T gauge- a serious opportunity?

[LNERW1]

Following on from my experimental T Gauge- Benefits and Restrictions thread in Letting Off Steam, I thought I'd bring up the possibility, "up the top" of the forum, of serious T gauge modelling. The only company in the rolling stock market currently is Tgauge.com, although recently a few 3d printing and laser cutting companies have offered T gauge buildings and accessories, notably Buggleskelly Station very recently to coincide with his T gauge layout build series.

I have compiled a list of products from Tgauge.com that can be used to represent IÉ, CIÉ and NIR models, here:

Document 12-1.pdf,

although I would recommend reading the most recent post in the initial thread for explanation of the methodology and recommendations.

The scenic possibilities of such a scale are evident, but one thing not often mentioned is the possibility for operations as might be seen on a large OO/HO or N gauge layout. Having talked to several people about FREMO layouts at the SDMRC show over the weekend, it occurs to me the operational interest of a huge layout representing a large section or even the entirety of a railway line is not insignificant, but would be difficult to achieve even in fairly space-efficient scales such as N or OO/HO. With T gauge, a 20m layout for example could represent 9km of railway line at 1:450 scale. Now, 20m isn't exactly short but could feasibly fit at an exhibition, especially if curved over on itself. And with that you introduce the possibility of even longer layouts, with a potential 100m layout, which could be bent around itself to easily fit in many exhibition spaces, representing 45km- almost the distance from Heuston to Newbridge, or Connolly to just short of Laytown (almost to Drogheda for those unfamiliar with the Belfast line). That is a simply insane length of railway to model, and if it were in T gauge, one could model a 200m wide area with an 18in wide baseboard. 

Now, this is of course still a lot of space, so, if you don't have a whole school hall to work with, an average model railway baseboard can still fit a lot on it in T scale. For example, with the baseboards I am currently using for my fairly small 00 branch line terminus layout Ardree Quay I could, with a bit of clever re-aligning of the existing baseboards,, model the entirety of Heuston. The entire station, from the LUAS stop all the way to the bridge over the station throat, and across from the old Platform 1 to the entrance to the Phoenix Park Tunnel. I could even replicate basically all the stock running into the station as 22000s, 201s and MKIVs are all listed in my above guide and could easily be recreated by modifying Tgauge.com products. T gauge has huge (pun intended) potential for modelling and I am seriously considering a project in this scale. In fact, I do have a plan to incorporate it into an upcoming school project, so watch this space. 

To summarise, I think T gauge is a really exciting scale with plenty of potential and utility which I urge others to look into.

[Mol_PMB]

Interesting stuff, and thanks for sharing what you have found out so far.

As I get older, the smaller scales become ever more challenging, but I can see that for young eyes, nimble fingers and small spaces in cramped accommodation, T gauge may be very attractive.

I've seen a couple of large and scenically impressive T gauge layouts at exhibitions. From my experience of watching them, the operational reliability has been poor. That's not necessarily a reflection on T gauge itself, there are plenty of larger scale layouts which are unreliable too! But I've yet to see a T gauge exhibition layout that works reliably. 

If I were young enough to dabble in a very small scale, like T gauge or indeed the HOf that @Sean is working in, I'd want to experiment quite a lot with the operational reliability. One of the main things that differentiates our layouts from dioramas is the fact that the trains move, and we can operate services, shunt wagons etc. That's a significant part of the interest for me (perhaps not for everyone though) and I would be very frustrated to spend a long time building something that didn't work reliably.

Having said that, technology and miniaturisation is forever improving. Perhaps I am a dinosaur. I do hope you youngsters make a success of this!

[LNERW1]

Yeah, the biggest problem is indeed how finicky reliability can be. I think this is probably a big reason many T gauge layouts mainly involve trains travelling at full speed, as well as the fact that it is much better accomodated in the scale. It would probably be feasible to make a layout where trains simply stop at a station, but shunting in T gauge is basically off the table. There is no way to reliably uncouple the buckeye couplings (very similar to N gauge Rapido type, but much smaller), except perhaps poking a fine flathead screwdriver through the coupling. There is of course also the question of reliable slow running, however, given this footage of a Tgauge.com class 08 it appears to not be a problem, at least when it comes to maintaining a consistent slow speed. Now of course reliability issues may indeed be more of an issue given the sheer tininess of the scale, I'm not entirely sure it's an unavoidable problem. I do appreciate the reasoned approach to the issues you have though.

Edited 17 hours ago by LNERW1

[Sean]

This is absolutely crazy to me  but its my kinda crazy 

 

Having watched that peco 200 video recently, ill certainly entertain the idea since the space advantages are clear and i love a good micro.

 

I know nothing about T scale I will admit but i did investigate Z recently  and i dont think I could go much smaller than 6.5mm gauge track and mechanisms.

 

If Z gauge was feasible. you can easily get points and set track as well as flexitrack. the cheapest running mechanism costs 30 euro or so from rokuhan

 

Dont let this deter you, people said the same things about N gauge for years.

 

one thing is, ive been told to expect a lot more track and wheel cleaning with this h0f scale,  logically this will intensify further if we go down to T.

[David Holman]

There is a 1:400 model railway in the latest MRJ. 

[Mayner]

I changed to N scale many years ago out of frustration trying to build a OO gauge layout in the box room of my parents house and after a few false starts probabably built what was my most satisfying layout, which lasted several years until a house move.

One of the main lessons was not to scrimp on price and only buy locos with high quality mechanisms (at the time mainly of German manufacture (Minitrix & Arnold) ), at the time other manufacturers budget priced locos (Bachmann, Lima, Life Like (Mehano) were best described as disposible ran ok for a week or so.

I originally intended to run locos and stock un-modified out of the box, but gradually started painting locos and stock in CIE colours and eventually modified locos to resemble CIE diesels even scratchbuilding loco bodies.

I found that the general standard of models had improved significantly when I began modelling American outline N gauge during the late 80s with the advent of high quality (but durable) Japanese manufactured locos and the availability of Kadee N scale magnetic uncouplers.

Its possible that similar developments may take place in T Gauge over the next 10 years or so, interestingly the current T Gauge coupler appears similar to the almost universal Rapido coupler once commonly used in N scale.

Another alternative would be to consider T Gauge as a practical option for modelling a contemporary main line layout with long trains running at main line speed in a restricted space. 

The Model Railway Club (London) pioneered the modelling of a railway in a landscape in N scale with it Chiltern Green layout during the late 70s, included a station and viaduct on the 4 track Midland Main Line in N gauge and a fine scale branch line passing through the scene at a lower level. In an Irish context a realistic model of the 4 tracked section of the Cork Line (Hazlehatch one of my favourite places) or the Belfast line at Gormanstown would be achievable in a medium sized room or garage.

[Horsetan]

9 minutes ago, Mayner said:

...The Model Railway Club (London) pioneered the modelling of a railway in a landscape in N scale with it Chiltern Green layout during the late 70s, included a station and viaduct on the 4 track Midland Main Line in N gauge and a fine scale branch line passing through the scene at a lower level. ....

That was exhibited at the old Model Railway Exhibition at the Central Halls in Westminster back in 1980.  It wasn't N-gauge as such, as the MRC was already working in 2mm Finescale, with a gauge of 9.42mm, rather than the RTR 9mm.