Back to the Color Country Model Railroad Club open house at Saint George Utah and a revisit to Jim Harper’s Proto 48 layout of the Southern Pacific and the Sacramento Northern.
We have visited Jim’s railroad in the past but no Color Country open house would be complete without a visit to this AMAZING railroad. The layout depicts the Sacramento area in the 1950s and the junction between the electric Sacramento Northern and the Southern Pacific.
We have been doing the series on Tuesday’s shows on scale and gauge in a model railroad. 0 scale, better known as O scale is a 1/48 scale (1/4″ scale) and a track gauge of 1.25″. This makes the gauge five feet, which is wrong for standard gauge railroads that are 4 feet 8 and 1/2 inches. While most people accepted the error, others wanted to improve the situation. One “fix” was to make the trains 1/47 scale so the track gauge was correct. Also known as Q scale or SMO scale. Another fix was to keep the 1/48 scale but make the gauge correct 1.77 inches. The wheel shape is also rebuilt to a proper 5.5″ width with a scale flange.
More on all of this on the Tuesday show!