00-SF (16.2mm gauge + 1.0mm flangeway) (was: PECO and North

No it doesn't. But the fact that someone somewhere is successfully using it is good enough for me.

Alternatively, perhaps you can point me to the UK authority which sets and determines model railway standards?

I can remember it being much discussed in the model railway circles which I was in in the 70s. If you were somewhere else at the time that is unfortunate. But not knowing about a thing does not make it invalid!

That's correct. Called respectively 0-XF, 0-SF, 0-MF and 0-G0GF in Templot. The Gauge 0 Guild has settled on 31.2mm as the optimum, and is also using the designation 0-SF for it.

0-SF and 0-XF are now very popular and gaining ground in 7mm scale. For exactly the same reason that 00-SF will gain ground in 4mm scale - it gives improved running and better track appearance (from narrower flangeways) without requiring any change to existing wheels. So your stock remains interchangeable with every other
00 gauge layout.

This compares with the daft 00 finescale standards published by D0GA, which require modellers to change *both* track *and* wheels. (In which case it would be much easier to go to EM, for which the required parts are readily available.) And having so changed your wheels, they won't run on your friend's 00 gauge layout.

If this is true you are effectively saying that EM gauge doesn't work!

Consider Romford/Markits driving wheels:

1. The same wheels are used for both 00 and EM. It is surely therefore logical to have the same flangeway gap for both?

2. EM axles put the wheels 16.5mm apart. 00 axles put the wheels 14.5mm apart. That is a difference of 2mm. If the wheels are 2mm closer together for 00 then it is surely logical to have the rails 2mm closer together also? EM track gauge is
18.2mm. So that means a gauge of 16.2mm for 00. All simple and obvious.

The proviso is that we are talking about similar model railways, using similar radii and similar prototypical switch and crossing angles for both EM and 00.

Notice also that the one critical dimension, the CHECK gauge, is virtually identical for both 00-BF and 00-SF. (i.e. 15.25mm for 00-BF, 15.2mm for 00-SF). So not such a drastic change after all! (00-BF is the traditional BRMSB 00 finescale.)

Clearly if you are talking about "train set" curves with radii down to 18" or less, then 16.2mm won't work. For those you do need more "slop" as you say, and it was for such railways that 16.5mm gauge was originally adopted.

The argument about "not reducing the gauge any more" is a nonsense in my view. If having the correct track gauge is important to you then you don't model in 00 in the first place - you use P4. If the gauge should be 4'-8.1/2", saying that
4'-1.1/2" is ok but 4'-0.5/8" isn't, is just bizarre.

The FACT is that 16.2mm gauge with 1.0mm flangeways works *very* well for traditional finescale 00 wheels, and also accepts most modern r-t-r stock straight from the box.
What more could you want? And if you don't believe me, go along to the Carshalton club and have a look:

http://www.carshalton-sutton-mrc.co.uk/layouts00.html

But if you don't like the idea don't do it - it's not compulsory!

Why me? If you think I'm going to go rummaging through 30 years of back numbers and letters pages you must be joking! Do your own rummaging.

In fact I said nothing about magazines. I do remember "EM minus 2" being discussed among EM modellers in the Worcester area in the 70s and in the West Mercian EM Gauge Group meetings at the time.

As I explained, I was manufacturing such pointwork commercially at that time. I sent hundreds of 00-SF turnouts to customers all over the world - without any complaints that I can recall and several customers came back for more. I would hardly have done that if 00-SF was an entirely unknown quantity.

I also remember a tutorial evening in the late 70s when the local
Worcester club visited my workshop. Everyone built a turnout for the evening (in plain copper-clad), and they weren't allowed home until they had done so! I recall that half of them were in EM and the other half in 00-SF, so that I had enough track gauges to go round. I don't remember anyone thinking that there was anything special or unusual about that.

I suspect the reason that 00-SF went quiet in the intervening years is that the finescale modellers who might have been attracted to it migrated instead to EM and P4. But not all - David Smith has written in the previous thread that 00-SF is still alive and kicking - and waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of 00 modellers.

All this retrospective stuff is of course entirely beside the point - we should be discussing the merits of 00-SF, not who mentioned it first.

It probably gets called Finescale 00 in the same way that all vacuum cleaners are called "Hoovers". I've had two "finescale" 00 layouts (or at least I consider them finer scale than the average 00 layout).
One was built with Peco finescale, the other with C&L components. For both layouts, I was asked "Is this EM?"..........
Mick
Mick

Lot of snipping, but - and I hate to point out the obvious (AS IF!!!) but if there was an active British **** standard, all this would be irrelevant. I often wonder what would happen if one of the major American or European manufacturers decided to test the waters out with a large offering of
British outline HO, as Athearn was rumoured to be interested in a few years back. And I would be back modelling my first love, L&SWR. Instead of
American outline On30.

Ah well, my BLI C-16 is tooting for me, again..

Whilst not disputing its existence, I'll add myself to the list of people who've never heard of it (I didn't see much of the 1970s, though!).

Do its adherents just call it 00, so it doesn't really get noticed at exhibitions and things?