The History of Z Gauge

[Autobus Prime]

Even back in the 1930s, when HO was considered small and TT had yet to be invented, from time to time in old Model Railroader magazines you'd see some incredibly tiny scale models, smaller even than N scale, although perhaps not to Z scale's exact ratio.  These were more of the "can it be done/ship in a bottle" sorts of endeavors rather than real efforts to create entire working layouts, but the tiny things had motors and some degree of detail.  I particularly recall seeing something published from a modeler in Sweden.

So in a sense I'd say the history of Z or at least the general idea of a very very tiny scale goes back further than the history here assumes.

Dave Nelson

On this subject, has everybody here seen these?

http://www.zen98812.zen.co.uk/aasherwood.html

1:480 scale electric models and 1:240 scale electrics and /live steam/. Lots of ingenuity used by the builder. What makes it even better is that he designed and built track and rolling stock as well, and ran them on a layout. The larger layout shown is the 1:240; the 1:480 layout was just a loop of track.

[dknelson]

Even back in the 1930s, when HO was considered small and TT had yet to be invented, from time to time in old Model Railroader magazines you'd see some incredibly tiny scale models, smaller even than N scale, although perhaps not to Z scale's exact ratio.  These were more of the "can it be done/ship in a bottle" sorts of endeavors rather than real efforts to create entire working layouts, but the tiny things had motors and some degree of detail.  I particularly recall seeing something published from a modeler in Sweden.

So in a sense I'd say the history of Z or at least the general idea of a very very tiny scale goes back further than the history here assumes.

Dave Nelson

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I'll just make that link clickable.

 http://hubpages.com/hub/Zgaugetrains

 

[Randall_Roberts]

Yes, it's surprising to see someone so knowledgeable about model railroading use the terms "scale" and "gauge" interchangably.  Of course they are used somewhat differently in the UK, and this reads like it might have been written by someone from across the Atlantic, or at least parts of it do. 

Interesting and well written piece.  It doen't mention any current TT scale manufacturers, sort of implying that TT scale isn't made anymore. But the fact that the author includes TT scale in the evolution of smaller model railroad trains is something I hadn't expected to see. It's also noteworthy that the author ties in Nn3.

Best! 

[Midnight Railroader]

Wish the writer could decide if he wants to call it "Z gauge" or "Z scale." The words aren't interchangeable.

[Valley Rail]

I found this web page its pretty interesting and expains the history of Z gauge . Just wanted to share.Dont know if anyone else has seen this.Here is the link.

 http://hubpages.com/hub/Zgaugetrains