N Scale V's N Gauge

[njee20]

Moose used to seeing "N Scale" as referring to 1:148, 1:150 and 1:160 scales on various North American forums, with caveats to the actual scale where it wasn't 1:160.

Moose gets that, technically, they should have been referring to "N Gauge" instead. It wasn't until Moose was trying to find an "N Scale" specific sub-section on another British MRR forum, that Moose was confronted with this discrepancy between "Gauge" and "Scale" of the "N" variety.

Why Moose talk in strange third person terms?

Generally, which I think is what you're saying, the British use "N gauge", whilst the rest of the world uses "N Scale". I'd say the fact the actual scale is different is broadly immaterial in that, in part for the reasons PLD sets out, it's basically incorrect use of the term!

[railsquid]

Generally, which I think is what you're saying, the British use "N gauge", whilst the rest of the world uses "N Scale". I'd say the fact the actual scale is different is broadly immaterial in that, in part for the reasons PLD sets out, it's basically incorrect use of the term!

Regardless of the correctness of the term, following parts of the rest of the world use the equivalent of "N gauge"

• Germany - "Spur N"
• Japan- "Nゲージ" (pronounced "enu geiji")

[Webbo]

Meaning is all in the ear of the listener. N scale, N gauge - most of us know exactly what is meant in the context of the country to which the terms are being applied.

PLD is quite right in telling us that strictly speaking gauge refers to the distance between the rails, but scale refers to the amount the model has been shrunk from the real thing. With UK models, the degree of shrinkage of the locomotive wheel spacing and the locomotive body sizes do not match quite as well as they do for US or European 'N scale'. I have some UK stuff as well as mostly North American equipment, and the small diiferences in scale are completely unnoticable and are of absolutely zero consequence to me.

Webbo 

[Bealman]

Thanks, Ian. That is so true. The difference is not a problem to me. I'm no finescale modeller, even though I wish I was.

I adopted using N scale in my Railway Modeller articles of the nineties, simply because 'gauge' to me is the distance between the rails.

N scale, to me, covers the whole shebang.... buildings, people, trees, etc.

It's a trivial thing, anyway.

[Newportnobby]

@wombat457

Some explanation can be found in the Glossary of Terms found in the Knowledge Bank.
Should you have any other U.S. specific abbreviations or descriptions please PM me so I can add them in........

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=43697.msg542092#msg542092

[njee20]

I have some UK stuff as well as mostly North American equipment, and the small diiferences in scale are completely unnoticable and are of absolutely zero consequence to me.

I think that's a personal one - a lot of UK stock looks oversized alongside it's European comparators. Obviously a lot of US (particularly) locos are physically far larger, which offsets the difference.

This isn't the best picture to show it (my Google Fu is weak today), but here's a 1:148 Dapol 66 above a 1:160 Kato one, I certainly wouldn't want to mix and match these:

[ntpntpntp]

Dapol, Kato, CJM.  OK so the CJM is a 59 not a 66 but you get the idea, the Kato 66 at 1:160 is noticeably smaller than the 1:148 models

[Hiawatha]

The two N scales can't be combined – just look how the 1:160 locomotive is dwarfed by the A4!





I have also wondered before where the 1:148 scale came from? Who was the first to say that British N is not 1:160 but 1:148? 1:148 is nothing – it's not 2mm scale (~1:152) and it was not an established scale for models before British N (like 1:144 for planes).

1:160 was already established as an industry standard for N in 1964. Before that the Arnold rapido 200 was not to a strict scale but a toy train around the 1:200 mark. And Lone Star's Treble-O-lectric was around true 2mm scale, so ~1:152.
Was 1:148 invented by British locomotive kit makers, so they would better fit existing German chassis? Or was it Hornby who convinced Minitrix to make British models in a larger scale to fit their German locomotives? When was "1:148" mentioned for the first time? (In the old Minitrix catalogues the British models were not marked as being in a different scale.)

[njee20]

As said previously, it was reverse engineered from the additional size needed to get Continental mechanisms into British locos, with their smaller loading gauge. Exactly the same reason we have 1:76 instead of 1:87.

No one actively decided we'd do things differently for the sake of it.

[Gordon]

The first N gauge is generally accepted to have been 'British N Gauge' - Arthur Walkley's creations in the 1920s, so long before '1:160' was invented. I am proud to have served as a senior  officer of the model railway club where this pioneering work took place.

The scale 1: 160 was internationally standardised (I think at a MOROP congress) under the abbreviation "N", with the adoption of  "N" for nine, which begins with an N in many languages. The track width was set at 9 mm and power at 12 V  2-wire direct current system.

[PLD]

Three actually - Japan uses 1:150, for similar reasons as the UK

Not for similar reasons to UK as I understand it,  1:150 was a compromise to help Japanese (non Shinkansen) models to be more suited to representing the Japanese 'standard gauge' of 1067mm

9mm model gauge representing a 3'6" prototype, would be approx 1:118 scale... The nearest commonly used modelling scale to that is the 1:120 of "German TT" (popular in the old DDR) rather than any of the variations of "N Scale"   

[Gordon]

9mm model gauge representing a 3'6" prototype, would be approx 1:118 scale...

Absolutely correct, but that is irrelevant to the Japanese N scale situation, which was to use 1:150 to make the vehicles larger than the 9mm track - to give an impression of the Japanese 'cape' gauge, although it is not accurate (track gauge needs to be 7.1mm), but at the time 9mm was the only widely used 'N scale' track gaueg so they had to go with it (6.5mm gauge not having come into existence)  so you end up with the equivalent of the 'British OO' problem

[Gordon]

1:160 Scale models of Continental European & North American Standard Gauge prototypes "GERMAN N SCALE"

More correctly "MOROP N SCALE"

[railsquid]

9mm model gauge representing a 3'6" prototype, would be approx 1:118 scale...

Absolutely correct, but that is irrelevant to the Japanese N scale situation, which was to use 1:150 to make the vehicles larger than the 9mm track - to give an impression of the Japanese 'cape' gauge, although it is not accurate (track gauge needs to be 7.1mm), but at the time 9mm was the only widely used 'N scale' track gaueg so they had to go with it (6.5mm gauge not having come into existence)  so you end up with the equivalent of the 'British OO' problem

There is a very niche subset of Japanese N scale modellers who rewheel 9mm gauge stock to 6.5mm gauge, and I have also seen some custom 7.1mm track.

The situation is further slightly complicated by the fact that though Cape gauge is prevalent in Japan, there are a few other gauges in use, for example the Tokyo municipal underground has 4 lines using three different gauges (not to be confused with Tokyo Metro, which has 9 lines using two different gauges).