Went to a small model railroad show yesterday. The usual vendors with an array of new and used products were there as were several nice layouts. One of the most notable was almost not visible. A fellow had a small loop of TT track and a 3 car train running around, He also had some Z scale track and cars to compare them too. Are they small! One could set up an accurate model of many prototype roads in a reasonable size basement. Neither the Z or TT can have a lot of detail, but one could sure set up a very large layout on a 4x8 and have room to spare. Don’t know if there is anything but the little Japanese train cars he had available at this time, but it is certainly a start in mini mini model railroading.
Have fun,
Richard
Edit: Jeff is right it was T scale and Tiny is the word.
TT (Table Top), also derisively called Too Tiny, was introduced around 1960 and was popular in Eastern Europe during the cold war, but never did really catch on in this country. It’s about half way between HO and N.
There is still very little TT available today in this country because N became moe plentiful and cheaper.
Are you sure you’re not thinking about T Scale? TT (1:120) is smaller than HO (1:87.1) but bigger than N (1:148 to 1:160 depending on country and manufacturer). Z Scale (1:220) is bigger than T (1:450). Z is tiny but T is darn near microscopic by comparison.
What you saw was most likely T scale, made by Eishindo of Japan. It´s been around for some years now, but is limited to Japanese trains. There are some cottage type businesses offering body shells of different prototype, to fit over the Eishindo mechanisms, but none of it resembles US prototype.
I think it is a nice gimmick and certainly fun to build, but not suitable for some serious model railroading.
It would be a challenge to put a decoder in one of those providing someone ever makes a decoder small enough to fit. The smallest I know of is for Z Scale.
vsmith - you have nearly convinced me. Now, if you show me a train which does a little more than circulate on a more or less elaborate “oval”, you´ve got me.
On the serious side - that Victorian Railway layout is gorgeous!