Gorre and Daphetid

Terry,

The UK S Scale standard is different and I can assure you that it has been around for 40 years. They were drawn up by Ian Pusey in 1964 and if I dig around in my archives I can find a signed and dated copy of his drawing if you wish for incontrovertible proof.

The MRSG brought out so-called exact scale standards for all the popular scales some years later but what they did was to extrapolate the compromises they had built into P4 to the other scales and this was not acceptable to modellers in these scales. The S scale people in the UK already had their exact scale track standards, as did the

2mm scale people, but the 3mm scale and the 7mm scale people developed there own standards with more accurate dimensions.

I cannot really make sense of what you are saying in this paragraph. I would refer you to the web page for Working Dimensions and Tolerances in the standards section of the Scale7 website

where you will find verification of the clearances of the existing standards. The mathematical proofs work for me.

That really is a stupid remark, or did you mean to write 0.03mm.

0.3mm is quite a large tolerance and I'm sure most people would recognise that a gauge to check track would either be a quite sloppy fit if the track gauge was 0.3mm wide or definitely no-go if the track gauge was 0.3mm tight

I repeat, do not quote the P4 manual for any scale other than 4mm in the UK.

If by common tools you mean to exclude machine tools, then you buy your track gauges from a reputable supplier who makes them accurately. It doesn't matter if the gauge is 16.5mm or 18,83mm, an accurate gauge will hold the rail at exactly the correct dimension.

For wheels on axles, you go to a reputable supplier who can supply wheels to the standard. You can also get an accurate back to back gauge so that you can keep wheels properly gauged.

I've been working to exact scale standards for about 30 years and the one thing that does surprise me, with my increasing experience, is how much you can get away with. You don't have to built your trackwork exactly flat. With compensation and/or springing on your rolling stock, you could build a mini roller coaster and it would still work. And by fitting springing or compensation to your chassis, you don't need to build them square, and they still work.

Well, the initial visual advantage is that your pointwork has check and wing gaps which look right, and the knock on with narrower wing gaps is that drop in at the crossing nose is virtually eliminated. There are also a good few locomotive prototypes which are difficult to model without compromise when using over thick driving wheels with overscale flanges..

Jim.