Please bear in mind I am new to all this, I am learning on the fly and by reading back through old posts, so any helpful replies will be most appreciated.
I know that "N Gauge", is a track size, not a scale, and there is technically no such thing as "N Scale"
I also know that the Americans generally seem to associate 1:160 scale to N Gauge, where as in the UK, we seem to use 1:148. Generically though, every one seems to refer it to it as 2mm scale...
So my first problem is, 2mm to the what??? surely not 2mm to the foot, how odd to mix metric and imperial. then taking 304.8mm in a foot, the scale would work out to 1:154, different yet again to either UK or American. What gives?
Next, as I am starting from scratch, I have been buying cheap American looking rolling stock off of Ebay, The problem is, most adverts don't put the make in the description, let alone any scale details, so you get what you get. Looking further though, it seems that even when trying to buy new stock, often they do not put what country or scale of the "N Gauge" carriages they are selling, in the description or on the box, so it looks like you just have to take a punt, and hope for the best that when you get it home and compare it to what you have.
The thing is, now I have successfully won and received a few bits, I notice that while they should in theory all be American cars, they vary hugely in scale, two of the box cars I have got, look like almost identical models, but are hugely different in physical size.
So, how do I work this whole "Scale" thing out, and what is the best way to actually make sure I have at least all the same stock on the same train. It's easy when comparing like for like, but a lot harder when comparing, for example, a caboose and container car. So is it just a case of doing it all by eye and what looks right, or is there something I can measure to get an idea?
Regarding the American freight stock it does vary quite a lot in size and cabooses seem quite small in comparison. I'm not a expert at all but by coincidence was helping catalog an American collection yesterday and noticed the different sizes of the boxcars and wagons while I was trying to find boxes for them.
I'm sure the American experts will be able to give you more information soon.
:NGaugersRule:
If as appears from your post you are modelling U.S. then you are working in 1:160 or N Scale 9mm track gauge is correct as is to my knowledge the sleeper spacing. My understanding is all U.S. stock is to N Scale or 1:160, 2mm to the foot does not apply, or at least I've not heard it quoted.
Difference in sizes of cars etc may well be down to loading gauges of different operators on different lines. Overtime you may be best modelling a set route or operator and researching they vehicles before buying.
Quote from: Lazy-Ferret on April 22, 2016, 05:04:57 PM
surely not 2mm to the foot, how odd to mix metric and imperial.
We've been doing that since I was at school in the 50s and 60s. We learned millimetres and centimetres for small measurements and feet, yards, rods, poles, perches, furlongs and miles for larger ones - whatever was most practical. So yes, it is 2mm to the foot.
Quote from: keithfre on April 22, 2016, 07:08:44 PM
Quote from: Lazy-Ferret on April 22, 2016, 05:04:57 PM
surely not 2mm to the foot, how odd to mix metric and imperial.
We've been doing that since I was at school in the 50s and 60s. We learned millimetres and centimetres for small measurements and feet, yards, rods, poles, perches, furlongs and miles for larger ones - whatever was most practical. So yes, it is 2mm to the foot.
Also if you're looking a plans/designs/maps etc of the original railways prototypes that you're modeling the measurements will typically all be in imperial (unless you're doing really modern stuff) while the units of measurement most people are taught now are metric. So 2mm to the foot makes it an easier conversion.
Remember that "N gauge" refers to the first letter of the german for nine (neun). So essentially all "N Gauge" is going to be 9MM width of the tracks. The initial N Gauge was continental (german) and was 1:160. Since UK loading gauge is smaller than mainland Europe and thus the rolling stock is smaller, that presented a problem with fitting the motors into UK outline models, hence the need to go to 1:148 to fit the (german) chassis into something that looked even vaguely like a UK engine. Japanese is actually 1:150 (don't know why they went that route). As with everything, there are differences and variations. Regardless, they will all run (or at least fit...don't start on pizza-cutter issues) on the same gauge of track (9mm). You'll also see reference to "2mm fine scale" where the (hand made) track is actually 9.42mm gauge and everything is really 2mm to 1ft...not commercial, so I doubt you'll find much if anything second hand at low prices. The Wikipedia entry on all this is not very enlightening, but here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_scale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_scale)
With respect to freight car sizes in the US, these do vary. Assuming you don't get very old stock (which is often a bit out of scale), the length will change depending on what is being modeled. If, for example, you take the apparently ubiquitous box car, that can be a prototypical 36ft, 40ft, 41ft, 50ft, 50.5ft, 53ft, 60ft, 85ft or 86ft long. Depending on era, they will or will not have walkways along the top. Here's a website that can help with identification for boxcars:
http://www.spookshow.net/freight/freight.php?box=3&rtr=16&plastic=18&sort1=3&sort2=2&sort3=4&compress=1&Submit=Submit (http://www.spookshow.net/freight/freight.php?box=3&rtr=16&plastic=18&sort1=3&sort2=2&sort3=4&compress=1&Submit=Submit)
If you go to the "Spookshow home" link at the bottom, you can search loco's, passenger and freight on this reference site. I find this very useful for pre-purchase research.
Jon
Mixing metric and imperial is common and often gives something that works well.
The phrase 8x4 sheets of 16mm OSB to quote one I used to day, is both well used and easily understandable, for example.
The US refers to N (and HO) scales not gauges, presumably because the work to the relevent ratio, N is 1:160, not to the scale in feet.
304.8 divided by 2 is 152.4, which is the precise ratio for a 2mm scale foot.
The scale for British N is actually two and one sixteenth of a mm / foot; being slightly larger than true 2mm scale....But for some reason people tend to forget the sixteenth ;)
Quote from: Jon898 on April 22, 2016, 08:59:50 PM
Remember that "N gauge" refers to the first letter of the german for nine (neun). So essentially all "N Gauge" is going to be 9MM width of the tracks. The initial N Gauge was continental (german) and was 1:160. Since UK loading gauge is smaller than mainland Europe and thus the rolling stock is smaller, that presented a problem with fitting the motors into UK outline models, hence the need to go to 1:148 to fit the (german) chassis into something that looked even vaguely like a UK engine. Japanese is actually 1:150 (don't know why they went that route).
Apparently because it was suggested by the publisher of one of the dominant model railway magazines of the time (Hobby of Model Railroading (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_of_Model_Railroading)), though I haven't found the reason (I might see if I can track down the issue in question), and Kato adopted the scale (though many early models were somewhat overscale) and the rest, as they say, is history. I suspect the reason is similar to Britain, i.e. smaller locomotives compared to Europe/North America. Shinkansens are produced at 1:160, as they're much larger and building to 1:150 would make them too big for the 1:150 N gauge infrastructure.
Quote from: JasonBz on April 22, 2016, 09:13:20 PM
Mixing metric and imperial is common and often gives something that works well.
The phrase 8x4 sheets of 16mm OSB to quote one I used to day, is both well used and easily understandable, for example.
The US refers to N (and HO) scales not gauges, presumably because the work to the relevent ratio, N is 1:160, not to the scale in feet.
304.8 divided by 2 is 152.4, which is the precise ratio for a 2mm scale foot.
The scale for British N is actually two and one sixteenth of a mm / foot; being slightly larger than true 2mm scale....But for some reason people tend to forget the sixteenth ;)
The US refers to their 9 mm railway gear as N scale because the locomotive and freight car body dimensions are all in scale proportion to the width of the track (all scaled as 1:160 i.e. N scale). Farish and Dapol have a scaling ratio of 1:160 for the track gauge, but have a scaling ratio of 1:148 for the other rolling stock dimensions. Consequently the body sizes are about 7% too large for the track gauge. So the US rightly calls their stuff N scale, whereas the UK (and the title of this forum) correctly refers to N gauge because the rolling stock dimensions are not N scale even though the gauge is. The situation with OO is even worse, where loco bodies are 13% oversize compared to the track width.
Webbo
Yes, it's all a bit of a mess, but, as stated in previous posts, has come about from the haphazard beginnings to N modelling.
I reckon that the biggest mistake in the early days was the widescale adoption of those horrible Rapid couplings.
George
The Americans had Rapido too to begin with and up till 10 years ago you could still buy Atlas boxcars with Rapido couplings as an option. Early on, Micro-Trains (or Kadee as it was then) made knuckle coupler conversion kits for locos made by Atlas, Kato, ConCor, Arnold, Minitrix etc. whereas the UK did not have the likes of Kadee to do the same for Farish and Dapol locos. A further disincentive for the UK to drop the Rapido is that 4 wheel wagons are more difficult to change over to knuckles than are North American rolling stock where you can simply change the bogies. My first N scale stuff in Canada was equipped with Rapidos (late 70s), but the writing was on the wall even then that Kadee (MT) knuckles were the way to go and so it has proved to be the case.
Webbo
I have always thought that the heavy metal Kaydee couplings would not work on the lightweight Peco wagons.
Kadee started producing the knuckle coupler in 1972 for both HO and N, but the company split in 1990 with the N scale stuff becoming Micro-Trains and the HO remaining as Kadee. The original Kadee N scale couplers were pretty much the same as the Micro-Trains knuckles we see today so I don't think their size was ever the problem for Peco wagons.