Z-Scale Garden Railway - help!!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi

I am trying to make a garden railway model inside of a bigger scale model. I know i want to use Zscale for the Garden Railway. What I need to know is what is the appropriate scale of the bigger model??? Z is 1:220 - do i just stake 220 to the garden railway size i would like it to represent - lets say i want the Zscale to look like 1:20 - is my bigger model now 1:11(220/20)??

thanks - mc

[Anonymous]

OK, now my brain hurts. This is a tough one to answer at the end of a Monday, so anyone out there who wants to check with me on this, feel free.

If the Z scale represents a G scale garden railroad, you would need somehing roughly double G scale to represent the real line, or as you put it 1:11 scale. Pretty big. If you want to limit your answer to mathematics, plan on a giant basement or putting your model garden railway inside a real garden railway (Got that?). Considering cost, space, and the need to scratchbuilt equipment, it would seem prohibitive.

On the other hand, you could make your Z scale line represent a live steam, rideable layout. Just stick plastic people on the tender (actually, you can do it with diesels too). Then you have more reasonable choices. I'll have to check with Jim Schulz when he gets back here tomorrow, but O scale may be enough.

I don't know if this helps, but I had to try.

Tom Chmielewski
associate editor, Model Railroader

[BRAKIE]

Tom:I just finish reading your answer to mc question.I understand why your brain hurts!!
Mine is killing me from reading your answer!
Please pass the aspirin!

[Anonymous]

thanks for the help so far - i think i need to add some info - i am trying to build a scale model house that has a garden railway in the backyard - so the overall model size will not be that large - so if the Zscale1:220 in the backyard is G gauge/scale - what is the model scale of the house - thanks again

[thirdrail1]

The scale of the house would be entirely dependent on what scale you wanted the Z scale train to represent. Garden railways could be O scale up to 1/12 scale. If you use the standard dollhouse scale of 1/12, you would have a train approximately 1/18 scale, or only a little bigger than Bachmann's 1/20.3 G guage trains. As they say, "close enough for government work."

[mnwestern]

A friend of mine used a N-scale train to represent his rideable train at his carnival on an HO layout. He had HO people seated in N-scale gondolas behind an N-scale diesel. Z is closer to N than N is to HO, so you might not be able to do that direct correlation — rideable Z on an N layout, but you still might pull off a rideable Z on an HO layout. Get some seated HO people and see how they look in a Z gondola or straddling a z boxcar.
T