Hope I don’t get grief over this, but last night I was lying abed, thinking. I first became intrigued by the idea of ‘Scale’ when I first saw an article on ‘TT’ scale. I was prob’ly 11-12 years old. Had to be in the Saturday Evening Post, the only magazine Dad subscribed to. That’s when I first realized my Lionel 027 was a size unto itself. TT was ‘proportioned and realistic’, according to the article.
Just wondering. I don’t believe I’ve ever even seen a piece of it.
I received my August issue of GR today. To recap, there exists a difference of opinion between Friend Wife and Mr. Kalmbach about who owes whom what, which is being resolved. I hope.
Also, today at a garage sale, for the unbeatable price of a nickel, I found an ore car body that is very roughly 2"L x 1.5"W x 1.5"H. No wheels, no coupler. It’s a toy, but acceptably detailed, esp. to my undemanding standards. Since a feature of my RR will be a mine, I wondered what is commonly used for … well, ‘mine gauge’ in 45mm layouts? Or is it pretty much dealer’s choice? It came to me that 4 HO wheels and a few pieces of HO track might do the trick. The car, if wheeled as above, would be about waist high to ‘Johnny Verbeck’, my only G gauge figure, the guy off the LGB inspection car. (Anybody remember that old ditty, about a German with a sausage machine?)
That is my unresearched guess too. I remember seeing TT all the time in MR and the magazine-books until about the time I got my first N-scale set in about 1969. I don’t remember seeing much of it since.
I became aware of TT scale trains in the late 50’s. Until now I always thought TT stood for Tom Thumb. I’m pretty sure that TT and Tom Thimb were pretty much interchangable way back then in the dark ages.
I wonder how many ever even heard of Tom Thumb! Kids these days can’t believe that there wasn’t any TV or Computers when I was a kid. What? No Power steering??? You gotta be kidding! Cars you had to shift grears in? Your’e a nut! Cadillacs without A/c; You out of your mind! Wadda you mean a torque converter transmission???
Those things are even more passe than passenger trains! At least there are a few of them around that we can take the grandkids on just so that they have had the experiance in thier lives and will have some idea of what we’re talking about!
Thanks for the note. When I became aware of TT, it was ca 1955-57. N scale I have never felt an affinity for. Forget Z, I’d have to track it by ear and I’m needing batteries to do that. I posted once that I blew a lot of pre-retirement $$ on HO, then realized I couldn’t see it, either. Then I discovered G gauge on the web. When I realized how big it was … well, here I am.
This gauge is good. More precisely, G gauge is a great dimension to kitbash, scratchbuild, whatever, w/o aid of large magnifying glasses. The sight of my thumb under higher magnification is off-putting. [xx(]
Just to keep my head straight, 45mm is ‘my’ narrow gauge. (3 foot, US). That’s because I’ve learned that narrow gauge equipment is smaller than its standard gauge cousins, and that 3 foot is often considered US narrow gauge, although there are a plethora of other narrow gauges that have been used over the years in the real world. And in model RR.
So, what I was after was a ‘narrow gauge’ for my ‘narrow gauge 45mm’ track. It seemed plausible to me that, having some HO trucks to hand, and doing some eyeball comparisons, this five-cent ore car might be just the ticket.
Now it happens that Curmudgeon’s suggestion dovetails brilliantly with another feature I’ve always found interesting, and that is dual gauge trackways. How switches would work in that world I have no clue. But it was a happy thought because much fiddling in the mine site would be possible and I’m more a shuffler of cars and builder of operating things than a runner, though I certainly intend to have a dual track mainline when all is said and done. But that’s far in the future.
Thanks for the kind reply. BTW, aren’t you across the pond? Does it ever snow in your neck of the woods?
Les at the confluence of the Missouri & Mississippi R’s.
Yes I am in the UK -but I was born in Rhodesia. I live about 350m above sea level at 57deg north and yes it does snow here. The nice people at the County Offices hurriedly erect 2m high red and white striped poles -to show where the road is when it snows…
Well, if I assume you are using 45mm gauge track this means that you must be using 15mm scale THUS your 32mm track works out at 2 feet 1 1/2 inches. This is a fairly common gauge (infact it is the one I model in…)
The Garden Railway Club that I belong to does have dual 45mm and 32mm track and points. The mechanics of which are horrifying!!!
This is from Garden Railways Specialists and shows a Gauge 1 (45mm) and Gauge 3 (63.5mm) set of combined points… I think this might be what you are refering to David as Gauge 2 is very rare -even compared to Gauge 3!!!
It gives you some insight into the maths required to get the curves in the correct position. I have the Henry Greenly books -but to be honest I intend to run my Gauge 0 and Gauge 3 track as two distinct entities. The tables in the books are very good, however I doubt my ability to even attempt to cut an angle according to them -let alone follow the calculations with out my trusty HP!!!
VIZ:
Frog Angle: 1 in 7
Radial Angle: 8 deg 8 minutes of arc
Cotan of Angle: 6.998
Sine of Angle: 0.1415
Vers of Sine: 0.0077
Having got this, you can now do a simple calculation that will position the pieces on the track. Then you have to do this for the next gauge…
I may have a “go” at a Gauge 3 set of points -but never a combination set!!!
