On-topic posting.

In message , Dick Ganderton writes

It seems to mean three different things in the latest MRJ also!

I'd have thought because 1:48 is 1/4" to the foot. Apart from in scientific subjects, the USA is still firmly feet and inches, not to mention differently-sized pints, quarts and gallons.

You could always point them to the FAQ for rec.model.railroad:

snip

'Cause that would have screwed up the scale gauge ratio and you'd have a dogs dinner of scales and gauges like you do in the UK. Something I hope North America was desperately trying to avoid at least in 16.5mm gauge.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Home of the Great Eastern Railway

That was Maerklin - they made the track to a specific gauge and then made tinplate trains to run on them - scale didn't come into the equation.

This millimeter to the foot thing is a UK peculiarity, where it extends beyond your shores it only does so due to exporting.

They only had imperial rulers and 1:48 could be worked out using the 1/4" markings.

Half 0 originated with Bing in Germany - it was a halving of "0 gauge" and had nothing to do with scale :-)

You live in a country where there is only one gauge, here in NZ we have a different gauge and modellers who model different prototype gauges NZR S scale runs on H0 track,UK 00 on H0 track, US H0 on H0 track, NZ H0 on TT track etc etc. so the distinction between scales and gauges becomes very relevant.

English speakers tend to say "Ohh" when they mean "Zero" or "Nil". The distinction doesn't bother me :-)

"Greg Procter" > wrote

Why would that be though? It makes no sense to mix and match imperial with metric measurements to produce a scake, but it's been that way as long as I can remember - and that's back into the 50s.

John.

There was such a scale/Gauge for a longish period (1940s). No proprietry manufacturer (AFAIK) ever took it up.

European HO has always been 1:87 or 1:82 or 1:80 or 1:85 or 1:90 - they moved to the metric system because the "Imperial" dimensions varied from state to state and town to town. For example. a Wuerttemberg mile was defined as the distance a man could walk in a day. A foot in Europe was anything from about 8 English inches to 14 English inches. One of the first early models I built came out a very odd size because I built it from a French diagram using the feet and inch measurements scaled. Afterwards I found out the feet were about 9.5 English inches.

Regards, Greg.P.

In message , Dick Ganderton writes

Don't ask me. I don't know. I was only making a suggestion. Maybe because there was a bigger trade in HO between Europe and the US than there was in O.

Was it really Bing? Didn't it originate in the 1920s with a British modeller whose name I have forgotten?

Only one gauge? We have 15", 2', 2' 6", 3', 4' 8.5", 5' and 7' 0.25".

There are naming conventions to cover models of the non-standard gauge railways.

We may say 'Oh' > snip

Many tramways in Britain were 3' 6" gauge.

(kim)

As was the Nantlle.

There were other gauges, too - a fair bit of 18" at one time, there were the Padarn and the Redruth and Chasewater on 4' gauge (almost exactly right for 00 ;), the Dundee and Newtyle on 4'6"....

should cover it.

N gauge should therefore be perfect for early Scottish railways and 00 for the Saundersfoot ;)

"Dick Ganderton" wrote

I've a significant collection of prewar Hornby O or 0-gauge which I'd considered selling on eBay and that was just one of the issues which has stopped me listing it.

John.

How come? There's a dedicated section on eBay for 0-Gauge, most of it Hornby. I would rather there was a separate section for Hornby 0-gauge as well as it would make it easier to search for the non-Hornby items.

(kim)

Henry Greenly or (?) Walkley (sp) Bing produced 16mm gauge tinplate for the UK market at the behest of Henry Greenly from 1922/23. (I have one :-) In fact, the first "models" were produced immediately pre-WWI

LOL.

Sure, but _our_ standard gauge is 3'6". When we answer the standard question we tend not to reel off a string of 27 or so letters and numbers and just quote either the scale or the gauge depending on our assessment of the questioner's railway savvy.

If you have to ask for clarification the speaker hasn't got it together. I'm normally counted as a pedant, but in the case of scale names I go with the flow as it's the trains that are important :-))))

Cheers, John.

In message , Greg Procter writes

I was about to ask about that Greg. What gauge track do NZ modellers run their stock on? Is it 16.5 mm? I rather fancy a model of a Kb and a Ww. Is there any kits available?

So it really does fly, in the photo at least ?

Glad now I didn't ask for a picture of a Mucky Duck :o)

(kim)

00/H0 British/US/European is the most common, followed by NZR 3/16":1 foot on H0 track. To model NZR generally requires a fair amount of kit building, although in recent years there has been a fair amount of semi "ready to run" on the market.

John Gardner (Christchurch) builds a Kb (4-8-4 with trailing bogie booster, as used on the Chch-West Coast line) For a long time they were only produced as kits, but last time I looked he was only offering built up models. (a problem with that model is that it will only run on large radius curves, although with modification it will take a 2' curve) The Ww must be available somewhere as it's a popular prototype and I've seen models. They tend to come and go, batch by batch. If you like I could do some checking up.

Regards, Greg.P.