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Standard Gauge (toy Trains)
Standard Gauge, also known as wide gauge, was an early model railway and toy train rail gauge, introduced in the United States in 1906 by Lionel Corporation. As it was a toy standard, rather than a scale modeling standard, the actual scale of Standard Gauge locomotives and rolling stock varied. It ran on third rail (model railroading), three-rail track whose running rails were apart. Origins Lionel dubbed its new standard "Standard Gauge" and trademarked the name. Lionel's Standard Gauge is distinct from the standard gauge of real railroads, and the later 1:64 scale S gauge popularized by American Flyer after World War II. Due to the trademark, Lionel's competitors mostly called their similar offerings "wide gauge". Historians offer two alternative explanations for the creation of Standard Gauge. One is that Lionel misread the specifications for Märklin's European Gauge 2, measuring the distance between the inside portion of the rails rather than between the centers of th ...
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Model Railway
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, tracks, signalling, cranes, and landscapes including: countryside, roads, bridges, buildings, vehicles, harbors, urban landscape, model figures, lights, and features such as rivers, hills, tunnels, and canyons. The earliest model railways were the 'carpet railways' in the 1840s. The first documented model railway was the Railway of the Prince Imperial (French: Chemin de fer du Prince impérial) built in 1859 by emperor Napoleon III for his then 3-year-old son, also Napoleon, in the grounds of the Château de Saint-Cloud in Paris. It was powered by clockwork and ran in a figure-of-eight. Electric trains appeared around the start of the 20th century, but these were crude likenesses. Model trains today are more realistic, in addition to bein ...
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Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and ...
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Model Railway Scales
Rail transport modelling uses a variety of scales (ratio between the real world and the model) to ensure scale models look correct when placed next to each other. Model railway scales are standardized worldwide by many organizations and hobbyist groups. Some of the scales are recognized globally, while others are less widespread and, in many cases, virtually unknown outside their circle of origin. Scales may be expressed as a numeric ratio (e.g. 1/87 or 1:87) or as letters defined in rail transport modelling standards (e.g. HO, OO, N, O, G, TT and Z.) The majority of commercial model railway equipment manufacturers base their offerings on ''Normen Europäischer Modellbahnen'' (NEM) or National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) standards in most popular scales. Terminology Although '' scale'' and ''gauge'' are often confused, ''scale'' means the ratio between a unit of measurement on a model compared with a unit of measurement in corresponding full size prototype, while ''g ...
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Rail Transport Modelling Scales
Rail transport modelling uses a variety of scales (ratio between the real world and the model) to ensure scale models look correct when placed next to each other. Model railway scales are standardized worldwide by many organizations and hobbyist groups. Some of the scales are recognized globally, while others are less widespread and, in many cases, virtually unknown outside their circle of origin. Scales may be expressed as a numeric ratio (e.g. 1/87 or 1:87) or as letters defined in rail transport modelling standards (e.g. HO, OO, N, O, G, TT and Z.) The majority of commercial model railway equipment manufacturers base their offerings on ''Normen Europäischer Modellbahnen'' (NEM) or National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) standards in most popular scales. Terminology Although '' scale'' and ''gauge'' are often confused, ''scale'' means the ratio between a unit of measurement on a model compared with a unit of measurement in corresponding full size prototype, while ''g ...
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Gauge 2
Gauge 2 (also called 2 gauge or II gauge) is a model railway gauge, originally , then standardised in 1909 at , a 20% reduction and a change in definition: from mm to inch. It has since fallen into disuse. The gauge was introduced by Märklin at the Leipzig toy fair in 1891. Gauge 2 was equivalent to a 1:22.5 scale. Related scales and gauges After the change to in 1909, gauge was standardised as 3 gauge (or ''III gauge''). European G gauge trains are built to the same II gauge scale, but with a narrow rail gauge of (the same as 1 gauge). This G gauge at 1:22.5 scale represents narrow-gauge railways. This scale-gauge combination is sometimes called IIm in European literature. In the UK, Gauge 2 was 2 inches (50.8 mm) while Gauge 3 was . From this, it follows that G gauge is sometimes, albeit rarely, referred to as 3m. A 2 inch (50.8 mm) gauge of standard gauge locos gives a scale of 1:28.25, not so far off the 1/29 used by some manufactures with gauge track. In the grand ...
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Gauge 1
1 gauge, gauge 1 or gauge one is a model railway and toy train standard that was popular in the early 20th century, particularly with European manufacturers. Its track measures , making it larger than 0 gauge but slightly smaller than wide gauge, which came to be the dominant U.S. standard during the 1920s. Gauge one was standardised, according to ''Model Railways and Locomotive'' magazine of August 1909, at . An exact 1:32 scale would yield for standard gauge prototype. The distance between the wheel tyres was set at and between the centre of the track 48 mm (no inch equivalent suggesting it was metric users' requirement only). The wheel width was set at . Definitions using gauge, rather than scale, were more common in the early days with the four gauges for which standards were adopted being No. 0 (commonly called O gauge currently), No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3. Popularity Initially as popular in the United States as in the UK, 1 gauge lost popularity in the U.S. due to W ...
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Rail Transport Modelling
Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, rail tracks, tracks, Railway signal, signalling, Crane (machine), cranes, and landscapes including: countryside, roads, bridges, buildings, vehicles, harbors, urban landscape, model figures, lights, and features such as rivers, hills, tunnels, and canyons. The earliest model railways were the 'carpet railways' in the 1840s. The first documented model railway was the Railway of the Prince Imperial (French: Chemin de fer du Prince impérial) built in 1859 by emperor Napoleon III for his then 3-year-old son, also Napoleon, in the grounds of the Château de Saint-Cloud in Paris. It was powered by clockwork and ran in a figure-of-eight. Electric trains appeared around the start of the 20th century, but these were crude likenesses. M ...
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Bing (company)
Bing or Gebrüder Bing ("Bing brothers") was a German toy company founded in 1863 in Nuremberg, Germany by two brothers, Ignaz Bing and Adolf Bing, originally producing metal kitchen utensils, but best remembered for its extensive lines of model trains and live steam engines. History The company produced fine pewter and copper tableware before embarking on toy production in 1880, their first teddy bears were released in 1907. By the early 20th century, Bing was the largest toy company in the world, and Bing's factory in Nuremberg was the largest toy factory in the world. Although Bing produced numerous toys, it is best remembered today for toy trains and live steam powered toys. In addition to toys it made scientific and educational novelties, and a huge range of kitchenware, tableware, office equipment, record players, electrical goods and so on. The "Nuremberg Style" of manufacturing toys on steel sheets with lithographed designs that were stamped out of the metal, for ...
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MTH Electric Trains
MTH Electric Trains is an American toy train and model railroad designer, importer, and manufacturer. A privately held company based in Columbia, Maryland, MTH was formerly known as Mike's Train House. Early career MTH's founder, Mike Wolf, started assembling and selling trains at the age of 12 in 1973 for Williams Electric Trains, which had begun producing reproductions of vintage trains manufactured by Lionel Corporation, in the early 1970s. By 1980, Wolf was operating a mail order business selling Williams trains and parts out of his bedroom in his parents' home. When Williams decided to end its line of Lionel Standard gauge and O gauge reproductions, Wolf bought the tooling and continued building the replicas. Although many published reports have stated that Williams had acquired original Lionel tooling, both Wolf and Jerry Williams deny this claim. From 1983 to 1987, MTH marketed the reproduction trains on its own. In 1987, Lionel approached Samhongsa, MTH's subcontractor in ...
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Williams Electric Trains
Williams Electric Trains was an American toy train and model railroad manufacturer, based in Columbia, Maryland. Williams was sold to Kader via their subsidiary Bachmann Industries in October 2007, and is now identified as "Williams by Bachmann." It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Williams as a maker of reproductions of vintage Lionel and Ives Standard gauge trains. Williams had acquired some of the original tooling from the original Lionel Corporation after it sold the rights to the name to General Mills in 1969. In the 1980s Williams acquired tooling that had once belonged to Kusan, an obscure Lionel competitor from the 1950s, and its product line shifted to O scale. Williams eventually discontinued its tinplate offerings, selling the old Lionel tooling to the company that later became MTH Electric Trains. Although today Williams is often considered a maker of reproduction 1950s-era Lionel equipment, Williams' offerings are distinguishable from the Lionel originals because William ...
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Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Chile covers an area of , with a population of 17.5 million as of 2017. It shares land borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the north-east, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. Chile also controls the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. It also claims about of Antarctica under the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The country's capital and largest city is Santiago, and its national language is Spanish. Spain conquered and colonized the region in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule, but failing to conquer the independent Mapuche who inhabited what is now south-central Chile. In 1818, after declaring in ...
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