QUOTE Can we refer to N-Scale rather than N-Gauge?
We CAN, but it actually isn't correct - sorry Dennis!
For the word 'scale' to be meaningfully unambiguous, it has to be a expressed numerically, not as a letter.
Scale can be expressed as a numeric ratio, like 1/148 or 1/160.
or in numeric units such as 2.1mm = 1 foot or 1.9mm = 1 foot,
although it has to be said that neither of those mm/foot scales accurately match the ratios used previously!
N absolutely specifically refers to the gauge between rails.
N stands for Neun (nine) millimetres gauge.
That 9mm figure was commercially established by Arnold in the early 1960s and has been maintained ever since.
As mentioned in a previous post, the
scale actually varies.
The good old Brits use 1/148 (generally, but please read further down!)
and most everyone else uses 1/160.
To be more precise, 9mm gauge (N!) is actually a true scale of 1/159.46 so, although 1/160 is very close, and is quite commonly used interchageably, that still doesn't make it a scale - N remains a letter symbolizing Neun, Nine
9mm gauge
It may be mentioned that even the British N Gauge Society couldn't make up its mind about the SCALE and in its time has supported variations from an initial 1/148, changed to 1/152, changed back to 1/148 and changed back yet again to 1/148! There actually was another fly in the ointment that pre-dated N gauge and that was 'OOO Gauge'. It had a gauge that, during it's history, jumped around from a low of 8.25mm through both 9mm and 9.42mm, to a high of 9.5mm but amazingly, NOT in that logical order of progression. Its SCALE was (allegedly) constant at 1/152.4. I could refer readers to written souces for this info and fully intended to, but incredibly, even the most suthoritative of them are STILL littered with inconsistencies of 'Scale' and 'Gauge' and I don't aim to perpetuate it.
Unfortunately, the entire history of ralway modelling is riddled with similar anomalies between gauge and scale, most notably OO. But there are plenty of other scales where the gauge simply does not match the so-called scale and several scales may have been used for the one gauge or vice versa. On a positive, HO is a VERY good match of 16.5mm gauge with an accurate scale of 1/87, but the term 'HO' is still an alphabetical symbol, not a scale and this is the wrong board to beat that particular one to death anyway!
Also unfortunate is the fact that so many web sites like
THIS Australian one that set out to demistify the confusion and actually get it completely and utterly WRONG, thus further perpetuating the confusion rather than clarifying anything. I probably shouldn't have put that link in either now I come to think of it - bound to regret it later!
So, to get right back on track (
), we can call it
N gauge, we can call it
1/160 scale or we can call it
1/148 scale, but we can't call it
'N Scale'! . Well, to go back to the start of this missive, we CAN, but it's definitely not correct!
Here endeth the lesson!