Pastime Hobbies & Miniatures encourages and promotes all aspects of the hobby of model railroading for anyone interested regardless of skill level or experience. Getting into model railroading can be abit confusing because of the vast number of model railroad track gauges and scales. We have provided some basic information on track gauge, scale and other model railroading terms to help you get through the basics.
Prototype: This term is used in the model railroad community to refer to the real life size train after which a model is patterned. From a modeler’s perspective, the real train is the thing that serves as a model (a prototype) for the purpose of producing a scaled-down model. The real train is the original (prototype) object that a modeler studies. You can apply this term to other model railroad items needed on a layout such as buildings, automobiles, scenery, etc. The key to understanding all about model railroading is to keep reading, building and asking questions. No question should go unanswered.
Guage: The guage of a model railroad track refers to the distance between the inner sides of the rails. A typical real life track width is 56 1/2". Sixty percent of the world's railway lines are built to this guage.
N Guage: 9.0mm (millimeter)
HO Guage: 16.5mm
S Guage: 7/8ths of an inch
O Guage: 1 ¼”
G Guage: 45mm
Scale: The size of things on a model railroad relative to a real railroad. For example, in the most popular scale, HO, the models are 1/87th the full size.
Prototype: This term is used in the model railroad community to refer to the real life size train after which a model is patterned. From a modeler’s perspective, the real train is the thing that serves as a model (a prototype) for the purpose of producing a scaled-down model. The real train is the original (prototype) object that a modeler studies. You can apply this term to other model railroad items needed on a layout such as buildings, automobiles, scenery, etc. The key to understanding all about model railroading is to keep reading, building and asking questions. No question should go unanswered.
