British N gauge is a model railway scale and gauge, rolling stock is to a scale of 1:148, track is width as with all other N gauges making track and rolling stock approximately 10% out of scale with respect to each other. The track width derives from a scale of 1:160 for rails.

Background

When N gauge was developed it proved impossible to fit the then available motors into scale models of British prototype locomotives. British railways use a smaller loading gauge than those in Europe and America, resulting in smaller locomotives. A greater body size was required on the models to accommodate the motors, so instead of adopting the correct 1:160 scale, 1:148 was used. This allows larger models, but means that the gauge is not an accurate representation of standard gauge. A similar problem and solution was adopted with OO gauge and British TT gauge in Britain. However, since N scales to 1332 mm gauge, it is less out of scale than OO (1257 mm) or TT3 (1219 mm) in representing the standard gauge.

Manufacturers

Former manufacturers

Related scales

Finescale modellers modelling in this size use 2mm finescale, which has 9.42mm track and a scale of 1:152.