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Model Railroad Scale & Gauge Variations

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Model Railroad Scale & Gauge Variations
Posted by zstripe on Wednesday, January 1, 2014 8:34 AM

This was brought up on layouts Thread, so I thought I would post it here for all to view:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_transport_modelling_scale_standards

Frank

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Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 4, 2014 7:04 AM

Bumped by Me. As in just in case, some missed it and would like a reference.

Frank

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Posted by BRAKIE on Saturday, January 4, 2014 7:10 AM

HO = "Half Zero"..LOL..

That as bad as saying "HO" (as in Santa's HO,HO,HO.) gauge.

 

Sorry,couldn't resist.Mischief

Larry

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Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 4, 2014 7:18 AM

Larry,

Laugh Back in 51 when I started in HO, that is how I referenced the scale to my LHS owner, before he corrected me! Smile

Maybe I should have asked a forum member, on the internet EH! Laugh

Frank

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Posted by cacole on Saturday, January 4, 2014 8:09 AM

G-scale is the most botched up mess of all -- for too many years, every manufacturer decided on their own what would be a "standard" scale.  Even the track, though more or less standardized, is referred to in different terms.

Scale ranges from 1:20 to 1:36 and everything in between, and there may even be some that are so manufacturer-specific that they aren't really considered mainstream.

 

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Posted by IRONROOSTER on Saturday, January 4, 2014 8:15 AM

cacole

G-scale is the most botched up mess of all -- for too many years, every manufacturer decided on their own what would be a "standard" scale.  Even the track, though more or less standardized, is referred to in different terms.

Scale ranges from 1:20 to 1:36 and everything in between, and there may even be some that are so manufacturer-specific that they aren't really considered mainstream.

 

 

There's also 1:13.7 for those modeling the Maine 2 footers using G track.

Enjoy

Paul

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Posted by IRONROOSTER on Saturday, January 4, 2014 11:27 AM

V8Vega

In G scale I think 1:32 is 3/8" = 1' is that right? Thanks

 

That is #1 scale.  G is family of scales all using track that is standard gauge for #1 scale.  Unfortunately, some of the scales also have a separate letter designation like Fn3 which 1:20.3.  It's all confusing and probably prevents many people from modeling in it.  Except for #1, the scales are all narrow gauge even though 1:29 and 1:24 have standard gauge engines and rolling stock on narrow gauge wheels.

Paul

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Posted by dknelson on Saturday, January 4, 2014 11:44 AM

BRAKIE

HO = "Half Zero"..LOL..

That as bad as saying "HO" (as in Santa's HO,HO,HO.) gauge. 

Sorry,couldn't resist.Mischief 

But "Half Zero" is technically correct is it not?  The early scales, probably better regarded as gauges, from England were numbers, things like 3, 2, 1, and 0, 0 being then the smallest commercial gauge.  The 0 was a number, very possibly pronounced "naught."   [Amended post: just found a Westcott discussion in a 1970 MR and he says it was pronounced "aught" in England - but again clearly a number, not a letter.]

3 was very large; from time to time 1 which itself seems large to us is revived as a scale; veteran readers of MR might recall some Colorado Midland stuff brought out in 1 scale in the 1960s because the guy who owned Model Engineering Works (MEW) liked it. 

The scale that went with 0 gauge track was 7mm = 1 ft, in England.  Our "HO" is half of that at 3.5mm = 1 ft .  Our HO is not half of our American O which is of course 1/4" = 1 ft.  A long dead scale called E scale was 1/8" = 1 ft.

Linn Westcott once wrote that long ago and well before Kalmbach, book and magazine typographers [edited post - I am not referring to typewriters]  believed that O scale (using the letter O and not the number 0) looked more pleasing to the eye than would be the more correct 0.  And that in turn influenced it being called "oh" and not "zero," or "naught."  And of course now scales are routinely specified using letters, again with the exception of the number 1 scale advocates.  

Some old timers might remember when Temple Nieter wrote lots of letters to MR back in the 1960s still advocating OO scale, and back in the 1930s when it was unsure whether HO or OO would prevail, he had written a very early article for MR titled something like "Oh-oh!  Here's OO."

 

But again the scale or gauge from which we get HO used the O as a number, not as a letter. 

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Saturday, January 4, 2014 4:35 PM

I don't know who wrote the Japanese part of that Wiki, but it's a glaring error!  HOj is NOT 1:87 scale on 12mm gauge track.  HOj has been 1:80 scale on 16.5mm gauge track since long before I bought my first Japanese prototype models in the late 1950s.

I'm not in any position to judge the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the rest of that Wiki, but, for any given scale/gauge/name listed I'd want either a competent second opinion or a look at the source document(s).

Chuck (Who has added his My 2 Cents to Wikipedia entries, only to see them changed to something erroneous, modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

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Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 4, 2014 4:50 PM

Oh, Oh, Chuck, I hope I didn't need to put in a disclaimer. Laugh

Old Man still playing with Trains,Zzz

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Posted by rrinker on Saturday, January 4, 2014 4:57 PM

 I dunno about that Westcott reference - back in those days, typewriters didn;t even HAVE a number 0 key, the letter O was normally used - at least, the ancient Smith-Corona manual that I used at home was like that. I high school I got a more modern, but still manual, typewriter, that one had a distinct 0 and O. Typesetting may be a differnet story, for accuracy there may have been 0's and O's. But if the copy was typewritten, how was the compsitor to know? Certain things are obvious, like if it was $1000 then it's pretty obviously zeros and not o's. But in the context of model railroading "That's a nice O scale model" - unless you too were a modeler, which is it, O or 0? Unless the author went back and put slashes through the zeros to eliminate ambiguity, a habit I learned in engineering and programming, there's many cases where you just don't know what was intended.

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Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 4, 2014 5:14 PM

Randy,

Back in the 60's the Military Tele type machines were like that, slash's in 0's, dash's in z's, 7's, 1's and so forth, there was no mistaking what they were. That is also how you had to hand write a Morse Code message before you even started to learn TT. Send and receive Morse and type minimun 25 words a minute to pass, to even be in como. I will add, no mistakes.

Frank

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Posted by richhotrain on Saturday, January 4, 2014 6:32 PM

Instead of a link to Wikipedia, I wish that someone knowledgeable about the differences between scale and gauge and the proper use of these two terms would comment in detail.

For example, not long ago, on the CTT forum, I made a reference to Lionel as O scale and was quickly corrected as to the proper term - - O gauge.

Another example.  American Flyer is S gauge, but in more recent times, some manufacturers came out with S scale models that would not run on the old American Flyer track and vice versa, where the old post-war AF locos would not run on the new S scale track.

Anybody out there knowledgeable enough to take us through this topic?

Rich

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Posted by zstripe on Saturday, January 4, 2014 7:07 PM

richhotrain
Anybody out there knowledgeable enough to take us through this topic? Rich

I believe we could wind up going in circles here. It appears that some would question who is the most knowledgeable. Someone with a PHD in scale and gauge and has no clue about Modelrailroad, scale and gauge and is it really necessary to know every fact. If we come to a point and continue to question every explaination of fact, we might as well throw all our books away, because they are flawed.

Frank

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Posted by Catt on Saturday, January 4, 2014 9:13 PM

North American Z,N,HO,S,O are all the same standard gauge regardless of the scale.Scale is the ratio used for the different to show their size compared to the prototype.

Scale and gauge are not the same thing and should not be used interchangably.

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Posted by maxman on Saturday, January 4, 2014 9:19 PM

cacole
G-scale is the most botched up mess of all

I agree.  I just can't figure that all out.

But, is G the scale or the gauge?  And if it is the scale, what is the designation for G standard gage?

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 5, 2014 1:38 AM

If we accept that the "standard" G scale is 1/22.5, as invented by LGB, it´ll be # 2 scale.

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Posted by wjstix on Sunday, January 5, 2014 1:51 AM

richhotrain

For example, not long ago, on the CTT forum, I made a reference to Lionel as O scale and was quickly corrected as to the proper term - - O gauge.

That's not necessarily correct. Although "traditional" Lionel toy trains are undersized, a good portion of Lionel's trains today are built to 1:48 scale, so you may have been correct depending on which trains you were referring to. Today there are many "hi-railers" like Norm Charboneau who build 1:48 scale layouts, but using three rail track.

BTW 1:48 isn't really the correct scale for 1.25" O gauge track. It should be 1:45. In the US we use 1:48 because the math was easier, as that works out to 1/4" = 1 foot. In Europe they use 1:43.5 which is 7mm to the foot. HO is half of that, 3.5mm to the foot.

richhotrain

Another example.  American Flyer is S gauge, but in more recent times, some manufacturers came out with S scale models that would not run on the old American Flyer track and vice versa, where the old post-war AF locos would not run on the new S scale track.

American Flyer trains were/are made to 1:64 scale, the correct scale for S trains. However, they were designed with deep flanges to run on tubular tinplate track, so trains built with more scale-like wheels won't work on AF track (and vice versa). Has nothing to do with scale per se. The type of rail and wheels are different, but AF toy trains and S scale models are the same scale.

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Posted by wjstix on Sunday, January 5, 2014 2:10 AM

maxman
But, is G the scale or the gauge?  And if it is the scale, what is the designation for G standard gage?
 

 
G is really a concept, meaning "real big trains" more than anything, but I guess it would be most accurate to think of it as a gauge indicating track that is 1.75" wide. This track gauge was called "Number 1" gauge by Marklin, who numbered their gauges. When they came out with a gauge smaller than No.1, it was 0 (zero) gauge, which we normally call "O" gauge. The correct scale for standard gauge model trains running on No.1 track is 1:32 scale.
 
In the 1960's, Lehmann toy company in West Germany started making "LGB (Lehmann Gross Bahn, or "Lehmann's Big Railroad") Trains" using No.1 gauge track to represent European meter (39") gauge narrow-gauge track. The trains themselves were built to 1:22.5 scale.
 
In the US, some modellers built layouts using No.1 gauge track (by the seventies often called "G gauge" track in the hobby press, since No.1 gauge was fairly unknown in the US) but having the narrow gauge trains be 1/2" = 1 foot, or 1:24 scale. In recent years, some US modellers are using No.1 gauge track to model US 3' gauge lines, using a correct linear scale of 1:20.3.
 
One or more companies make No.1 gauge trains to a scale of 1:29. That's because these engines and cars then are about the same size as larger scale (like 1:22.5) narrow gauge cars. Many people running "G gauge" trains aren't model railroaders, they just want trains in their gardens, so this made it easier for them to mix cars from "standard" and "narrow" gauges together.
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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, January 5, 2014 4:47 AM

OK, now we are getting somewhere.  Good info, guys.   Keep it coming.

Rich

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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, January 5, 2014 2:02 PM

This has already been said, but this is how I distinguish scale and gauge.

Gauge is how far in between the rails. Examples are Standard Gauge, and 3ft Gauge.

Scale is the relationship to the full size thing, expressed in a ratio, such as 1:48, comparing one actual thing to several model things. (1 full size foot is 48 scale feet.)

So, O is a scale, but On3 is a gauge, being O scale trains on 3ft gauge track.

I'm not an expert, but that is how I think of these things.

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, January 5, 2014 2:49 PM

Yep, essentially, that is how I think of it too and how I refer to it.

Rich

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Posted by Catt on Monday, January 6, 2014 6:38 AM

"So, O is a scale, but On3 is a gauge, being O scale trains on 3ft gauge track."

On2/30/3 are still O scale as well as a gauge.In other words in North America while they are all different gauges (24" 30" & 36" ) they are all still 1:48  scale.The same thing applies to all of the scales in standard or narrow gauges the scale remains constant while the gauge does not.

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Posted by wjstix on Friday, January 10, 2014 1:44 PM

The recent boom in On30 I think has confused things a bit, because it's often described as "O scale trains running on HO gauge track". That's because HO gauge track happens to work out to about 30" between the rails in 1:48 scale, so it's easy to build a narrow-gauge layout using all the available HO standard gauge track products. But an On30 layout is O scale, narrow gauge, not HO scale or HO gauge.

Think of it this way...if someone says he models "Colorado three-foot gauge", he's telling me what real trains he's interested in...but not what scale he models in. If he's then says he's in "On3" he's saying first his scale, O scale (1:48 scale); then the "n" indicates he models narrow gauge equipment, then the "3" tells us what narrow gauge he's modelling - 3' gauge. In other words the first part tells me what scale he models in, the second part tells me what narrow gauge the real trains he models used.

 

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Posted by IRONROOSTER on Friday, January 10, 2014 6:10 PM

O gauge and S gauge are frequently used to distinguish between the toy train and the scale side of the hobby.  So O gauge would be trains that run on three rail track with wheels with deep flanges without regard to the actual scale of the models which can be anywhere from 1:48 to 1:64 (or 1:43.5 for some foreign models).  O scale is 2 rail trains  1:48 scale with scale couplers (such as Kadee) and scale wheels (RP25).  Similarly for S, S gauge is deep flanges and S scale is scale couplers (such as Kadee) and scale wheels (RP25). Most S gauge trains are 1:64, S scale trains are 1:64.

Enjoy

Paul

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Posted by NorthWest on Friday, January 10, 2014 7:19 PM

Catt
On2/30/3 are still O scale as well as a gauge.In other words in North America while they are all different gauges (24" 30" & 36" ) they are all still 1:48 scale.The same thing applies to all of the scales in standard or narrow gauges the scale remains constant while the gauge does not.

That was what I was trying to express, however I did not do so clearly.

With things such as OO, it becomes even more strange, 1:76 standard gauge trains on 1:87 track. I think this was because small British locomotives had inadequate room for early model mechanisms. 

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