Model Forum / General / Railroads / February 2010

Hundreds of an inch. Code 65 = 0.065"

Code 100 represents rail of 152lb/yard in HO, slightly lighter in OO.
!52lb rail was AFAIK only used by the Pennsy, and even they did not use
it extensively. Still, because of that fact, 16.5mm track for HO is to
scale, sort of.

Code 80/83 represent the heaviest currently used rail for OO/HO, about
132lb/yard. Most track is built with lighter rail, hence Peco's code 75,
and code 70 rail for 16.5mm track from Shinohara, etc.

Code 80 for N is simply not to scale, but it's robust enough to stand up
to repeated assembly and disassembly. Code 55 is about right for 152lb
rail. A better rail size for N would be code 40, but that is a fragile
rail, easily kinked. I used code 40 for a 16.5 mm gauge turnout about 40
years ago, glued the rail down with Pliobond. Worked well as a demo,
even with 0.035" wheel flanges, but I never installed it in a layout.

Rail height and weight and therefore scale appearance correlate fairly
well, but not perfectly. Code 100 with a narrow railhead will look
pretty good if the track is ballasted, painted, and weathered. Look at
real track for ideas on how to do this. In this, as in so many aspects
of model railways, illusion often creates as good an effect as true
scale, and sometimes better. ;-)

cheers,
wolf k.

Indeed the measure in in 1/1000ths of an inch.

John.

My bad! You're correct.

It's much too simple to say "is". Code 55 is also used in H0 gauge, and
I've used code 100 in 0 gauge. You can use whatever rail suits your
prototype and scale.

Then there's code 40 which is mostly used in H0f, N, Nm/Nn3 and Z gauge.

That is with ready to run track, flrex-track etc,.

You can use what you like - several 7mm Colonel Stevens-ish light
railway layouts use code 100.