OOO gauge

[Mancunianphil]

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question? but, is lonestar OOO compatable with n gauge track

[Malc]

I think it is the same gauge, but don't know if the rail joiners will fit.

[railsquid]

If you mean the rolling stock - yes, for certain values of "compatible". I acquired a Lone Star Class 24 off ebay mainly out of curiosity; incredibly it actually works and will zip around my Kato Unitrack / Tomix finetrack in a faintly alarming manner - until it hits some points. It seems the flanges - while not particularly huge by later pizza-cutter standards, are quite wide and cause the locomotive to ride up and off the track when passing over the frog and/or the little plastic guide rails opposite the frog. The rolling stock (in this case: a Mk1 coach) is not quite so bad but is still happiest not going over points.

[ohlavache]

As already answered, yes OOO is 9mm gauge.
What is really amazing is that, the same year and even the same months, both Arnold and Lone Star introduced their very first N gauge models. It was in February and March 1960.
In 2010, I was very surprised that no manufacturer celebrated the 50 years of N gauge. Arnold only produced some anniversary models for their own 50 years... without reminding that they are one of the two inventors. Neither Graham Farish nor Dapol celebrated it as well.
I hope it will be different in 2020.

There's one thing I ignore. How the British N gauge market came to 1:148 instead of 1:160.
Was it Graham Farish's choice ? When did they start N gauge ?

[Roy L S]

As already answered, yes OOO is 9mm gauge.
What is really amazing is that, the same year and even the same months, both Arnold and Lone Star introduced their very first N gauge models. It was in February and March 1960.
In 2010, I was very surprised that no manufacturer celebrated the 50 years of N gauge. Arnold only produced some anniversary models for their own 50 years... without reminding that they are one of the two inventors. Neither Graham Farish nor Dapol celebrated it as well.
I hope it will be different in 2020.

There's one thing I ignore. How the British N gauge market came to 1:148 instead of 1:160.
Was it Graham Farish's choice ? When did they start N gauge ?

No I think you will find that the Britiish standard of 1:148 was decided on during the formation of the N Gauge Society of which Sydney Pritchard (Peco MD) and Peco were founder members. The standards were decided upon due to the difficulty getting British outline models scaled at 1:160 into continemtal mechanisms (all that was available at the time).

Then having defined the standards it led to Peco's range of "Wonderful Wagons" and indeed "Wonderful coaches" (Minitrix ones were initially branded and marketed as Peco in about 1967). Then of course in 1969/70 the legendary "Jubilee" which it has to be said still holds it's own very well against today's models given it's age.

The Farish range began to be introduced in 1969/70. The first loco was the 94xx Pannier, I am lucky enough to have two of these original Panniers and they still run very well, which is more than can be said for the next incarnation of it with the cheap and very nasty plastic chassis..

Roy

[PGN]

I might add that in about 1990 there was an attempt by some members of the NGS to argue for a new set of British N Gauge standards, which got very short shrift from the manufacturers - who said YOU defined the standards you wanted; WE produced models to those standards; we're too heavily invested in those standards to be willing to change them now.

Personally, I think they are a pretty good set of standards, which have stood the test of time.

[ohlavache]

Thanks a lot for your two answers.
On Wikipedia, there's a link to get more details, but it doesn't work : http://teladesign.com/british-n-scale/standards.html

Do you know where I could find more details ?

[PGN]

That rather depends what you mean by "more details".

If it's more details of the standards themselves that you're after, you'll find them all set out on the Peco N gauge rule, which was one of the very first items they made for N gauge, and has been in the catalogue ever since. You can get them from the NGS shop.

If it's the early history of 000 / N that you're interested in, I wrote some pieces on this for Nspirations magazine (I think it was numbers 5 and 6 or thereabouts). I covered the history of British N in the 1960s and 1970s. The third article was projected to cover the 1980s, but the subject was too big to treat in the same way that I had done the first two, and I was defeated by the sheer magnitude of the task. I may return to it in due course. We'll see.

If it's LoneStar 000 you're interested in, then I believe there is actually a collectors' club, and they may be able to help you with any technical queries.

Jeremy

[belstone]

The Farish range began to be introduced in 1969/70. The first loco was the 94xx Pannier, I am lucky enough to have two of these original Panniers and they still run very well, which is more than can be said for the next incarnation of it with the cheap and very nasty plastic chassis..

Roy

I hadn't realised there was another Farish Pannier chassis before the plastic one with the self-consuming gears.  I'm tempted to start acquiring some of this very early N gauge - it doesn't seem to be regarded as collectable at the moment, and it's what I remember as a small child in the mid-Seventies.  The Farish J69 was an amazing achievement for the time, even if it tended not to work for very long. Mine stripped its gears within a week. The stuff my father built - Ian Kirk coach and wagon kits, ABS Drewry shunter body kit on a Minitrix dock tank chassis, Lima motor bogies powering everything from a 4-VEP (Farish 'mainline' coaches and Plastikard) to a complete prototype HST (Minitrix coach bogies and enough Plastikard to pay the Slaters factory workers a Christmas bonus) - happy days.

[ohlavache]

If it's the early history of 000 / N that you're interested in, I wrote some pieces on this for Nspirations magazine (I think it was numbers 5 and 6 or thereabouts). I covered the history of British N in the 1960s and 1970s. The third article was projected to cover the 1980s, but the subject was too big to treat in the same way that I had done the first two, and I was defeated by the sheer magnitude of the task. I may return to it in due course. We'll see.

Jeremy

Yes, it is British N gauge history. I've found out: it was N'spirations 5 and 7.
Now I have to find them.