All the research I have been doing I have been seeing and hearing about different scales. I know the difference between HO, N scales and the Lionel. Then you get into the G scale and there are 1:20 etc… Then I found there is the 7/8th scale and the On30 wich really confsued me. Is there any sites that defines the difference scales with examples to compare. I have seen other forums talk about scale but Im still confused. It seems their are so many. I have the Bachmann big Hauler tweetsie set and the LGB value starter set #92400 and going to be using the Aristo brass track for my layout and I hope to add on by making my own track. I really like the 7/8th scale. Would that work with my Aristo? thanks for putting up with my dumb questions, eventually I will get the hang of this.[banghead]
“G” gauge is made up of many different scale sizes. Scale is the proportion to the prototype that you want to model. Gauge is the width of the track. If you use the typical “G” gauge track & want to model American standard gauge it would come out to 32 :1. Not many manufacturers produce this scale, most people will accept 29 ; 1 as standard because for some reason many manufacturers chose this size ie Aristocraft.
LGB is 22.5 : 1 because it is based on the track being 1 meter ( 39+"). Many people are using the track as 3’ narrow gauge which makes the scale 20.3 : 1…which the newer Bachmann Spectrum models are. You can go to 2’ narrow gauge, or even further…it’s up to you. The early bachmann engines & rolling are to no actual scale. Many people mix & match scales & are happy. Others keep to one scale.
I’ve seen many 24 : 1 model cars included in various RRs & they are acceptable to most people. Jerry L
You have to stop thinking that a letter of the alphabet represents a numerical scale. The letter indicates how far apart the rails of the track are (the gauge). HO is something like 0.65 inches apart and N is around 0.35 inches. G is 1.77 inches (45-millimeter). I don’t remember the exact dimensions, you can look them up if you are really interested, I just took 56.5 (the dimension of REAL Standard Gauge Track) and divided by the ‘usual’ scale associated with that letter of the alphabet. (Which is exactly what I just told you to NOT do! [:O] )
But think of it this way.
If HO scale is 1:87 (or 1/87th) then what would be the dimension of “HO track” if you decided that it represented 7.25 inch gauge in the real world? Well, if it is still HO track then it is still about .65 inches! HO is NOT the “scale”, it is the GAUGE.
If you decided to build a 1:87 scale railroad that represented a 7.25 inch gauge then the track rails would be 0.086 inches apart (7.25/87). You could put it on your layout and it would represent a ride-on scale train in your toy HO layout.
Conversely, If you decided to use HO track to run a model of a ride-on scale train (a scale model of a scale model) then the SCALE of the HO track and the train running on it would be 1:11.1 (7.25/.65)… i.e. you would build the locomotive from plans for a 7.25 inch gauge locomotive but divide all the dimensions by 11.1 to get the sizes to make things.
MOST people still think of HO as a “scale” and that is okay until you decide to use their track to represent a different prototype gauge, then the scale changes, but the track is still 0.65 inch gauge.
This is where the On30 stuff comes from. The SCALE decision is that “O” gauge track (which is about 1.25 inch gauge) represents 30 inch prototype gauge, and the “scale” is then 1:24 (or 1/24th). Thus they can ru
Getting back to part of the question, a year or so ago somebody posted a picture of the same loco in the various scales. That would let you see the difference. Try a search. It may have been in one of the lengthy discussions that usually pop up about once a year on scale/guage!
Maybe Rene knows where to find the pic I’m talking about!!
Toad
Wasn’t “G” the scale (22.5:1) introduced by LGB (G=gross [big] in German) to run on Gauge 1 track?
Per
Yes, and “G” stuck to mean the GAUGE (not the scale) because the track is commonly used in a “Garden” (thus “G” for “Garden”). But since all the other “scales” use the letter of the gauge to represent the scale, “G” also came to mean the “scale” but everyone has their own definition of what scale the “G” represents. In the photo above showing the various Santa Fe Warbonnet Diesels, note that they are all identified by the LETTER, not the SCALE, yet, the one for “G” could be any of the scales commonly (or uncommonly) used with “G” GAUGE track. Even though ATSF never ran a Warbonnet Diesel of that shape on anything other than Standard Gauge, there have been several toys engines that run on Gauge 1 track in 1:22, 1:24, 1:29 and 1:32 scales… the mfg.s just squirreled with the proportions to make it look kinda nice and to fit-in with the freight and passenger cars they already make at whatever scale they want to produce.
Lots of folk believe that the “G” actually stands for “GOOFY” because of the sillyness with scales in the genre refered to as “G-scale”.
7/8’s is a scale modeling small industrial and a few small railroads (mostly Maine and South America) running on narrow gauge 2 foot or 18 inch wide track. 7/8’s scale is 7/8’s of an inch being equivalent to one foot or 1:13.7 scale. When run on “G scale” 45 mm track (also known as #1 gauge) it is two foot gauge (7/8n2). When run on “O scale” 32 mm track it is 18 inch narrow gauge (7/8n18).
Most of the locomotives are kitbashed large scale locomotives (mostly 1:20.3 or 1:22.5) that are scaled up to to 1:13.7. This is done by enlarging the cabs, widening bodies, enlarging smoke stacks and other details. Most rolling stock is scratch built with parts available from Ozark Miniatures, Hartford Products, Sierra Valley, and Talisman. Go to http://www.7-8ths.info/ for more info. This is an area of large scale trains I am starting to play with because I enjoy the free lance kitbashing/scratchbuilding aspects of it. It is more than twice the size of Aristo 1/29 scale trains so running the two together will not look right but both
Here we have ditched the whole scale gauge confusion and got back to a workable system…
I model in four scales and two gauges.
The scales are 16mm, 7mm, 13.5mm and 25mm.
The gauges are 32mm and 63.5mm.
It makes life a lot easier!!!
regards
ralph
In the garden the scale is 1 to 1 so anything you put in the garden that’s not at that scale has, for me, to be pleasing to the eye. I run loco’s from LGB, USA, Aristo, Bachmann and they go from 1:20.3 to 1:29. If it looks right, again for me, then it is right and I enjoy the train for what it is, a railway in a garden. If you want to go to a true scale railway then others here will point you down the route of scale plantings etc etc. Whatever, enjoy your trains for what they are, good fun!!
Cheers,
Kim
Take a look at the LargeScaleWiki
Everybody else is confused about scale, too. Just look at all the different opinions every time it’s brought up. As I’ve said time and again, if it looks good, I use it.
Even they can’t get it right. They list Gauges under the heading _Scales_
Per
Marthastrainyard, If you go back to threads in this forum about a year to a year and a half ago, you will find many references to “G”, particularly LGB’s G, as “Gummi”. The reasoning behind those comments were that the models they produced were often one scale in length, another in width, still another in height, with untold differences in details.
To my taste, everything they made looked european, even though it was supposed to be an American prototype; therefore there isn’t any red box stuff on my layout.
It may have superior mechanicals in the product, but after 6 years, I haven’t any complaints with the other major manufacturer’s products. And, they look more like what I used to see on the local rails!
Possibly the manufacturers should do a better job of differentiating between scale and guage when they do the box design and catalog ads; but one needs that mental disconnect between the two!
Captain, I couldn’t agree with you more. A year ago I went to a trainshow to buy one of those cardboard train storage boxes. “What gauge?” asked the salesman and I quickly said “Standard”. He immediately started to pick out an S-scale box for me! “No, I model H0 scale” I said. And the confusion was total on his side.
Semper V:
That was quite a tour of numbers. I bet you could answer a pretty basic question for me. Hope you can, at any rate.
Let us suppose I desire to model in G gauge (45mm) at 1:20.3 scale. Let us now suppose I measure a gondola, and it is 4" wide and 8" long. (Body only). What ‘scale’ length would that be in 20.3, and how do I determine that? Since in Ozark Minature’s catalog, on the back page conversion chart, 12" in 20.3 is given as 0.591. (Presumably, inches).
Let’s round up to 0.6, as I’m disinclined to work to less than a hundreth of an inch. Thus, the length of the gon would be 8 divided by .6, or 13.3 scale feet long. Right? And by the same math, it would be 4/.6 or 6.6 scale feet wide? Am I doing this right?
Anyone else can dive right in, because I’ve sure managed to confuse myself.
Thanks,
Les W.
It is unfortuate that the scale designation is done with a colon (“:”) instead of the division sign (“/”) because if the scale were shown with the division sign it would be a lot more obvious what to do.
1:20.3 is the same as 1/20.3
Like you I am oft loath the work with fractions at all, so let’s, just for the sake of aleviating the mental gymnastics, drop the “.3” and just call it 1/20.
Thus the scale world is one twentheth of the real world (well, in this instance anyway).
I assume from the measurements you provided that you are starting from the scale world and not the real world. If the body is just 4-inches wide AND we assume it is a 1:20 scale model then the real world body is 20 times wider (the scale world is 1/20 of the real world, or the real world is 20 times the scale world)… divide to go to the scale world and multiply to return to the real world… so the original would be 20 times 4-inches which is, uh, wait till I get my calculator… okay, 80 inches and that reduces to 6-feet 8-inches.
Do the same with the 8-inch length and you get 13-feet 4-inches.
Now, throw that point three back into it and re-calculate the numbers.
Okay, okay, while I got the calculator out…
4-inches at 1:20.3 scale is 6’ 9.2" in the real world.
8-inches at 1:20.3 scale is 13’ 6.4" in the real world.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE in the confusion… just look back through the postings on this, or any other model site, and you will see your question in one form or another many times over.
Charles, or Semper Vaporo,
I am sorry to say, you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem!
The Scale is the letter, the gauge is just a measurement between the rails. In O scale or 1:48, 32 mm between the rails is standard gauge, while 16.5 mm track is a narrow gauge known as On30, where 30 is the number of scale inches between the rails. An O scale person is the same size/height in standard gauge or narrow gauge. He is still 1:48.
In Large Scale the principal track used is 45mm guage, but a number of different scales are using that track to run their trains. In 1:32 scale or No. 1 scale they are standard gauge (although for some unknown reason, American modellers accept 1:29 as standard gauge) In half inch scale (1:24) the tracks are 42 inches apart, or 3’ 6". In 1:22.5 (LGB or the first G scale) the tracks are one metre or 39.39 inches apart. In 1:20.3 the tracks are 3 feet apart. This has become known as F Scale, because it is the letter before G.
Mick
Mt Beenak, Down Under
Snowshoe,
First, I’m glad you are considering 7/8 scale; 2nd, you can use just about any size rail with 7/8n2 or 7/8n18 because the poundage (pounds per yard) of rail varies so much on each line and each country.
I have a table somewhere but off the top of my head, if you are using say code 148, that might represent 20 lb rail, used for very light operations. Code 330 might represent 90 lb rail at the other end. So you’d be dead on. That covers most of the rail codes (in between those figures); although 148 is hard to work with as ballast issues arise (although I’ve developed 2 methods to alleviate that issue).
Code 250 seems to be the most popular among 7/8 enthusiasts as an excellent compromise. Tie spacing is usually twice as far and wide as your normal G gauge ready to run track so you’d need to relay ties for it to look halfway decent, with wood the preferred material.
I sent you an email
Semper/Charles
Thank you for the comprehensive reply. Regrettably, in posting at that hour I failed to make it clear that I am starting with ‘real world’ measurements, in this case the common Echo gondola, which is 4" wide x 8.5" long. (I neglected to add the .5 to keep things simple).
My purpose is to understand the scale size of this undersized, no-scale gondola in terms of scale feet in a 20.3 world. Or, 1/20, which, by using, I agree is much clearer to illustrate. I came up with numbers very close to yours by measuring with my 1:1 pocket tape, namely 8", then dividing that by .6, (though .591 is accurate) and arriving at 13.3 scale feet in length. Note that I did not use 20.3 or .591 and still came up with a close approximation of your numbers.
But that is the hidden Jewel of The Quest: by what number does one divide to determine roughly the scale size of a given object in the 1/20 world? That number is .6 divided into the actual, realworld number. Right? Our numbers certainly correlate rather closely.
If I am correct–and if I’m not I hope you’ll be kind enough to try again–I can now take my steel 6" machinist’s pocket scale, calibrated in .01, measure perhaps a wheel diameter, mentally divide by .6 and conclude, lo, this is about a 30" dia wheel in the 1/20 world where I model.
Of course, when final layout and construction begin, the decimals will have to creep back in.
Thank you very much for taking time to illustrate your explanation: “Divide to go to the scale world and multiply to go to the real world.” Admirably lucid. Would that I was a stonemason and had a flat rock handy.[:P]
Les W (freezing on the s. bank of the Missouri)