I bought a MTH electric o guage locmotive about a year ago and I was wondering if I could use it on my track. The track is o-27 guage from about 1964. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
emmar
If your facts are correct, then…no. Sorry. The MTH loco is surely standard gauge, and that would be 56.5" in the real world, although scaled to regular O. For your O27 track to work, it would have to be widened to O. O27 means that the loco is the right size, as locos of different gauges often are/were in real life. However, the axle lengths and the spacing of the wheels was reduced to operate on “narrow” gauge tracks…in this case, the full size loco would have been required to operate on 27" spacing between the rails.
Your MTH loco very probably requires O gauge track. However, I am an HO modeler, and cannot state the above definitively. You would be better to pose your question on the forum next door, Classic Toy Trains. They are the experts.
Selector - O27 refers to Lionel tinplate 3-rail track, 1.25 inch gauge, 27 inch radius.
Emmar - I’m afraid I can’t help you directly. Check the underside of your loco. If it has center third rail pickup shoes, you can try it for tracking. If not, it’s designed for two rail power distribution, and will require very different track. Also, 27" radius is extremely tight for 1:48 scale (about equivalent to 15" in HO.) Even Lionel O, at 36" radius, is tight for scale O gauge.
Emmar
I’m both a 3 railer and HO/HOn3. MTH mostly made 3 rail O locomotives, although a few recent ones were also made for 2 rail O. As tomikawatt said, check the underside for the center rail pickup. If it’s there (and it probably is), it will run on any 3 rail O track system with but one gotcha.
O27 curves are very sharp - 13.5" radius - and not all 3 rail O equipment can go around curves that sharp. If the locomotive in question is MTH RailKing, it probably will. If it is MTH Premier, it probably won’t . The first place where problems will happen is Lionel O27 switches. Longer cars and locomotives may make the O27 curves (with a lot of overhang!) but will hit the switch mechanism housing.
Search the Classic Toy Trains forum and you will find out a lot more about this subject.
yours in 3 railing
The rail is three rail and the locomotive has center rail pick up. I will try running it on the track untill I buy some new track, but it looks like the curve on the o-27 track might be to sharp. Thanks for the help. I will ask any more questions I have about this on the ClassicToy trains forum.( I wasn’t sure which forum to post this on).
Thanks again for the help
Emmar