T Gauge- Benefits and Restrictions

[LNERW1]

Just thought I’d open up a forum thread on T gauge (1:450 or 1:480 scale and generally 3mm gauge) as I can’t seem to find one anywhere. Dreaming up layouts helps me get to sleep (and, as anyone who is familiar with me knows, I often post them without thinking it through), and one occurred to me recently; a T gauge layout modelling the area of dublin encompassed by North Strand Road, Amiens Street, North Quay and East Wall Road, encompassing Connolly and Docklands station, North Wall yard, the large junction just north of Connolly, three Luas stops, roughly half of North Strand and basically all of East Wall.

This would obviously be massive and difficult to build, and I’m never actually going to build it, but it was a cool idea and got me thinking about T gauge and it’s possibilities. Right now I’ve grabbed a piece of wood and I’m trying to see if I can fit a T gauge terminus on it. Maybe it’ll become a layout thread, but that’s beside the point. I wanted to open up a discussion about T gauge and it’s potential as a scale for serious modelling.

A lot of T gauge products seem to be lost in the depths of long-dead websites, so I can’t give too many helpful links. Tgauge.com seems to be the best source for models in this scale. I am also aware of Eishindo, a Japanese brand that seems to have produced a fairly complex track range, judging by the track library available on the model railway software SCARM. As, again, many T gauge products seem to have disappeared into the depths of the web, you’d need to do some digging to find any other sources.

I hope this can spur on some interesting conversations. Regards,   
LNERW1

Edited August 27, 2024 by LNERW1
oopsies

[irishmail]

You will need some strong magnifying glasses to see T gauge! lol...     One of the guys from the First Bangor MRC had  T gauge layout in a brief case.  

[Horsetan]

There's quite a lot of T-gauge insanity on YouTube:

 

[Galteemore]

But has anyone produced anything to scale 5’3”? In all seriousness, would be a great way to tackle some of the set piece scenic features of the Irish system such as the Valencia Road viaducts, with an emphasis on sweep of vista rather than the stock 

[Horsetan]

1 hour ago, Galteemore said:

But has anyone produced anything to scale 5’3”? 

Probably not. If you're increasing the track gauge by a scale 7½", what does that work out at in 1:450 scale?

In a scale that tiny, the emphasis is going to be much more on the surroundings than the trains. I think there'd be a sporting chance of modelling the entire stretch of line between Clontarf Road and Grand Canal Dock, including the junctions NE of Amiens Street, but you'd need to be able to accurately reflect all of that dense inner-city development. Could still end up being a lifetime project to do it all properly. 

[skinner75]

2 hours ago, Horsetan said:

Probably not. If you're increasing the track gauge by a scale 7½", what does that work out at in 1:450 scale?

A couple of Planck lengths! 

[LNERW1]

12 hours ago, Galteemore said:

But has anyone produced anything to scale 5’3”? In all seriousness, would be a great way to tackle some of the set piece scenic features of the Irish system such as the Valencia Road viaducts, with an emphasis on sweep of vista rather than the stock 

As @Horsetan said, the gauge difference would be imperceptible. At that point you're putting in far too much work just for the sake of doing it right. And yeah, the point of T gauge is to focus more on the scenery than the trains.

[Galteemore]

Sorry @LNERW1 and @Horsetan, I should have added an irony emoji!! I find it hard enough to model 5’3” clearances in 7mm never mind T…..As I hinted in my original post, T is the perfect scale for impressionist rather than perfectionist modelling ….

Edited August 22, 2024 by Galteemore

[Broithe]

2 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Sorry @LNERW1 and @Horsetan, I should have added an irony emoji!! 

I'm glad I didn't suggest that the speakers would sound a bit tinny now....

[LNERW1]

Dcc sound in T would be VERY interesting... but you're right about tinny.

[Horsetan]

19 minutes ago, Broithe said:

I'm glad I didn't suggest that the speakers would sound a bit tinny now....

....as opposed to goldy or bronzey?

I wonder if anyone's considered putting a massive subwoofer under their layout to overcome the tinniness? Would be a gas at shows...

Edited August 22, 2024 by Horsetan

[Broithe]

You can get issues caused by damp from subwoofers.

[Galteemore]

Opinion is certainly Polaris-ed on the matter. Some people have gone ballistic over it.

Edited August 23, 2024 by Galteemore

[LNERW1]

Here lads, this may be in letting off steam but can we keep it just slightly on topic? Love the pic though.

[DJ Dangerous]

15 hours ago, Broithe said:

You can get issues caused by damp from subwoofers.

 

Bold @Broithe "torpedo-ing" the thread...

And he fell off!

 

 

[irishmail]

4 hours ago, LNERW1 said:

Here lads, this may be in letting off steam but can we keep it just slightly on topic? Love the pic though.

Its called 'Thread Drift'  happens on all forums and topics,  you should see what goes on over on RMweb.  lol   

[DJ Dangerous]

11 minutes ago, irishmail said:

Its called 'Thread Drift'  happens on all forums and topics,  you should see what goes on over on RMweb.  lol   

 

While on the topic of dogs and drifting:

 

 

[DJ Dangerous]

Just for @LNERW1...

A Hornby LNER W1!

https://railsofsheffield.com/products/hornby-r30352ss-w1-class-4-6-4-lner-hush-hush-no-10000-with-steam-generator-steam-locomotive

Edited August 28, 2024 by DJ Dangerous
EDIT: Added reference screenshots

[LNERW1]

Thanks DJ, but that’s still a good bit outside my budget. I suspect Hornby’s TXS/Smoke W1 may cause a flood of cheap, barely-used non smoke, non Triplex W1s, so I could get a bargain on a fairly new one. Still quite good for such a “cutting-edge” model though.

[DJ Dangerous]

3 hours ago, LNERW1 said:

Thanks DJ, but that’s still a good bit outside my budget. I suspect Hornby’s TXS/Smoke W1 may cause a flood of cheap, barely-used non smoke, non Triplex W1s, so I could get a bargain on a fairly new one. Still quite good for such a “cutting-edge” model though.

 

The price seemed a little high but I'm not up to speed on live-steam. My fear would be the condensation. Surely most people will be running them indoors, so whatever it burns for smoke, water based, oil based, whatever, is going to coat the track area?

[LNERW1]

It’s not live steam DJ, Hornby are fitting smoke generators to some new RTR models. Probably just meant to drive up the price point honestly. 

Edited September 1, 2024 by LNERW1

[DJ Dangerous]

33 minutes ago, LNERW1 said:

It’s not live steam DJ, Hornby are fitting smoke generators to some new RTR models. Probably just meant to drive up the price point honestly. 

Ah, live-steam / steam-generator / live-steam-generator, all the same to me, specially from the perspective of running them indoors.

Circling back, if you had a few hundred quid, instead of a W1, you could probably set up a nice T-Gauge layout with a classic HST:

https://www.tgauge.com/product/109/br-hst-inter-city-125

Lots of other T Gauge stuff listed, but that'd be the one to capture my attention the most.

[LNERW1]

I thought to further push my point about T gauge modelling as a serious concept, I should post some comparisons. Most Irish stock can be replicated in T with reasonable accuracy considering the scale, using only products from Tgauge.com

I list below the products needed as the bare bones of Irish models. Below is the Intercity and/or locomotive fleet, as listed on Wikipedia.

22000 class: 23 metre coaches, SKU 029 + 23 metre motorised chassis, SKU 049-B

201 Class: 6 axle 21 Metre motorised chassis, SKU 015-6ax

Mark 4: 16-27m adjustable chassis (black), SKU 023-B*

071 Class: Closest match is the 6 Axle 18.5 Metre Motorised Chassis, SKU 016-6ax, this is nearly a scale metre over-length, but as it is such a small scale this difference should be indetectable.

I'm using Wikipedia as a source for train and locomotive lengths, but it doesn't list the lengths of any Commuter units.

*Another problem caused by Wikipedia. It lists the Mark 4's as either 7 or 8 car trains but only gives one train length, not specifying which it is. This length is 189.43 metres. I worked out that if this referred to a 7-car unit it would make it about 21m long, but referring to an 8-car train it would make each car around 20m. I then googled it and realised it worked out at between 27 metres if 7-car and 23 if 8-car. I decided to play it safe and list an adjustable chassis, but I could be wrong. if they are around 190 metres at 8 cars that means you could use the same chassis as the 22000s.

Also some former Irish Rail and CIÉ locos here:

A class: 6 Axle 16 Metre Motorised Chassis, SKU 027-06ax

C, 121, 141 and 181 class locos are all similarly disadvantaged here in that they are too short to be accurately represented by a Tgauge.com chassis. Using a shorter dummy chassis with a powered wagon or coach behind would probably work well here.

B101 Class: Could be passably represented by a 6 Axle 16 Metre Motorised Chassis, SKU 027-06ax, but this is around a scale 1.5m too long. Not as noticable as the up to 4m difference between the scale length of this chassis and the real-life lenght of the above locos, but still possibly too noticable.

301 Class: Could be passably represented at this scale by the BR Class 08 Shunter, SKU 008. This loco's chassis could also be useful for producing other 0-6-0s -the J15 springs to mind- and possibly even a motorised wagon or brakevan for some of the shorter locos listed above.

Finally, freight and departmental.

I don't have great knowledge of IÉ (and IR, in fairness) freight stock so this will be short and sweet, but generally Tgauge.com's generic freight stock should do a good enough job of representing Irish freight stock. Unfortunately Tgauge.com does not offer any 4-wheel wagon or wagon chassis. This would be pretty pointless as such a small model would likely be difficult to manufacture and fiddly to use, not to mention fragile. The site does offer 4- wheel bogies, though, and I have no doubt they could be turned into passable 4 wheel wagons.

The Track Maintenance Vehicle, SKU 09-TG, is a passable representation of IÉ's ballast tamper (I think there's only one).

Finally, anyone wanting to make or modify their own T gauge models should head to the "Spares" page, https://www.tgauge.com/section/7/1/spares. This offers loads of detail and mechanical parts.

One last thing, if anyone has carriage measurements for any Commuter or DART trains, please share them. Wikipedia doesn't list these and so I'm not sure what chassis would work best to represent them.

Thanks,

LNERW1.

[LNERW1]

A couple more comparisons since Tgauge.com have released a few new products, namely SKU 027 and 027-6ax, 16 metre chassis and it's 6-axle variant which are only a scale 45cm off from the A class' 15.55m length, precisely a millimetre too long, which I think we can agree is a reasonable compromise even at this scale. There is also the 36' caboose, SKU 090-R (red), 090-Bl (blue, sold out as of October 2025), and 090-B (brown). 36' works out to about 11m. This is, unusually for a T gauge chassis, slighty too short to be used as a dummy chassis for a baby GM (13m chassis) or C class (12m chassis). However, it is again a more reasonable compromise, especially compared to the former closest of 18.5m, although I personally would consider just using the available spare bogies combined with a custom chassis to make a dummy unit of one of these.

And a unit I did not initially account for:

8100 class- 20m motorised chassis (SKU 040) and 20 metre coach (SKU 025)

The 90000 (DART+) units do not have car lengths available but their sibling X'trapolis 2.0 units (currently being delivered to Metro Trains Melbourne) are listed as having 24.4m Mc cars (Motor Carriage i believe) and 23.6m Tp and M (Trailer Passenger and Motor I believe), meaning the "Mc" cars could be represented by SKU 023-B and the "Tp" and "M" cars by SKU 029 (unpowered) and 049-B and -C(powered) 23m coaches. I believe this length is fairly consistent across Xtraps as the Xtrapolis 100 also had similar car lengths.

Anyway, hope this all helps. I've put out a call for help with car lengths of other units elsewhere on this forum, and can pester some "friends" (they dont like me) who work in IÉ and hopefully will have some numbers shortly.

EDIT: said "friends" in IÉ have provided said data and I am currently compiling it, and will post a .pdf with the updated list soon.

Edited Tuesday at 23:06 by LNERW1

[LNERW1]

Alright, here is a compiled list of IÉ, CIÉ and NIR car lengths from the 60s to today. Keep in mind this is just stuff that originated with these companies and not inherited stuff, so all locos bought by CIÉ are listed under CIÉ, including those that were later used by IÉ (although 8100s are listed under IÉ as I would consider them more important to IÉ than CIÉ modellers)

I have used a system to denote unpowered and powered vehicles that is explained in the document. Keep in mind a motorised chassis is not available for several CIÉ and NIR locos so I have listed unpowered chassis or wagons that are a more accurate length and correct wheel arrangement, and can be modified to represent these locos.

Hopefully this covers the majority of stock one would want to model. If I've missed something you would like to model, here is the link to Tgauge.com, see if you can find a suitable chassis. Keep in mind 1 metre is 2.2mm in T scale, and 1 foot is about 0.7mm, and the length of each product in mm is listed when you click on "specifications".

Document 12-1.pdf

The above PDF should be readable by iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS users.

If this helps someone get into T gauge, I will be very glad of it. I might consider making a small T gauge micro layout to draw attention to this.

[jhb171achill]

How ON EARTH do they get working motors into stuff that tiny?

If extremely small scales like this, or Z, gain much traction, what about a 5mm gauge track to represent 5'3", and Irish models at a scale of 1mm = 1ft!

[Broithe]

5 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

How ON EARTH do they get working motors into stuff that tiny?

If extremely small scales like this, or Z, gain much traction, what about a 5mm gauge track to represent 5'3", and Irish models at a scale of 1mm = 1ft!

It all seemed simple enough to do it with a submarine in the Fantastic Voyage documentary...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060397/

[LNERW1]

10 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

How ON EARTH do they get working motors into stuff that tiny?

If extremely small scales like this, or Z, gain much traction, what about a 5mm gauge track to represent 5'3", and Irish models at a scale of 1mm = 1ft!

Yeah it's pretty wild alright

Here's the motors available under "spares":

<4.5v Motor With Gearbox

3Vdc Motor

Updated 3Vdc Motor

[Sean]

25 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

How ON EARTH do they get working motors into stuff that tiny?

If extremely small scales like this, or Z, gain much traction, what about a 5mm gauge track to represent 5'3", and Irish models at a scale of 1mm = 1ft!

what I’m working with at the moment!

Edited 7 hours ago by Sean

[LNERW1]

Would any of the Tgauge.com motors be of use in HOf?

[Sean]

15 minutes ago, LNERW1 said:

Would any of the Tgauge.com motors be of use in HOf?

Nah, h0f is on z gauge track, i couldnt imagine working with T  

[LNERW1]

Oh yeah of course but would the motors I posted above be of use? They're incredibly compact but still pack a bit of power and can run quite slowly, especially the one with gearbox.

[Sean]

ahh my apologies, i hadnt checked your links.

the second one looks exactly like the motor in the busch chassis except the busch motor is 6x15mm so a bit bigger.

micromotor.eu exist as a firm that manufactures 12v replacements  for busch.

 

I dont see any small enough for t but maybe the x12 could be fitted with some fettling 

 

they look like a great upgrade for the busch system that reallly improves running

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Sean