Chelsea Clock: N Scale Trains

Saturday 15 September 2012

N Scale Trains

N scale is a popular model railway scale/track gauge. Depending upon the manufacturer (or country), the scale ranges from 1:148 to 1:160. In all cases, the gauge (the distance between the rails) is 9 mm (0.354 in). The term N gauge refers to the track dimensions, but in the UK in particular N gauge refers to a 1:148 scale with 9 mm (0.354 in) track gauge modelling. The terms N scale and N gauge are often inaccurately used interchangeably, as scale is defined as ratio or proportion of the model, and gauge only as a distance between rails. An advantage of N scale is that it allows hobbyists to build layouts that take up less space than HO scale, or put longer track runs into the same amount of space, because the models are smaller (by nearly a half) than they are in HO scale (1:87). While N scale is quite small, it is not the smallest commercially available scale, as Z scale is smaller yet at 1:220 and T scale is 1:450 or 1:480.