Smaller Scale Conversion??

[Sir_Prize]

Making head way on my N-Trak Module.
I mentioned in the TRACK PLANNING area.
Help!...Stuck N-Trak Idea

NEW Question:
How did the figure of N being 54% smaller than HO begin?
Or is it a ROUGH %?
If so...
What would be 54% smaller than Z scale (1:220) be?

That's what I figure would be a good "visual" shrink size
for the second (so to speak) row of skyscappers behind the Z scale first row.
Which is ALL behind the N scale Train Museum "Hologram" display.

Hmmm....

 

[60103]

... and then add sales tax...

Ken: the 54% seems to be 9mm/16.5mm (ratio of track gauges). I'm not sure what the scale of N is any more.
applying 54% to Z gives a proportion of 1:407, call it 1:400.

 

[Sir_Prize]

David- thanks for the help.

Now if I can just figure out how N GAUGER got the numbers he used
in his formulas for the MS Excel SCALE CONVERSION worksheets he did...
Then apply that to my "new" scale 1:400.

More brain racking again... Oh well!

 

[RailRon]

Ken, do you intend to bring out a the new scale of 1:400 commercially?
Hmmm... You could call it ST-scale (Super-Tiny Scale) - using the most modern nanotechnology. Locos would look like motorized mousedroppings

BTW, N scale is 1:160 (and for the British it is (was?) called 000 with a scale of 1:144. Both running on the same 9 mm track.

Ron

 

[Sir_Tainly]

Ron,

For the British it is also called N, but is indeed 1/144. I have only ever seen 000 applied to Lone Star trains.

Sir Prize,

I believe 1/144 was chosen as it is half 1/72, the aircraft kit scale. British stock was historically a bigger scale because the motors wouldn't fit into a correctly scaled loco of British loading gauge. (Also hence why British OO is 1/76 yet still runs on HO track)

Additionally 1/144 makes an average 6' tall man 1/2" tall, a very handy conversion.

I would presume 1/160 was chosen because making tracks 8.25mm apart would be an exacting process, whereas 9mm was much easier.

Simon

 

[RailRon]

Simon,

I recall that in 1971 or 1972 I bought a motorless (!) Union Pacific F7, together with a set of two or three passenger cars (also in UP colors) and a set of cheap plastic rails which could be clipped together. The models were crude (to express it in polite words ), one end had a hook and the other a ring for couplers - and they were in 000 scale. So it said on the plastic bag in which the whole 'model railroad' was sold!

What I don't remember for sure is the manufacturer, but it could have been Lone Star, Tyco or Dinky (??). In any case, it was British.

The loco found its place on my layout, though. It spent its 'final days' behind my enginehouse on the wrecker track. Since its scale is 1:144 the old 000 gal looks quite massive compared to the other N scale engines.

I found an old b&w pic of that scene.

Ron

 

[Sir_Tainly]

Thanks for the picture Ron

I don't doubt for a minute that items were sold as OOO, particualrly as I have seen Lone Star labelled as such, but I'm pretty sure for "purists" it has always been N.

I maybe mistaken here but I seem to recall from my childhood a set of small trains my Matchbox/ Lesney. They may well have been marketed as OOO.

Anyway I'll muddy the waters here because UK N is also known as 2mm scale (i.e. 2mm to the foot)

Cheers

Simon

 

[60103]

2mm is N?

Simon, don't tell that to the 2mm modellers. We had them up at our Great British Train Show, and they're very definitely NOT N scale.
I think that British N is 2 1/16mm to the foot and elsewhere it is 1.8 or 1.75mm to the foot.
Lone Star was established as push trains for a while, then came out as Treble-O-Lectric in the early 60s. (I know, because I bought some.) They changed the gauge very slightly then, and added the automatic coupling. In the 70's, a lot of it was being sold in dime stores (Woolworth's) in bubble wrap packages, with dummy locomotives.
I saw some in an antique store last week, asking Cdn $30 for a coach, more for a dummy loco, less for vans and waggons.

 

[RailRon]

Thanks David, for your informations. My models must have been those Lone Star push trains.

Come to think of it - so I threw away almost a fortune, when they finally landed in the dustbin.

Ok, this is not exactly new for me. It happened before, when I threw away some Dinky Toys racing cars about twenty years ago. About two years ago I found one of them in a list of an auction house (in a British car magazine) priced at £1200!

Oh well, it's the idiots like me who throw away old 'junk' and rise the value of the remaining items.

Ron