Gauges?

Kevin Martin said the following on 25/04/2008 04:12:

At the time of my post, we didn't know Graham was potentially modelling overseas - I realised this after one of his postings on another completely unrelated newsgroup. There are/were British 3ft 6in railways, although not necessarily in the same place as standard gauge.

I'm fairly sure one of the tramways in the London area was laid as 3'6". Possibly the Highgate Hill cable tramway.

Robin

I'm pretty sure there is standard/3'6" mixed gauge track in both Queensland and Western Australia, and historically in Southern Australia, so that might be a possible market.

How do Aussie modellers handle their plethora of gauges?

Robin

They are Australians, they probably don't notice the difference. ;-)

There was at one time, according to an old Meccano Magazine, a point where 5 gauges meet in a station somewhere in Australia. (3'6", 4'8 1/2", Broad, and two different industrial narrow gauges)

3 gauges meet somewhere else in the world. I think it was in Sweden, but I now have no idea where I saw it.

Regards, Greg.P. NZ

Three gauges meet at La Tour de Carol in the Pyrenees - 5 ft 6 in (Spanish), standard (French) and metre gauge (Le Petit Train Jaune) on the line from Villefranche. These three routes all have different electrification systems as well, the narrow gauge line being 850 V dc third rail.

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You might be thinking of Petersborough, South Aust where 3 gauges met, dunno about the two industrial NG lines though. They did have a triple gauge turntable there. :)

Pass on Sweden :)

We model the well known "Plethora" class locomotives :)

Seriously, the Qld NG'ers model in NG in various scales, but the Victorians seem quite happy to model their 5'3" using standfard HO

16.5mm track. The difference is only about 1.8 mm, so not that noticeable. What is the gauge for OO again? :)

Steve Magee Newcastle NSW Aust

>

Here in Australia it's possible to purchase HO scale models (in kit form) of 3'6" gauge prototypes, which run alongside the commercially available HO scale standard gauge models. The narrow gauge runs on

12mm track, also commercially available from Peco, Tillig, Bemo (IIRC).

John

It's handled with some difficulty. If you are building a mixed gauge layout then HO is easiest (with 16.5mm and 12mm gauge track and models available) but I have never seen a genuine broad/standard gauge layout in any scale. Most in HO use 16.5mm for both gauges. I have seen dual gauge in HO being represented using gauntlet track.

but I now have no idea where I saw it.

Don't know about the 5 gauges. There were triple gauge stations at Port Pirie Junction, Gladstone and Peterborough in South Australia. The latter two had triple gauge turntables, Gladstone had much triple- gauge trackwork.

Three gauge stations appeared in India often enough. According to one web site "New Jalpaiguri also has the distinction of being the only triple gauge station left in the country and one of the last few left in the world!!". In this case the gauges are 5'6", Metre and 2' gauge (the Darjeeling-Himalaya).

John

HO on EM track????

Yes, some people do that. A very small number (I know of two, but there may be more) model to P87 standards, with a gauge of 18.725mm. Others use 4mm scale and 20 or 21mm gauge. All of these options require handlaying, and scratch built or modified mechanisms, whereas

16.5mm in HO scale is very easy. Especially considering that many locomotives in the diesel era run on both gauges. Indeed, a couple of classes of loco have run on all three gauges.

John

Tillig, for one, make HO track, some HOm ( 12mm gauge) track, and even dual guage ( HO/HOm) pointwork, so maybe no need to hand build.

for example