What was Q gauge? How about OO?

[Anonymous]

I was looking through some MR's from 1941. They mentioned Q gauge. What scale was that? And was OO another, earlier name for S?

[Anonymous]

Q Scale was the accurate guage of O scale models. the track quage for O scale models was not accurate for 1/4" scale and should have been 17/64" Scale, therefor Q Scale was born..

OO Scale was 4 millimeter / foot versus HO scale of 3.85 millimeters per foot but, it ran on HO scale track.

Rick

[nfmisso]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jesionowski

OO Scale was 4 millimeter / foot versus HO scale of 3.85 millimeters per foot but, it ran on HO scale track.

OO is 4mm per foot. The original OO from Lionel ran on 17.76mm guage track (HO uses 16.5mm). OO is common in the UK running on 16.5mm guage track. HO is 3.5mm per foot, or 7/8 the size of OO.

Rick is correct regarding Q, that is 17/64" per foot scale. In the UK, O scale is 7mm to a foot or 1/43.5.

[dknelson]

Q is a gauge not a scale. The scale remains 1/4" or "O"
17/64" scale on the other hand uses O "gauge" track but is not O scale.
I have seen trolley models to 17/64 next to accurate 1/4" scale trolleys and the difference is noticable. I also seem to recall that Lionel had some of their scale models built to 17/64" scale back in the 1930s or 1940s, maybe even the famous Hudson? I have a pair of the wonderful old Carl Auel trucks that came with tinplate or scale wheels. They too were built to 17/64" scale -- some of the really fussy modelers of the 1930s were going that direction. Mine are Andrews trucks and you can tell they are large for 1/4" scale. The Auel trucks remain among the most accurate ever built in any scale and the tooling is now 70 years old or more.
I think Q is no longer used as terminology. I think the guys who go that route now say Proto48 which also implies more accurate wheel width and flange depth. I also see references to 1/4AAR. But most O scalers put up with the gauge discreprency.
Dave Nelson

[vsmith]

Sounds like Q gauge went the way of Guage 2 and Gauge 3. Just another failed gauge , and there are MANY of those!

[Anonymous]

OO is alive and well over here - we have Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol and others producing RTR, and a whole swathe of kit manufacturers. Basically it's 4mm=1ft on 16.5mm gauge track - technically it should be 18.83mm gauge (and some build layouts to this) though for reasons dating back to the very earliest days the production models are 16.5mm gauge - the early models were designed to handle oversized motors (which would not have fitted in a HO scale British loco due to the prototype being physically smaller than other European and US equipment).

[BR60103]

Just for fun:
HO gauge is 5/8"
OO gauge is 3/4"
S gauge is 7/8"
and nothing more until
O gauge is 1 1/4".

I suspect Q gauge had problems because it was difficult to push steam loco drivers in by 1/16" without running into the frames.