Category talk:Model railroad scales

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US and UK naming conventions

Not only do Americans and British use different scales, but they refer to them with different terminology. In America, they say "HO scale", standard gauge is assumed, and scale is measured as a ratio (such as 1:87). In Britain, they say "4 mm scale, OO gauge" and it is considered incorrect to use the letter designations for scales. British modellers are often divided between finescalers and 'normal' scale modellers, because scale/gauge disrepancies are much worse for the commonly used British scales. Narrow gauge terminology adds to the confusion. In America, the most common narrow gauge is HOn3 (HO scale, narrow, 3-scale-foot gauge). In Britain, the most common narrow gauge is OO9 (OO/4 mm scale, 9-real-millimetre gauge). As these examples show, British narrow-gauge modellers usually use track intended for standard gauge of a smaller scale, and Americans do this less commonly. OO9 scales to 27-inch gauge, which (as far as I know) doesn't exist. Maybe British modellers do it this way because Britain and Europe had/have more variety of narrow gauges than the USA?

I think we should have an explanation of all this in an article. Most articles on model railroading on Wikipedia appear to have been written by British modellers, and there isn't enough about the rest of the world.

SpaceCaptain 18:46, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

27 inch gauge (2' 3") railways certainly exist, the following lines in the UK are 2'3": Talyllyn Railway, Corris Railway, Campbletown and Machrihanish Railway, Plynlimon and Hafan Tramway. There were also several 2' 3" gauge railways in the British coal industry.

Also, "00 gauge" is quite common terminology in the UK, and you rarely see the full designation "4 mm scale, OO gauge" written out.

Gwernol

Thanks for informing me about 27-inch gauge. The full designation "4 mm scale, OO gauge" is rarely said, it's true, but that's just because... it's simpler not to, I guess. Anyway, it's always been a pet peeve of mine that (since model railroading books are written by one author from one country) I've never seen a book just get down and explain all this. Maybe I don't know the whole story, but that's because of what I just explained. Can you tell me about anything important I might have missed? SpaceCaptain 02:45, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you do tend to get particular points of view/experiences coming across in these sorts of article. Its pretty much inevitable, I guess. Of course this is exactly what Wikipedia should be able to overcome with collaborative editing.

There are a couple of decent articles on scale out on the web. I'm going to do some research and see if I can take a crack at improving the article.

Gwernol 15:35, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are you American, British, or something else? Just try to distill the different statements down into something that makes sense while noting all disrepancies. Then we'll have the best article on the subject I've ever seen. SpaceCaptain 23:59, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)