Ignorance is bliss.
I know what is goofy, that can make it harder to overlook.
I couldn’t stand the look of 8’ curves under the Sierra cars, too sharp.
But that is not the point, here we want you to be happy and if it works for you, Bravo!(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
NOTHING on my layout is built to scale only by eye so perhaps this helps or maybe not. But 36" long cars can certainly turn on a 9’ diameter with body mounted couplers whether they look correct or no is a matter of opinion.
I expressed my opinion.
Heartland will be coming out with some new 1:24th scale 4-4-0s, and they sure are pretty. Also Heartland is thinking of producing their 1:24th scale coaches again. I model in 1:24th scale when I build stuff, because the math is easier.
Bottom line though, its your railroad, so do whatever makes you happy. !:24th scale, gnomes and fairies, whatever you want. Its for your enjoyment, and those “purists” can just go take a walk…
Steve Featherkile said:
1:24 on 45mm track gives you a scale 42 inch track gauge. About the only place that used 42 inch gauge track is Australia. That said, 1/2 inch scale (1:24) sure makes the calculations easy when you start rolling building your own stuff. I have three 1:24 scale locomotives and no 1:24 cars. I pull whatever with those locos, and it looks fine. I’d say make the switch, if it makes you happy.
Steve one of my accounts makes mining equipment, and 42 inch gauge (3 foot 6 inches), is the most common gauge for such equipment.
The railroad that I started out modeling actually ran on 40 inch gauge, so fur me, 1:24th scale was close enuff.
42" gauge Rr’s were also in New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan and South Africa.
They were even recommended for the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-gauge_railroads_in_the_United_States
Just like many Metre gauge RR’s also found Wordlwide, 42" was considered to be mainline rather than Narrow Gauge.
It all depends on the particular aesthetic you’re looking to model. You know–because you operate on the Woodland Railway with my old equipment–that I started out modeling 1:24. No, it’s not 36" gauge, but I’m used to that particular aesthetic in that particular environment. I wasn’t modeling a specific 36" gauge railroad, so the scale/gauge thing wasn’t all that important to me. That’s what LGB, Kalamazoo, Delton, and Bachmann were making, so that’s what ran. We were modeling the Woodland Railway, which was narrow gauge, but not specifically 36" gauge. No one looks at the equipment running on the Woodland Railway and thinks anything is “off” about the scale or gauge. The key is to make sure everything is to a consistent scale–the trains, people, and buildings.
Ken Brunt Photo
(As an aside, this switch complex at Woodland Junction has been removed, as the double slip and 3-way switches had become too damaged to be repairable. Hey, they lasted 34 years! They’ve been replaced with LGB’s R5 switches, simplifying–and hopefully improving–the flow of trains through the junction. We also re-laid the track at Hemlock Hills to introduce a gravity-fed runaround to the coal tipple and also re-laid Tall Oaks as the growing tree roots had made two of the tracks impassable. I’ll post more on that later.)
Even when I settled on modeling the East Broad Top once I got out of college and began building my own line in upstate NY, I stuck with 1:24. This was still before 1:20 became popular, so most everybody who was doing narrow gauge was just fine and dandy using 1:24 and 1:22.5.
It wasn’t until I moved to Colorado that I switched to 1:20.3. The reason was aesthetic. By that time, I had buried myself in EBT lore, and the “look” of the prototype EBT equipment had become second nature to me. When I looked at the 1:24 models of the cars, it was obvious to me that the rails were too far apart, especially on the passenger cars and larger equipment. The 1:20.3 bug was just beginning to take hold, and I was in a position to completely start over anyway, so that’s what I did. Ironically, I’m modeling the EBT c. 1910, when much of the equipment they were running was the low-capacity stuff from the 1870s and 1880s–modeled quite accurately using Delton, Bachmann, and LGB equipment. Go figure…
Later,
K
Again, to each his own, but the picture below, the engineer could not even enter the reefer doors standing up. That looks terrible to me actually.
But, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One thing that has not been explicitly mentioned is the impact of multiple locomotives running near each other on a layout, whether as separate trains or consists. That points out differences in scale quite a bit more than a lone train winding along the rails. So if you aren’t running a “congested” railroad, the overall scale seems to matter little.
All that said, 1:24 seems to be a somewhat ideal scale for a lot of reasons, it’s just not the “mainstay” scale in terms of off the shelf products, but there’s a dearth in all G scale lately.
I like 1/32 scale the best anymore. Mostly MTH and MDC cars. Look fine and more cars fit in a smaller space. I got rid of all my 1/29, still have a couple of engines to sell.
I’ve watched your “switch” to 1:32 over the years Jerry, and it’s hard to beat MTH stuff, they scale out accurately, bulletproof geartrains, nice sound systems, killer smoke.
If they had been DCC when I started, I would have been hard torn, but they did not have enough different locos at the time, compared to the offerings from USAT & Aristo and no DCC.
With your code 250, you are sitting pretty I think.
Greg
Jerry Barnes said:
I like 1/32 scale the best anymore. Mostly MTH and MDC cars. Look fine and more cars fit in a smaller space. I got rid of all my 1/29, still have a couple of engines to sell.
Thank you all for your suggestions.
I realize the majority of g scalers, including many of you, run multiple scales in one train, and that is fine if it is what you want. I would prefer to stick to one scale so every thing looks coherent. Rivet counter? No, not in the least. I just think everything will look better in one scale, and I will be happier as a result.
Gary, thank you for the info on 42" gauge railroads. who would have thought that there was more 42" gauge track than 2 foot gauge? (in the U.S.)
“The key is to make sure everything is to a consistent scale - the trains, people, and buildings.” Kevin, I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“One thing that has not been explicitly mentioned is the impact of multiple locomotives running near each other on a layout, whether as separate trains or consists. That points out differences in scale quite a bit more than a lone train winding along the rails.” Greg, that is a a point that no one seems to have thought about. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.
With that said, 1:24 scale would seem to be the ideal scale (in my case), as Greg had stated.
Greg Elmassian said:
Again, to each his own, but the picture below, the engineer could not even enter the reefer doors standing up. That looks terrible to me actually.
Well, Greg, if you’re taller than about 5’ 4", you would hit your head on the door. That’s how tall the doors were on the prototype for the car shown in this photo (D&RGW class 4 refrigerator). Narrow gauge freight equipment wasn’t built with creature comforts in mind. I’ve seen prototype boxcar door openings as low as 4’ 10". Most commonly modeled examples had openings in the 5’ 5" to 5’ 8" range. Even cars built specifically for human use (cabooses and passenger cars) often had low doors, between 5’ 6" - 6’. I’m 5’ 10", and have to watch my head frequently when walking through narrow gauge equipment. Every inch lower meant the center of gravity of the car was lower, too, which helped stability.
One other thing going on in this photo is that the locomotive is a comparatively large locomotive, akin in size to a D&RGW K-27. (The tender is from a 1:24 EBT mid-sized mikado I started to build.) The D&RGW’s Ks towered over the rolling stock on that railroad, to the point where the box car roofs were almost even with the top of the tender.
Compare this shot of a 1:20.3 K-27 pulling a string of 1:20.3 EBT 30’ box cars… (Note also that the EBT cars modeled are about 6" taller than their D&RGW counterparts.)
… to this shot of #14 pulling a string of Bachmann and LGB box cars.
Yeah, if you’re used to modern mainline trains, the narrow gauge aesthetic seems diminutive and quaint. For modelers of narrow gauge, it’s the “diminutive and quaint” which is often what draws them in.
Later,
K
So you are telling me that the body of the car is about 6’ tall?
I would like to see a scale drawing.
So the loco is 1:24 and the box car is 1:20.3 and a small prototype?
Hmm… is this the type of car we are seeing?
I’ve always found the size differences between standard and narrow gauge rolling stock pretty interesting.
Here’s one that I like: Big and Small
Also a search of images has a small number of others for comparison.
“So you are telling me that the body of the car is about 6’ tall?”
From the top of the floor to the bottom of the roof joists, yes, about 6’ depending on the particular prototype. The 30’ cars (according to drawings published in Sloan’s “A Century +10…”) had a floor to ceiling clearance of about 5’ 11" along the wall. The 40’ cars had a bit over 6’ from the top of the floor to the bottom of the roof joists. The door opening would have been shorter than the floor-to-ceiling height because of the thickness of the beams that made up the top of the car side frame. The car data on the drawing in Sloan shows an inside height of 6’ 1 3/4". Photos of models show the height listed as 6’ 1". I don’t know between which two points they measure that, as the roof is pitched, thus higher in the center. Sloan describes the inside height as 6’ 4", despite the measurements and car data in his book stating something different. Outside, from the edge of the roof to the bottom edge of the siding on the car, you’re looking at 7’ 6" according to Sloan’s published drawings.
“I would like to see a scale drawing.”
John Maxwell’s drawing of the D&RGW cars can be found at this link. Maxwell has the door height listed as 5’ 10", but the door opening extends slightly below the floor of the car, and from what I can gather from comparing drawings in Sloan’s book, slightly above the top of the actual door opening as well. I’ve never seen the prototype refrigerator car with the doors open, so I can’t say for certain what the difference would be. Contemporary accounts of the construction of refrigerator car doors suggest the doors are tapered front to back for purposes of insulation. I don’t know if the D&RGW followed this or not. The actual door opening measured from the shop drawings published in Sloan show an actual opening between floor and bottom edge of the top beam on the side frame of 5’ 4" - 5’ 6". There’s a bit of guesswork based on the small scale of the reproduction. The doors would be fairly thick, though, due to the insulation of the car. Note: Maxwell’s drawing appears to be of the class 2r refrigerator car, as evidenced by the link-and-pin couplers and end beams. These were built in 1881. The class 4r refrigerators are nearly identical proportionally, but have modern automatic couplers and longer trucks.
“So the loco is 1:24 and the box car is 1:20.3 and a small prototype?”
In this photo, the loco is 1:24. The box car behind it is modeled to 1:20.3 of a small prototype, but it’s basically an elongated Bachmann box car. I didn’t change the width or the height, so for the purposes of this illustration, we can take the box car and stock car (LGB) to be 1:22 / 1:24–the same size as the equipment seen behind the locomotive running on the Woodland Ry.
Since you mentioned it, though, the box car in this photo is a model of an early Billmeyer & Smalls car (c. 1873), whose inside height was all of 5’ 8", with a door opening of around 5’ 2". Yeah… duck. By contrast, the box car in the other photo is a model of the EBT’s “2nd-generation” box car, which was considerably larger, with an inside height of 6’ 10". Here’s a photo of the two coupled together:
Both of these cars accurately model their prototypes in 1:20.3. You’re looking at a difference of about 30 years’ time between build dates.
“Hmm… is this the type of car we are seeing?”
Yes. The D&RGW class 4r refrigerator cars, numbered 31 - 80, built in 1908, rebuilt in the 1920s. That was the prototype upon which the LGB, USA (which was really an LGB knock-off), and Delton wood refrigerator cars were based. Not saying they got it 100% right, and I don’t have any here to measure, but it’s at least based on that. The Delton reefer is slightly longer, but a whisker lower than the LGB / USA reefer.
Later,
K
Thanks Mark:
And Kevin:
It appears to me that in this case beauty is in the eye of history.
Thanks Kevin.
I tried to pick a car that was the same as the one in the picture… if you view that image and expand it you can see that it’s apparently the right length, but the inside dimensions are 6’ 11"… update it says 6’ 1in…
This tallies closely with the other prototype pictures I have seen where there is a person in the picture.
I’m sure you can find an example that is lower/smaller, as you say, your link shows a door 5’ 10".
Still looks terrible compared to what I am used to. Also, I think that model in the picture I objected to is NOT to proper scale as compared to the scale of the loco, which is what I said looks terrible. I have a hard time believing that the reefer is properly to scale and at a scale height AND the locomotive is 1:24, which should be smaller and lower if in 1:20.3, not worse looking.
Something is still not right, the scale of the loco, the scale of the figure, or the reefer.
Anyway, I guess if I modeled NG and followed scale I would see such things.
Greg
I am finding that there is a similar size “awkwardness” in equipment that was in service on the “standard gauge” railroads in the 1860’s and 1870’s. A boxcar built in the 1850’s, running with a “new” 1875 build boxcar is noticeably shorter in height and length. For some reason our eyes have become accustomed to seeing cars of all about the same size in our consists. But in real life, that isn’t always so. When I was in high school I took a picture of a PRR MOW boxcar sitting next to a modern boxcar. The yellow PRR boxcar, although all steel, was also noticeably smaller then then modern boxcar. I don’t remember if the PRR boxcar had build date on it or not. I wish I could find that old Polaroid picture, but I guess it got lost along the way.
Greg, the graphics on the car data in the model you show state “6FT 1IN”. There are no spaces between the number and the “FT” or “IN” so at the resolution of that photo, it’s easy to read it as 6’ 11". Here’s a photo of the same car, but with a later paint scheme where the sign painter (thankfully) learned how to add spaces between numbers and units which more clearly shows it as 6’ 1":
As for the scale of the models, I don’t know what to tell you. I built the tender on #14 in 1:24 from published plans of an EBT loco. The loco itself is freelanced, but scales comparably to other narrow gauge locos in 1:24 and 1:22.5. Delton’s stuff was pretty accurate in 1:24. There’s nothing in that photo which would be “out of scale.” Here’s food for thought:
All three of these locos are accurately scaled in 1:20.3. Now, imagine the same box car put behind each loco. It’s going to be dwarfed by the loco on the left, on par in size with the loco in the middle, but tower over the loco on the right. It’s all prototypical–it’s just our sense of aesthetics which dictates what might look “right” to our eyes.
To a modeler whose frame of reference is modern standard gauge railroading, the size variation in narrow gauge railroading is going to be jarring. By the 1960s, construction technology had reached the point to where car capacity wasn’t limited by the material from which the car was built (as was the case in the days of wood cars), but by the allowable size of the car. Thus, cars started filling out to the maximum allowed by the railroad’s loading gauge, which in the US is 10’ 8" wide by 15’ - 20’ tall depending on the type of car. It creates a visual uniformity which has really only been part of railroading for the past 50 years. Before that–even in standard gauge–there was a lot more variation as there were still old wood and wood/steel composite cars in service.
Later,
K
