The humble British standard van, and the British standard model railway scale. Fairly obvious, but to clarify: we have a kit-built Ratio van in OO, a Lima in HO, a Hornby in TT:120, and a Peco in N. This was set up to take a look at how they compare; interestingly the middle two are more or less correct to gauge, while the outer pair are not. The significant jump out to many may be the smaller two and the difference in general size. On the right the N at 2 and 1/16mm scale (1/148) and left the TT at 2.54mm scale (1:120). Nominally 2mm and 2.5mm and yet visually quite a jump. At this point any 3mm scale modellers will be screaming about treachery and I do sympathise a little, but I admit that I think the new kid on the block definitely has something about it. I'm too invested in 4mm to change, but if I was coming at it cold as a newbie I would give it serious consideration. In trainset track terms the 'ideal' 2nd radius curves roughly equates to OO gauge 1st radius and all the RTR commercial stock is designed to take these as a minimum. So in broad terms you are turning 180 degrees in a bit over 2' width.
The reasoning behind this is purely commercial, but as above, the cold newbie would find quite a bit to like about the TT.
I've occasionally done the hypothetical "what if all my stuff disappeared and I had to start again" exercise.
ReplyDelete3mm (on 14.2) was always front runner in this scenario, with S a close second.
Nowadays, I wonder whether the two above would be replaced by (mostly RTR) TT120 and 0, respectively.
Having said that, I have enough continental TT for a small layout. My one reservation about TT:120 is those couplings; they seem to work well enough (especially using the natty Tillig screwdriver with a magnet for uncoupling) and look OK on the longer, chunkier Continental stock, but they look very obtrusive on, say, a 12T wooden mineral wagon. I'd be tempted to replace them with something like Greenwich 009 or DG if I was modelling British outline.
I seem to have started again anyway, but in German H0 and without getting rid of everything else first...