STARTING OUT IN GAUGE 3
Why I turned to Gauge 3 from 'O' Gauge.
(by a Member of The Gauge '3' Society)
Starting Out in Gauge 3
My father modelled EM gauge (Aylesbury LNWR), and when I was old enough to have a go myself I didn't feel able to match his standards, so decided to change scale. After looking into N gauge, I decided on 7mm scale, and joined the Gauge 0 Guild in 1969. About 30 years later I was offered the remains of a vintage steam engine which I thought would be nice as a centre-piece in the railway room. When I started handling the model I found it so much more satisfying than 0 Gauge. I could see the parts for a start! I found that it was to a scale I'd never heard of - Gauge 3, so I joined the Gauge 3 Society to find out more.
Running a rule over the LNWR 'Experiment' class loco, I was impressed to find that, although it was ninety years old (yes, my actual model was made before the First World War), the main dimensions were exactly correct because it was large enough even for commercial manufacturers in those days not to have to compromise. I considered making a train of wagons suitable for the Experiment loco, and a number of factors enabled that to happen.
Firstly, Slaters wheels had recently been introduced, meaning I needed no more skill to make a Gauge 3 wagon than for a 7mm scale wagon. If I had needed to turn my own wheels from iron castings I would not have continued, as I am not an engineer. Not only were Slaters wheels available, but they were only marginally more expensive than their own Gauge 1 versions.
Secondly, I found that for the last 50 years just about everybody modelled to the same scale - 13.5mm/1ft, which is probably a unique feature of Gauge 3. The market was not split between 2mm or 2 1/6mm; H0/00/EM/EMF/P4/S4 etc., etc; 32mm/33mm gauge, nor even 3/8in/1ft or 10mm/1ft. Everybody was the same!
Furthermore, the gauge/scale ratio was exactly correct, so nobody was going to come along and invent new standards to split the hobby, or preach to the rest of us with pages of boring theories in the magazines.
Thirdly, although there were quite a few complete kits available at modest cost, there were also big gaps in the market, so if I spent hours - days -weeks - building a model, nobody was likely to come out with a kit for it a few weeks later.
Fourthly, I went to a couple of Gauge 3 Society meetings and discovered that although I didn't then have a railway of my own, there were many others who did, and I was made very welcome to either sit and watch the trains, or actually take my models to run, either at sedate pace behind a battery shunting engine or, if I preferred, at express speeds behind a large high-pressure live steam engine on about 20ft radius curves. That was really impressive.
That was seven years ago, and I've never looked back. Indeed, I cannot now imagine ever modelling in another scale.
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Convert #2 : From 'OO' Gauge