Articles
Gauges and Scales of My Model Railways
Gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the two parallel rails that make up the railway track. With the earlier 3 rail systems you use the outer rails.
Scale is the size of the model compared the actual 'real life' locomotive.
There are many gauges and scales used for model railways, these are the ones that I use:
You can see that the difference between some scales is very noticeable.
Shown from the sides to give you an idea of the differences.
This picture shows our largest and smallest locos giving another example of the different scales. At the back is an LGB 0-6-6-0 G Scale loco , and the very small loco in front is a Marklin Z scale 0-6-0 loco.
if you check the various gauges of the track in this photograph with the chart above you will notice that the same gauge of track is used with different scales.
These are the scales and gauges used on my layouts...
45.00 mm
G - Narrow Gauge - 1:22.50.
16.50 mm
Oe Narrow Gauge O scale. - 1:45.
OO - Standard Gauge - 1:76 (This is a British scale and the track gauge of 16.5 mm is inaccurate for this scale.
HO - Standard Gauge - 1:87 ( this scale is more accurate for the track used)
9.00 mm
HOe - Narrow Gauge HO - 1:87
N - Standard Gauge - 1: 160
6.50 mm
Z - Narrow Gauge.
...But there are many more model railway gauges and scale. in use.
Published 21.09.2007
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