On Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 04:38 PM, John Hagen wrote:

Who in the wide world of trains would prefer to measure in 17/64fths than 7 mm?

Boy, guys like Milton Cronkite were truly the model train world “he men” of the day.

Macho, macho trainman; I want to be a macho trainman……

John Hagen

Well, except 1:43.5 (7MM scale) makes the track gauge 4'- 6.5", while 1:45 (17/64 scale) yields the correct 4'-8.5".

Milton Cronkite, on the other hand, used neither. He built his models to 1:48, but then corrected the track gauge (almost) to 1-3/16", a scale 4'-9", so called Q gauge. I guess when you custom build your own mechanisms you can use any gauge you want. I'm surprised he didn't go all the way and set the gauge the correct 1.770" instead of 1.188", but he may have for wheels... prototype track gauge can vary as much as 2" oversize on tight curves, and I've never found a reference as to what dimension he set his wheel gauge to.

Dennis Storzek