With the advent of new true scale rail for Gauge One now being imminent, the prospect of a new scale sleeper/chair unit being produced have been suggested as a further possibility by Cliff Barker. With this in mind I thought I'd look at the relative sizes of prototype and Gauge One model track to see what the dimensions of any such new track components might be. Taking the track materials that I had to hand and the 1956 edition of "British Railway Track", I came up with the following table of comparisons:

Barker plastic

Peco G1

Barker wood

44.45mm

?

Notes to table:

Lower sleeper spacing shown is for curves under 20 chains radius (40ft in G1!), larger figure for straight track. No reduction of spacing at joints included in these figures. Prototype figures taken from "British Railway Track" 1956 edition. Model figures from direct measurement using vernier caliper and steel rule as appropriate.

Sleeper length and width

Having considered the figures my proposal is for a "universal" G1 scale sleeper at 85mm long by 8mm wide, depth as best suited to manufacturing process and compatibility with existing track products. This length would give 10mm modellers exact scale for most common sleeper length, whilst 1/32 modellers could chop off a bit if being ultra fastidious (for 8'6" length). Although this appears to "discriminate" against 10mm modellers this is in fact not the case, because at 45mm their gauge is 2mm under scale. The effective shortening of sleeper length and thinner sleeper width dictated by the size suggested above will actually give 10mm scale modellers a more realistic looking track, as it helps to mask the problem that the gauge at 45mm is 2mm less than it should be.

If this line of reasoning is giving anyone a problem, just think about the relative success of Peco "00" track compared to its long defunct "true scale" 4mm rival, Formoway (Farish). The HO/OO scale difference is much bigger than that from which is suffered from in G1, and yet thousands of OO modellers, myself included, are/were quite happy with what is basically a track to HO standards. The factor which drives 4mm modellers into true 4mm scale sleeper sizing is the move to a scale section rail. (Most usually in the form of SMP track, which has seen huge sales growth since introduction in 1976) Peco's continuing success in the OO market is still testament to the soundness of their approach of matching the track proportions to the GAUGE and not the SCALE. Yes I know they probably did this to maximise international sales to HO modellers, but the approach still works well, I am looking at my 4mm scale light railway terminus laid with their (code 75 rail) as I speak and it looks great!

As regards sleeper width, for all the reasons that are stated above I think it is most important that it is set at a width towards the 1/32nd end of things, and I would plump for 8mm. In my judgement the thing which most spoils Cliff Barker's existing track is the sleeper width. I can see the line of argument that he followed when he chose it (ie trying to mask the over scale track section), but with scale section rail this argument no longer applies.

Sleeper spacing.

I am less sure what is the best thing to do. Whilst much of our track is under a scale 20 chains radius, some of it is also straight. I think this point is less important, in any event you couldn't manufacture to accommodate closer spacing at joints and we can all change sleeper spacing if we want to anyway.

Chairs

As regards chairs, I think we want a close to 1/32 scale job, for the same reasons as above. Ideally with a key moulded offset, possibly sticking out both sides so that we could chop one side or the other off. Alternatively, how about a true scale chair with no key moulded in, and a separate piece we drive in and solvent fix. I can see that this is a rather thornier issue for technical reasons, ie cost of ejector pins, and also that it requires LH and RH chairs if moulding offset. I can also see that the "fiddle factor" of the other approaches (especially separate keys!) would put off the mainstream G1 market, who need to lay double tracks around quite big areas in reasonable time-scales.

Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, I think new scale track should be scaled from prototype by basically 1/32 dimensions. I suspect that the vast majority of G1 modellers may dispute this, but I will stick my neck out and suggest that they might be looking at the whole situation from the wrong end of the binoculars if they did. Many will say that they "don't look at the track under the engine" and I am sure that this is true. Many will choose not to change to a scale rail on the basis that "it doesn't really matter" and many more on the basis that they don't wish to mix rail sections, which would be perfectly understandable. Since I chose and started gently espousing a 1/32nd approach to Gauge One modelling, I have had many existing G1MRA 10mm modellers say that if they had "known about it" and had a choice of scale supplies when they started out, then they would have plumped for 1/32nd rather than 10mm scale.

Rail and track is literally the foundation of any model railway. The future of Gauge One is going to be in new tracks not old tracks and for this and the above reasons I strongly suggest that Cliff Barker makes a clean break away from 10mm tradition with any new scale track components. Any Gauge One model sitting on this new track as described above is going to look much better, and this can only improve the future prospects for all Gauge One modelling. I think it will also make people think about track and wheel standards, but that is another discussion....

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