# " O " Guage ?



## John J (Dec 29, 2007)

What is the difference between O gauge and 027 gauge


JJ


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## Reg Stocking (Sep 29, 2010)

Gauge is the distance between the inner edges of the running rails. O gauge = 1 1/4". O-27 is Lionel's lower price line. The 27 refers to the diameter of a circle of curved track, 27". Lionel's traditional O gauge is 31" for a circle. An O-27 train runs just fine on O gauge track, but the larger O gauge equipment will come to grief on O-27 curves.


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## Ralph Berg (Jun 2, 2009)

O27 is a 1/64 scale train operating on O trucks / wheels, made to run on O track, yet capable of handling a 27" diameter curve.


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## Truthman (Dec 13, 2008)

I don't know if I'm 100% correct, but I believe O gauge is 1:48, fairly accurate stuff like Atlas O and MTH available in 2 rail and 3 rail.. O27 I think is smaller, some Lionel are this scale and uses 3 rail. Atlas O and MTH are making some really nice stuff these days and I've looked into it. 1:48 is pretty sizeable stuff and usually comes with QSI/DCC or MTH DCS factory installed so locomotives for instance are a bargain compared to similarly equipped G scale loco's.


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## hawkeye2 (Jan 6, 2008)

Some of the O-27 boxcars (Baby Ruth/Hershey's) are colse enough to S (1/64) scale to be converted but Lionel O & O-27 is susposed to be "1/48 scale" and in truth are only toys. The O-27 cars were never made to an actual scale or even close to one and are generaly too wide to be 1/64th. Running them through a bandsaw and shaving off some of the details is a good start in converting. The better lithographed Marx boxcars are quite colse to 1/64th. but the plastic cars (sold as 1/64th., S as K Line) are much too large. Lionel has made and still does make an O sclae line that is a different story.


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## Reg Stocking (Sep 29, 2010)

1:64 is 3/16":1' and uses S gauge. Most vintage Lionel is underscale and not really 1:48; the 0-27 is more underscale than 0 as a rule. American Flyer is roughly scale in overall proportions and 1:64 on S gauge track. Then there is traditional 0 scale with 1:48 on 1 1/4" track. This gives a track gauge of a scale 5'. Back in the '30s two attempts were made to correct this. One built 17/64" scale equipment to run on 0 gauge track. Another used 1/4" scale on 1 3/16 track and called it Q gauge. 

Somebody could write a doctoral thesis about ancient toy train track gauges and the various scales invented to make them scale out right. E.g. 1 gauge of 1 3/4" or 45mm can be 3/8" or 10mm for 4' 8 1/2" standard gauge, 1/2" for Japanese, South African &c. prototyped of 3' 6" gauge, 1:22.5 for meter gauge, or 1:20.3 for 3' gauge.


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## Polaris1 (Jan 22, 2010)

AS others have mentioned..... 

O-27 is usually undersized 3 rail Rolling Stock running on either O or O-27 track.... 27" Diameter & larger curves. These items are frequently found in Starter sets.. 

O gauge is larger 3 rail Rolling Stock that includes many 1/48 scale items that may/may not run on O-31 track..... 31" Diameter or Larger Curves are required, like O-72.. 

O Scale is 2 rail 1/48 scale Rolling Stock that uses O-72 or larger 2 rail curves... 72" Diameter.... or bigger.... 

Dennis M.


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## Naptowneng (Jun 14, 2010)

Yup to all of the above.

I happen to like running my post war Lionel on O-27 track as it is a little smaller in height then the O track, and looks a little better to my eye, 

Jerry


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Something not mentioned above; a lot of prewar O27 was "NO scale," as in lithographed or enameled tinplate. The prewar Torpedo freight set shown below as an example has actually got relatively long cars - with four-wheel trucks. Many starter sets had six inch cars with only two fixed axles.










Have fun,
David Meashey


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## vsmith (Jan 2, 2008)

Alot of early O-27 was scaled at 1/64, essentially S scale (3/16"/foot) running on O track. This was done so that the trains could still be semi-scale but still run on the very tight 27" diameter curves. 

Marx is the best example of this, their O gauge items remained stubbornly close to 3/16 size throughout most of the 4 decade long production run. Some AF guys back in the day even going so far as to buying cheaper Marx 3/16 scale items and swapping out the trucks and couplers to S gauge. Lionel quickly upped the scale of their O-27 line closer to 1/48, just compressing items lengthwise. That way everything they made could be run together without looking off, as long as they were the same height and width wise. This explains why their O-27 streamliner cars are so short. 

I have alot of 3/16 litho Marx stuff, its alot of fun to run and O-27 makes small layout planning easy.


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