Gauges?

Well you could model in 3.5mm to the foot scale using HO track for 4ft

8 1/2 and TT ( 12mm guage) track as a close approximation to 3ft 6in.

On 23/04/2008 18:24, Graham Harrison said,

Depends on what scale you want to model in! If you want to use HO track (16.5mm gauge) for 4'8.5", then you need to model at 3.5mm:ft, so your

3'6" track becomes 12.25mm gauge on the model, which is near as dammit 12mm gauge which by chance Peco sell. (assuming you're not wanting to build your own track.)

If you want to stick to 4mm:ft, then there really is no suitable RTR track available to represent the gauges correctly. You could of course still model using HO track for standard gauge (the OO boys are still doing this after many decades) and 12mm track for the narrow gauge, but then both tracks will effectively be narrow gauge.

The confusion comes from using "gauge" and "scale" interchangeably. Use them correctly, and the confusion disappears.

*Scale* is the ratio of the model to the full size trains. HO is 1:87, ie, an HO model is 1/87th of full size. *Gauge* is the distance between the rails, measured at the inside edges. HO gauge is 16.5mm, and it represents 4' 8-1/2" gauge pretty accurately.

If you want to run both 3'6" gauge and 4' 8-1/2" gauge trains on the same layout, you model all the trains etc to the same _scale_, and run them on track of different _gauge_.

In HO, standard gauge is 16.5mm, and 3'6" gauge is 12.25mm. However, this is not a commercially recognised (== standardised) gauge, so you would use the nearest commercial gauge, which in this case is 12mm, or TT gauge. Then you can sue locomotive mechanisms etc built for 12mm gauge, and build up your own bodies to mount on these.

Note tha British OO is 1:76 scale running on 16.5mm track, which makes the track a little narrow for the scale, that doesn't bother most people. In this scale, 3'6" gauge would be 14mm, which corresponds to no commercial gauge, so you would probably use 12mm gauge as for HO.

HTH

14mm is 3mm scale track gauge

On 23/04/2008 19:04, Trev said,

...but isn't available commercially, as 12mm gauge is.

[...]

Oops, I forgot that TT in the UK is 1:100 instead of 1:120.

DSo OP can use 1:76 for his narrow gauges, and decide whether he wanst to go with 16.5mm or 18.83mm gauge for his stndard gauge trains...

"It's all rarther confusing really". ;-)

HTH

I knew I wasn't being accurate in my terminology but I couldn't think of the right words. If I read all the replies correctly, there is no commercially available method of doing the two gauges to the same scale. It would involve hand building etc. Hmmm - maybe one day! Maybe.

If you're willing to compromise and use 12mm gauge to represent 3'6" gauge in OO (4mm scale), you could do it. Keep in mind that narrow gauges had even greater variation on loading gauges than standard gauges. IOW, you can't tell just by general appearance and proportions which narrow gauge a given loco or carriage is running on. So running some 3'6" stuff on 3ft gauge won't look wrong.

HTH

Graham Harrison said the following on 24/04/2008 16:19:

Ah - inspired by your trip to Japan, you want to model Japanese railways ;-)

3.5mm:ft would be your best bet then, where you can use commercial OO/HO track for standard gauge and commercial HOm (12mm) track for the narrow gauge. Both available from Peco. The only compromise in gauge is that the narrow gauge would be 0.25mm too narrow - I'm sure you could live with that.

Next you'll be asking about mixed gauge ;-)

If you look at the Peco track range they do HOn which is 3.5mm scale sleepers with N gauge track geometry. Something similar exists for the larger gauges. You could in theory use Z scale track for N scale narrow gauge track as well.

Chris

:-)

I actually bought an HO loco and a couple of wagons - couldn't resist. It's going to look a bit weird among my mainly US kit but it's my railway and I'll run what I want!

If you use HO scale, 16.5mm track = 4'8 1/2" gauge and 12mm (TT) = c3'5" which is near enough to be visually indistinguishable.

mixed gauge is available from Shinohara which does flex-track, right and left points and combination tracks, where mixed splits into separate narrow and standard tracks. HO scale track HO and HOn3 gauges. Quite nicely made.

David

mixed gauge is available from Shinohara which does flex-track, right and left points and combination tracks, where mixed splits into separate narrow and standard tracks. HO scale track HO and HOn3 gauges. Quite nicely made.

David

I'm not sure I see the point of that in terms of modelling Japan. The Shinkansen uses 4ft 8 1/2 while the rest of the system seems to be 3ft 6 but wherever I went it seemed to be the case that "never the twain shall meet". Thus I wouldn't need mixed gauge just separate tracks to represent the two.

What did intrigue me was that several of the tramway systems I encoutered seemed to be 4ft 8 1/2.

What would be the point of using 4mm:ft, as there are only British models available to that scale? At the same time there is no British 3ft

6in railways, so the OP is suggesting a non British railway. So 16.5mm & 12mm track make obvious R-T-R choices.

Kevin Martin

A point might be that the Japanese normally use 1:80 scale for representing 3'6" gauge prototypes on 16.5mm scale track.

1435/80 = 17.95mm 1067/80 = 13.3mm

Perhaps EM track for 1435mm/4' 8 1/2" and HOm(12mm) or UK TT3(14mm) for

1067mm/3'6" with available Japanese models regauged? The commercial availability of Japanese 3'6" models surely must be the starting point, even though they are built for 16.5mm gauge. Narrowing the model wheel spacings should not be toooo difficult.

Greg.P.

8^)

Lima, once upon a time, did a few Japanese models in HO scale - well, some claimed "HO scale" on 16.5mm track.

Tramway at the Black Country Museum?

so the OP is suggesting a non British railway. So 16.5mm &

Depends if you count the Isle of Man as British. The Snaefell Mountain Railway is 3ft 6in gauge.