Hello, my name is Cleric. I'm new here, and new to the model train hobby in general. I started working at a hobby shop as their auctioneer and we got in a lot of trains... and i just sort of fell in love! I'm really into N and Standard scale, with N being my favorite.
I take pictures of items I get in, so I hope to be able to share them! I might even post links to their auction platform, if there is an interest. I mainly get my hands on O and HO, but a lot of Standard has been coming in.
Anyway, I hope everyone can teach me more and I get to see everyone's beautiful trains.
Hi again, Cleric.. Just wish to help you a bit with your RR and model RR terminology/nomenclature, as you asked help with...So,...Let's go this way....... :
Set some verbal standards of the real, 1:1 scale: Here 'standard gauge' refers to the distance between railheads which is 4'8.5" (4 foot, eight and one half inches). This was set around late and past, US Civil War time thru American pioneering days, to completion, circa 1900, say, so that all RRs could finally exchange cars and route cars cross-country. We established a system of sharing each others tracks. Before then there were hundreds of smaller, privately owned RRs, all with different gauges, which made it enormously tough to ship things anywhere past
your RR (enter dual-gauge in places). Now the only need is permission to use another RR's track, via 'trackage rights'...There were already too many wheels-axles already in use under carriages riding on (what was soon to be deemed) 'standard gauge' track, all over the US. So, the less costly and fastest way to achieve a standardized gauge in the US was to unspike and move one rail either inward [there were 5' and 6' spreads then] or outward, across the nation, with all RRs converting to standard gauged wheel/axle, there on out... NEXT: Toy trains and Standard Gauge. In the hobby's history toy trains were first pewter models you pushed on the floor, then eventually motorized and up onto rails and switches. They were made of tin, called 'tinplate' due to the parts folding process of the vehicles and the rails they ran on... Peoples homes were way larger then, with miles and miles of farmland and even unpaved roads. The first 3-rail AC current ran (save this for later if you wish) 'toy' trains were allowably very large in scale then.. The very earliest and largest track then was like 4" to 4.5" in gauge made of tin. [Gets a bit foggy here]: This was larger than what is 0 scale today and 92% sure it's actual name
was Standard Gauge track made by Lionel Trains and possibly AC Gilbert (before their S gauge)or others. As homes grew smaller and smaller/population growing larger and larger, trains got smaller and smaller..The rest is history. Though I will never go back to N, and happily back in HO, now we gotz Z, to boot ! Says something about the kind of world we've become..And, ironically, is exactly why we
do love the model; it's ability to give us an imaginary huge amount of land and own and run the 'huge' railroad that goes through it !.. Mark, Los Angeles