19mm gauge 00

[Pacific231G]

American 00 (4mm/ft scale and 19mm gauge) still has a small following over there and a SIG in the NMRA but I'd never heard of it being used in this country.

 

That was until I recently got hold of a very early (Ian Allan) Railway Modeller from Jan-Feb 1951 and found the third part of an article by Norman Mathews L.R.A.M. describing his fairly extensive 19mm gauge layout using outside third rail electrification - the layout was based on Southern electric so third rail was realistic.  I've not come across this gauge being actually used rather than just suggested in this country anywhere else so have no idea whether others were doing the same. It may be that Norman Mathews was simply an individual modeller who decided to go for a gauge as close to scale as possible. His layout had three foot minimum radius curves and most of the stock were EMUs though he also had a GW 0-4-2T with an auto train and a Pannier tank and a "CC type" electric loco for freight.

 

I'd be very interested to know whether anyone else in the UK ever used 19mm gauge as during the 1940s the BRMSB were being urged to adopt it for "fine scale 00" but opted instead for 18mm (which came to be named EM with the gauge widened to 18.2mm)

 

[micknich2003]

I can't name anyone, but I have seen ref to 19mm Gauge in old magazines.

[Pacific231G]

A bit of curve related gauge widening and P4 fits the bill

Gauge yes but the other standards for crossings, check rails, tyres etc. would probably have been more like EM. From the rather grainy pictures the track looks perhaps a bit finer scale than Peter Denny's EM track for Buckingham while the wheelsets look to be fine but not ultra fine scale. The layout is bare track but very extensive with a double track main line, two main line termini, two large through stations, a single track branch, 60-70 sets of points and a single slip. I'd love to know how much further he got with this layout which by then had taken him a few years work and what else he achieved. Though describing himself as an office worker Norman Mathews mentions fitting in his modelling activities alongside his musical activites and as a licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (L.R.A.M.) must have been a reasonably distinguished musician. Has anyone else heard of him?

 

Curious to think that in the end most of the world's  railway modelling ended up being based on the work of three or four blokes in the Wimbledon area who's ideas weren't widely accepted in their own country!!  Railway modelling is though clearly a British invention.

[micknich2003]

Probably find him in the archives of the music acadamy. I wonder if he was related to Peter Mathews, the PO Wagon archavist? Peter was also a musician.

[Pacific231G]

Probably find him in the archives of the music acadamy. I wonder if he was related to Peter Mathews, the PO Wagon archavist? Peter was also a musician.

The photos in the article were taken by Raymond Mathews:his son? I've looked up Norman Mathews on the RAM website but it might be worth delving further. I'll see if he shows up in later RMs but I don't recall any layout like that. Cyril Freezer did once tell me when I was trying to find later work by the Rev. P.H. Heath (Llanfair 00n3 and the Piano Line) that he'd known quite a lot of modellers who contributed one or even a small flurry of articles then were never heard from again.  Sometimes they show up again years later but I guess the magazines only reveal the tip of the modelling iceberg.

[micknich2003]

Norman Mathews reapears in Railway Modeller, Dec 1951, where he describes the P Way, he often uses the expresions our or we, suggesting he had an helper. He also writes in Railway Modeller Oct/Nov 1950 (Still Bi-Monthly), where he mentions an interest in Radio as long ago as 1927, and that he married in 1940.Obviously by the time of his articles he was knocking on a bit.

[Grovenor]

Obviously by the time of his articles he was knocking on a bit.

Hmm, married in 1940, probably in his 20s, making him say 10 - 12 in 1927, a good age for an interest in radios, so in his 30s when the articles were published, even adding 10 years to that its not exactly what I would call "knocking on a bit", like, maybe you and I.

Regards

Keith

[micknich2003]

Kieth, you and I are still young. Being 40 c1950 would indeed be "Knocking on a bit". I have an almost full run of magazines 1950 onwards, if I ever get the time, I will see if his name reapears. 

[Pacific231G]

Norman Mathews reapears in Railway Modeller, Dec 1951, where he describes the P Way, he often uses the expressions our or we, suggesting he had an helper. He also writes in Railway Modeller Oct/Nov 1950 (Still Bi-Monthly), where he mentions an interest in Radio as long ago as 1927, and that he married in 1940.Obviously by the time of his articles he was knocking on a bit.

I have the Dec 1951 edition. He explains the use of our or we "suggesting a progress report by the Board of Directors" in March-April 1951 and says that the construction of the line is "all my own work" though some of the more technical jobs such as building loco motors (!) point motors etc. were carried out by a friend George Batchelor"

 

Norman Mathews surfaces again in the August and September 1954 editions of RM with a two part article on a very sophisticated automatic signalling scheme used on his layout but I've not found anything else after that.

 

Everything about his articles suggests a man of some means. He served in the army during the war in signals based in the UK but had apparently been working in 19mm gauge before the war.

I've asked the RAM if they know anything about him as I suspect, from something he wrote,  he may have been quite high up in music management.

 

Mick, I've PMd you about his articles.

[Pacific231G]

I've done a bit more delving. There was a small flurry of modellers using 19mm gauge or thereabouts just before the war and in March 1937 J.N.Maskelyne the editor of Model Railway News suggested that henceforth 16.5mm should be H0 gauge (by then well established in the USA) and 00 should be the 19mm gauge adopted by a "but few but growing" number of modellers.

 

The Wimbledon Club - where H0 was developed- reported in May 1939  a new clubhouse in which 0, H0 and 19mm gauge layouts were being built. The next month H.D. Pinnington started a series of very useful articles describing the step by step construction of his new shelf layout with a gauge of between 18.5 and 19mm. He was the first person I've yet come across who quoted the exact gauge for 4mm/ft as 18.83mm. In his third article he went into some detail about track standards and laying out points but quickly concluded the series with a look at scenery soon after the outbreak of war in 1939. He did contribute one short piece in August 1940 about a bridge section to cross a doorway in his room and resurfaced once in 1948 with a description of West Kilbride station where he and his brother (who had briefly described a small folding layout in a letter to MRN in 1939 ) had served together in the army during the war.

 

So far, Norman Mathews is the only post-war modeller I've come across who used 19mm gauge but presumably it was generally replaced by EM once 18mm gauge became the preferred "fine scale" gauge for 4mm/ft 

[Barry Ten]

American 00 (4mm/ft scale and 19mm gauge) still has a small following over there and a SIG in the NMRA but I'd never heard of it being used in this country.

 

 

 

 

I've seen American 00 with 19mm gauge mentioned in the modelling press once or twice, but can't recall seeing a layout - I wonder how many are still

giving it a go? It would seem to be a heck of a pain barrier for minimum gain, given the ready availability of both HO and S. Perhaps, though, that's the

challenge?

[Pacific231G]

I've seen American 00 with 19mm gauge mentioned in the modelling press once or twice, but can't recall seeing a layout - I wonder how many are still

giving it a go? It would seem to be a heck of a pain barrier for minimum gain, given the ready availability of both HO and S. Perhaps, though, that's the

challenge?

Not many but a few. It was the gauge/scale used by the New York SME from about 1930 and that led to Lionel adopting it for a new scale range in 1938 with Scale-Craft and others also manufacturing for it. Production halted when WW2 began for the USA at the end of 1941 and Lionel never resumed it though others did until the 1950s and even into the early 1960s. American OO was a scale rather than a toy train range and several impressive layouts were built with it. such as Carl Appel's Norfolk & Ohio.  I've no idea how many people are still actually modelling in it as opposed to collecting but there are a few and I've set some enquiries in train. 

 

The description of it American OO on one of the blog sites dedicated to it does include this warning.

" Please note that the more popular British OO (or 00) is also 1/76 scale but usually is built to operate on HO gauge (16.5mm) track;"

[micknich2003]

I have read somewhere (Model Railroader?), that

alot of American outline is actualy 4mm scale, I will try and recall the refferance.

[Grovenor]

I have read somewhere (Model Railroader?), that

alot of American outline is actualy 4mm scale,

You were probably reading the 00 SIG webpages! IMHO its just the 00 guys trying to find an excuse for using H0 bits to go with their old 00 stuff. IIRC the reference specifically mentions trucks (bogies), which is obviously a nonsense as soon as you see one next to a real 00 truck.

What remains of 00 modelling in the US seems to be almost entirely a tinplate collectors activity, akin to Hornby Dublo here.

It would be nice to hear different.

Regards

Keith

[micknich2003]

I have Model Railroader on disk from 1934 onwards, putting 00 Gauge, oo Gauge or 19mm Gauge in "Search" produces nothing relevant.

[Grovenor]

One quote from the SIG page,

And modern HO trucks are easily converted to OO (see The OO Road , October 1985 for one example, November 1992 for another creating a roller bearing truck from journal bearing OO trucks --complete with rotating roller bearings!).

See here for more http://www.nmra.org/national/sig/AmericanOO.html   I remember when Lima first produced their H0 class 33 an article in one of the mags on converting it to 00, involved a lot of clever cutting and lots of extra plasticard.  I note that the H0 items mentioned as built to 00 scale are a relatively oddball collection of small prototypes.

This does also apply to a few of the Brazilian Frateschi models, eg the U20C.  http://www.norgrove.me.uk/U20C-project/u20c.html   Keith

[PhilJ W]

Heres a blog for American OO >>

http://www.americanoo.blogspot.co.uk

[Pacific231G]

Heres a blog for American OO >>

http://www.americanoo.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks Phil

I've now made contact with John Ericson who runs the blog and yes it does seem that only a very small number of people - including John- now use it for serious modelling. For most it is a collectors' field though much of what was produced was scale models rather than the trainset type stuff produced by Gilbert in the scale. 

 

What is interesting is that 19mm gauge was being talked about in Britain as the gauge for 4mm scale from as far back as 1926. However, comparatively few modellers were actually working in these small scales at that time: they were almost all using 16 - 16.5 mm gauge track and were divided between 4mm and 3.5mm scale. Nobody seems to have started using 4mm/ft scale with a more accurate gauge until some years after American OO had appeared in the USA (in about 1930)  by when 4mm/ft  had become the dominant small scale here and H0 had largely disappeared from British modelling. 

 

The rather ironic implication of all this is that we gave the world HO - the term was first used for 3.5mm scale 16.5mm gauge in MRN in 1927 several years before it first appeared in America- then largely abandoned it ourselves. A few years later it was American modellers, mostly around the NYSME, who developed the concept of using the correct 19mm gauge for the larger 4mm/ft scale rather than the correct scale for the existing gauge. That started to be used here and formed the basis of EM but was largely abandoned in America.  EM eventually led to Protofour- originally EEM- and that concept was exported to America and  Europe as P87. 

 

John Ericson's story of American OO  http://americanoo.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/oo-in-modelmaker-1925-30-part-i-first.html is well written and well worth reading

 

Update: Thanks to Mick I've now seen the first part of Norman Mathews' article in RM that triggered this topic. He was working in 19mm gauge before the war he says from about 1930 though he also says after visits to Hamblings who AFAIK didn't open his shop till 1938. Whether or not he was ahead of the Americans in using the gauge- apparently completely independently- he would have been one of the first and one of the last modellers in Britain to use it at least of those who appeared in the magazines.

[Pacific231G]

Probably find him in the archives of the music acadamy. I wonder if he was related to Peter Mathews, the PO Wagon archavist? Peter was also a musician.

I contacted the Royal Academy of Music who were kind enough to check their records but as Norman Mathews wasn't a full time student there all they knew was that he received his LRAM in Piano teaching in 1935. He dropped the letters from his name in his later articles.

I've not found anything later than his two articles on automatic signalling in RM in 1954 but, as these include no photos of his layout, they give no clue as to whether he ever developed it beyond the bare boards of his 1950-51 articles. The signalling articles were a bit esoteric even for 1954 as the system was exclusively for third rail electrification with the running rails insulated. By then, though three rail Hornby Dublo was still being made, third rail was becoming unusual for "serious" layout. Since Norman Mathews was modelling the electrified lines of the Southern it was completly prototypical (apart from in the goods sidings) and he had developed a very extensive layout.   

[kevinlms]

Gauge yes but the other standards for crossings, check rails, tyres etc. would probably have been more like EM. From the rather grainy pictures the track looks perhaps a bit finer scale than Peter Denny's EM track for Buckingham while the wheelsets look to be fine but not ultra fine scale. The layout is bare track but very extensive with a double track main line, two main line termini, two large through stations, a single track branch, 60-70 sets of points and a single slip. I'd love to know how much further he got with this layout which by then had taken him a few years work and what else he achieved. Though describing himself as an office worker Norman Mathews mentions fitting in his modelling activities alongside his musical activites and as a licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music (L.R.A.M.) must have been a reasonably distinguished musician. Has anyone else heard of him?

 

Curious to think that in the end most of the world's  railway modelling ended up being based on the work of three or four blokes in the Wimbledon area who's ideas weren't widely accepted in their own country!!  Railway modelling is though clearly a British invention.

Did he by chance model using Meccano? I've found this reference to a Meccano tram model.

 

http://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1972-01/mm197201_djvu.txt

 

Very hard to read, but do a search for Norman Matthews.

[Pacific231G]

Did he by chance model using Meccano? I've found this reference to a Meccano tram model.

 

http://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1972-01/mm197201_djvu.txt

 

Very hard to read, but do a search for Norman Matthews.

Thanks Kevin. Yes that must be the same Norman Mathews. In one of his 1951 RM articles he mentions sending out a newsletter to friends about the layout called The Southern Transport Gazette. Interesting that he was still doing so twenty years later but never reappeared (AFAIK) in any of the model railway magazines. It might be worth a word with David Voice as Norman Mathews may have become better known as a tram modeller. When I get the time I'll put the text into Word and see if I can make it more readable. I've remembered that there's a fairly comprehensive archive of Meccano Magazine. Norman Mathews' article is a lot more readable here http://meccano.magazines.free.fr/html/1972/7201/72010022.htm

It's in the January 1972 edition and he mentions having "in his early days" laid miles of 00 gauge (i.e. 19mm) track. It looks rather as if he did turn to larger scale tram modelling.

[Andrew Emmerson]

Several UK makers offered 19mm gauge as an option in the late 1930s: Hamblings, George Mellor and Multi-Models for example. In the early 1950s the Model Railway Club printed a list of model railways available to visit by appointment and a couple of these were listed as using 19mm gauge. So Norman Matthews was not alone.

 

I have offered an article to one of the model railway magazines on the subject of 19mm gauge in the UK and USA (I'm waiting for the go-ahead).

 

Andy Emmerson.

[bécasse]

I have a copy of the MRC's layout register compiled in 1965 and issued in March 1966. There are no 19mm track gauge layouts listed - and remarkably few 18mm ones either. It is, though, a fascinating document that is almost a "Who's who" of the model railway world half-a-century ago - and it includes not just names but full addresses too.

 

The NMRA National Convention was held, exceptionally, in London in the summer of 1971, and we were asked to display and operate our newly completed Bembridge P4 layout there as an example of the best of contemporary British railway modelling. It caused quite a lot of interest, and may have sown the seeds of what eventually became P87, but I do remember one American gentleman, name long forgotten, who introduced himself as a long time 4mm scale, 19mm track gauge modeller.

[Pacific231G]

I have a copy of the MRC's layout register compiled in 1965 and issued in March 1966. There are no 19mm track gauge layouts listed - and remarkably few 18mm ones either. It is, though, a fascinating document that is almost a "Who's who" of the model railway world half-a-century ago - and it includes not just names but full addresses too.

 

 

That makes sense but were any H0 scale British outline layouts listed?  The only 19mm gauge layout I've come across in post war Britain was Norman Mathews' extensive "Southern Transport" featured in a three part article in Railway Modeller in 1950-51. He started work on that in the 1930s but stopped "for the duration" and had simply decided from the start to work (to the nearest half millimeter) to an accurate gauge as he didn't like the narrow gauge appearance of 16.5mm gauge . He did though say in his article that if 18mm gauge had been standardised at that time he'd probably have adopted it.  By 1965 he'd moved on to larger scale tram modelling and I'm not aware of anyone else in Britain using that gauge.  

One thing that Mathews did mention though was the availability of 18mm gauge sleeper strip from both Mellor (GEM I assume) and Evans so there was some trade support for EM.

[Boatman]

The exclamation mark next to mention of making motors is understandable, but I recall Ross Pochin making his own motors in 60s mags.  His had very neat integral flywheels.

 

Regards,

Boatman