Topic: Gauges, especially in the UK - often X plus 1/4" - why?

[peter]

I am from the old country(UK), if you double up 2.5in gauge 17/32in scale you get 5in 1 1/16 scale. Hope that helps.
 As i now live in the US i need to build to 4.7/5in gauge or be the odd one with 5in gauge.


peter

[russ]

I suspect that hte most common gauge around the world 7 1/4" gauge. 

No, why do we have 7 1/2" gauge predominating in North America except in the North East where I live?

I was once told (but couldn't verify the story) that many decades ago someone on the West Coast of North America made a mistake and built his miniature railway to the gauge of 7 1/2" and then it spread across the country.

I think that 10 1/4" and 12 1/4" were chosen mostly by folks who wanted estate railways or for amusement parks so that the passenger cars were more comofortable for passengers.  Here in North America, these amusement park railways were usually built in 15" or 18" gauge.  Many of these steam locomotive survive and likely led to folks building private railways in those gauges.  There is a lovely instance of a restored amusement park engine in 18" gauge locally which is very impressive.  When I find pictures of it, I will post them.

Russ in Oakville, Ontario, Canada

[russ]

Yes, I am the owner and am responsible for getting Ferd into the larger "ride-on" gauges. 

There are more pictures of the Romulus locomotive in the 7 1/4" photo galleries and Ferd has a bunch of additional pictures in another  thread under "7.25"/7.5" Gauge railroads -> Live Steam -> Narrow Gauge"

Russ in Oakville, Ontario, canada

[Ferd]

Hi Today
The locomotive is called Romulus and is 7.25" gauge in  1/3 scale - depicting a 2 foot gauge locomotive in real life. It is a great workhorse and castings plus drawings are still abvailable from AJ Reeves.
Link:https://vault1.secured-url.com/reeves2000/shop_item.asp?sub_cat_id=138
The locomotive belongs to a good friend of mine (who is soley responsible for getting me into large scale locomotives.)
cheers Ferd

[Today]

Hi Ferd,  What scale locomotive are you sitting on in the photo?  and what gauge? Today

[Ferd]

Pondering the likes of 7 1/4", 10 1/4" and 12 1/4" I wondered if anyone knew how we came to have such a seeming mess with all those 1/4"s lying around
Chris

It does appear to defy logic, 7.25" makes sense in that it is 1.5" scale, 3.5" makes sense in that it is .75" scale, 5" gauge makes no sense to me as 4.75" is closer to 1" scale rather than an odd 1 1/16" scale, likewise with 7.5" scale, out here in the eastern Canada region where 7.25" is the norm, we attribute 7.5" as a mathematical error in origin.  . I guess it is all perspective. Much like the real railroads a track starting on the east side did not necessarily connect to the track starting on the west if there were two different organizations in control.
cheers Ferd

[jock]

Hi Chris
I seem to remember it had to do with scaling down the loco's, 5in gauge 1 1/16 scale, 7 1/4  1 1/2 scale.
This from the country that had rod chains links etc.
Oh I'm glad we went metric here in Australia.
Jim

[stockers]

Pondering the likes of 7 1/4", 10 1/4" and 12 1/4" I wondered if anyone knew how we came to have such a seeming mess with all those 1/4"s lying around


cheers


Chris