3 mm scale, also known as 3 mm finescale, is a model railway scale of 3 mm: 1 ft used for British prototypes. Introduced as British

TT gauge TT scale is a model railroading scale, whose name stands for ''table top''. Its 1:120 scale (from a common engineering scale where one inch equals ten feet) and gauge are roughly halfway between HO scale (1:87) and N scale (1:160). Its original ...

, it sits approximately halfway between British

N gauge N scale is a popular model railway scale. Depending upon the manufacturer (or country), the scale ranges from 1:148 to 1:160. In all cases, the ''gauge'' (the distance between the rails) is . The term N ''gauge'' refers to the track dimensions, ...

and

OO gauge OO gauge or OO scale (also, 00 gauge and 00 scale) is the most popular standard-gauge model railway standard in the United Kingdom, outside of which it is virtually unknown. OO gauge is one of several 4 mm-scale standards (4 mm to 1 foot, ...

, but is not as popular as either and there is no longer any mass manufacturer ready-to-run support. When

model railways were developed for British prototypes, in order to fit the small British prototypes, the scale was enlarged but without altering the 12mm gauge. The result,

British TT gauge 3 mm scale, also known as 3 mm finescale, is a model railway scale of 3 mm: 1 ft used for British prototypes. Introduced as British TT gauge, it sits approximately halfway between British N gauge and OO gauge, but is not as po ...

, is too narrow. This led to the development of gauge 3mm finescale. Thus two

finescale Finescale standards or Fine Standards are model railway standards that aim to be close to the prototype dimensions. Reduction in toylike, overscale flanges, pointwork, etc. In Britain it is particularly used because small British prototypes meant ...

standards were developed. By far the more common of these is 14.2 mm gauge track, which is accurate. Some modellers choose to use slightly narrower 13.5 mm track due to the necessary oversize motion of outside-

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

ed steam locomotives. British TT, also known as TT3, was pioneered by Triang Railways as ready-to-run models. Other gauges are also used to model other prototypes (

Irish broad gauge The track gauge adopted by the mainline railways in Ireland is . This unusually broad track gauge is otherwise found only in Australia (where it was introduced by the Irish railway engineer F. W. Sheilds), in the states of Victoria, southern New ...

Brunel gauge Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

). For narrow gauges,

9 mm track represents gauge;

Z gauge Z (or z) is the 26th and last letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual names in English are ''zed'' () and ''zee'' (), with an occasi ...

track represents to {{RailGauge, 2ft2in gauge. The ''3mm Society'' caters for all modellers of 3 mm scale.

References

External links

3mm Society

3mm Supplier

See also

References

External links