concealed and it runs VERY well.

[markperr]

Jerry, I posted this in the thread "another dumb question in the forum above. I cut and pasted it here for you to read.

1:20.3, BTW, represents 3 ft narrow gauge.

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This is a bit long but well worth the read.

In real life when you look at a narrow gauge locomotive (3 foot spacing between the rails) side by side with a standard gauge locomotive (4' 8 1/2" between the rails) the first thing you notice is how absolutely huge the standard loco is compared to the narrow.

Because, in this hobby, both narrow and standard gauge share the same size track, it INVERSELY affects the size of the locomotives when compared side by side. In other words, the narrow gauge locomotive may just very well be bigger in physical size than the standard locomotive, even though in real life it's the other way around.

Let's look at it another way. Let's say everything, standard and narrow were scaled out at 1/29th, which is the defacto size for "G" scale standard gauge. When you take the actual spacing of the real life standard gauge track, this is with track spacing at 4' 8 1/2", and divide it by 29 you come out to 1 3/4". That's the size of "G" scale track. If you take narrow gauge track which, in real life, is three feet wide and divide that by the same 29, then the "G" scale spacing between the rails comes out to only 1 1/4" wide. A full 1/2" narrower. If we could do that, then everything in this scale would look identically proportionate to it's 1:1 scale brethren. But since, we don't do that and we all use the same size track, the narrow gauge trains have to be larger in order to look proportionately correct to the track

[Anonymous]

Can someone tell me what 1:20.3 scale converts to in inches per foot? Is F the same as 1:20? The track is 45mm so the diff. between NG and STD G is the size of the equip? I know these are entry level questions but would appreciate the help. Like NG Colorado RR's and would need to use track with larger spacing between ties? Are the different brands of track designated NG or STD? Thank's in advance for help, Just getting into this and it seems very confusing at first. I would assume that using power in the loco vs. track power would save track headaches but are the locos such as a Bachmann Shay hard to convert to battery?.................................Jerry in Oregon