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What model railway gauges are available?

We often use terminology in the world of model railways interchangeably, when people ask about gauge, they are usually referring to the size of model locomotives and carriages. Technically, this would be scale not gauge as gauge refers only to the measurement of the track.
Despite this, even model manufactures will often use the word gauge to help us identify the size of a model, and that's a good thing because generally, we all know where we stand. Most of us are quite happy to leave all of the seemingly complicated numbers involved in communicating scale to experts and advanced modellers. But whether you refer to it as gauge or scale, one thing is true, and that is, there is a huge amount of different ones out there.
There are a dozen different basic gauges that you can build a model railway in, these are as follows starting with the smallest: T, Z, N, TT, H0, 00, S, 0, 1, 2, 3 and G.
It doesn't end there either. These gauges replicate full-sized railways, but of course, in real-life you also have narrow-gauge railways, these too are represented by many of the gauges. 00-9, for example, is a representation of a narrow-gauge railway in 00 gauge. And if you think about it, narrow-gauge railways come in many different gauges to begin with therefore adding even more scale and gauge possibilities to the modelling world.
Then there are modellers that model in something called Finescale, for most gauges there is a little bit of a compromise between realism and the functionality of the model, particularly when it comes to wheels, wheel flanges, track widths and depths etc. Finescale however, tries to make even more of the model and infrastructure as realistic looking as possible giving even more variation to the basic gauges.
To cover all of the variations in detail would turn a light article into a Wednesday night evening class lasting several terms at the local college, so, for now, we will take a look at just the basic gauges.
T gauge has a scale of 1:480 (1:450 in the UK). This means that the real-life engine that the model is a based on (or the prototype as it is commonly referred to) is 480 times larger than the model, T gauge models run on track with a gauge of 3mm (meaning there is 3mm between the parallel metal rails).
Z gauge has a scale of 1:220 and runs on a track gauge of 6.5mm, you will note that Z gauge is roughly halfway between T gauge and N gauge. This is the smallest practical gauge for modelling.
N gauge has a scale of 1:160 (1:148 in the UK), it runs on a track gauge of 9mm. N gauge is the most popular of the smaller gauges.
TT stands for Table Top gauge and has a scale of 1:120 and runs on a track gauge of 12mm. While it was popular in the UK in the early 1970s, it has now become niche for British modellers.
H0 gauge has a scale of 1:87 and runs on a track gauge of 16.5mm, H0 stands for Half of 0 gauge.
00 gauge is generally the British version of H0, although 00 gauge has a different scale at 1:76 it shares its track with H0 measuring 16.5mm. 00 and H0 gauges are the most popular model railway gauges.
S gauge has a scale of 1:64 and runs on a track gauge of 22.5mm, it is one of the oldest scales dating back to 1896 when the first reported model was made from card!
0 gauge has a scale of 1:45 and runs on a track gauge of 32mm. In the early 20th century when model railways were considered to be toys, 0 gauge was the most popular gauge only declining in popularity when smaller models entered the market just prior to WW2.
1 gauge is another early 20th-century concept. It has a scale of roughly 1:32 as rolling stock varied, it has a track gauge of 45mm. 1 scale all but died out before WW2 but has since gained a new lease of life because it's big enough to be powered by real fuels opposed to electric.
2 gauge no longer exists, it had a scale of 1:22.5 and initially ran on a track gauge of 64mm, this gauge was reduced to 50.8mm in 1909 and the new combination became known as 3 gauge.
G scale (G for Garden) is sometimes known as large scale, it uses a track gauge of 45mm. The track is so durable that it can be used outdoors. The scale although often generalised as 1:22.5 is not always relevant because different gauge prototypes are always modelled to fit the 45mm track for example. A model of a narrow gauge engine will run on the same G gauge track as a model of a standard gauge engine, the result of this being different sized engines available in G scale.
Posted in: Model Railway

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