Standard Gauge was originally an effort by Lionel Corporation to corner the U.S. model railroading market of in the early years of the 20th century. Lionel standardized its offerings on three-rail track with a gauge of 2 1/8 in (54 mm) between the outer rails, making it incompatible with Gauge 1 offerings from European manufacturers. Lionel then registered a trademark on Standard Gauge. Other American companies followed Lionel's lead, standardizing on Lionel's new standard but calling it Wide gauge in order to avoid infringing on Lionel's trademark.
Standard gauge fell out of favour in the 1930s because of its high cost, and Lionel discontinued its Standard gauge offerings in 1940.
Although scale modeling was not of primary concern, standard gauge's scale is generally accepted at 1:26.59, making it somewhat smaller than G scale.
More recently, standard gauge has come to mean scale modelling in which the track is accurately scaled to real-world standard gauge. This is opposed to narrow gauge modeling, which models real-world narrow gauge, or off-scale modeling, where track is not true to scale, such as in O gauge and OO gauge.
External links
- "More About Gauge" guide from Lionel discussing gauges other than O, including model railroad standard gauge
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