Sidebar: British N ScaleH.B. Whall of Kew, Great Britain, was a pioneer of N Scale. In 1923 he hand-built an electrically-powered model railway at a scale of 1:152.3, with a track gauge of 9.2 mm; in 1946, when he embarked on commercial production, he changed the scale to 1:150 and the gauge to 9.5 mm. Then Lone Star Toys released their line of Treble-0-Letric in 1960, which had a scale of 1:152 (or 2 mm Scale) and a track gauge of 9 mm. The 2 mm Scale Association, meanwhile, was founded that same year by H.B. Whall.
British N Gauge was formally established in 1967 by a small group of N Gauge modelers from West Yorkshire, supported by Sydney Pritchard, founder of Peco, and the British standard of 1:148 was adopted during the formation of the N Gauge Society. The reason for not using 1:160 is that British railway equipment is generally smaller than that of other countries, and the electric motors of the day wouldn't fit in typical British locomotives at 1:160. While British N Gaugers consider themselves to be "standard gauge" modelers, they're actually not; 9 mm track at 1:148 is too narrow (4' 4½" instead of 4' 8½"). To help differentiate the various forms of British N Scale, the 2 mm Scale Association states:
So, to summarize, the UK has employed/employs the following definitions of N Scale-ish models:
*2 mm Scale Association indicates the gauge is 8.97 mm, whereas FS160 claims 9 mm. With many thanks to Richard Shirey for help with this topic. See Also...ReturnCopyright © 2017-2020 by David K. Smith. All Rights Reserved.
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