Model Railway Scale Speeds

by Andrew Allardyce

I was recently asked by Jack Thornley about scale speeds, but I did not know the answer. A Google search threw up an article by Andy Watkins of the 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers E-Group. Using the basis of his article I have produced the following which may of use and interest.

Most model trains are driven much too fast. Get to the end of the line too soon, or once around the circuit too fast, and your railway will seem even smaller than it really is. Slow is realistic. Slow is prototypical. The speed limit under the Light Railways Act was just 25mph. (remember the scene in the Titfield Thunderbolt, when the enthusiasts were warned not to go too fast...?).

So how slow is slow? Speed is a combination of time and distance, usually expressed as miles per hour. A mile is 1760 yards. Depending which gauge you are running, scale distance is rounding off to whole numbers

  • <0 Gauge (1/44 scale) 121 feet
  • 00 Gauge (1/76 scale) 69 feet
  • N Gauge (1/152 scale) 35 feet

Bealing is about 60 feet of track to complete 1 circuit so it is just under a scale mile.

But what about scale time? Time is real. There are 3600 seconds in an hour. Take a real speed of 30 m.p.h. Divide 3600 seconds by 30 and you will see it takes 120 seconds to cover each (real) mile at this speed. If it takes 120 seconds to cover a scale mile of 69 feet, divide 120 by 69, and you will see it takes 1.7 seconds to cover each foot at 30 m.p.h. for 00 gauge – i.e. a complete circuit of Bealing at a scale speed of 30 mph should take 102 seconds!

The table below shows how long you should take for different speeds at different scales.

Model Railway Scale Speeds Calculator
Speed/Mph
Time per scale mile/seconds
Time per foot/seconds
Time per six foot board/seconds
0 Gauge
0O Gauge
N Gauge
0 Gauge
O0 Gauge
N Gauge
10
360
8.2
4.7
2.4
49.1
28.4
14.2
20
180
4.1
2.4
1.2
24.5
14.2
7.1
30
120
2.7
1.6
0.8
16.4
9.5
4.7
40
90
2.0
1.2
0.6
12.3
7.1
3.6
50
72
1.6
0.9
0.5
9.8
5.7
2.8
60
60
1.4
0.8
0.4
8.2
4.7
2.4
70
51
1.2
0.7
0.3
7.0
4.1
2.0
80
45
1.0
0.6
0.3
6.1
3.6
1.8
90
40
0.9
0.5
0.3
5.5
3.2
1.6
100
36
0.8
0.5
0.2
4.9
2.8
1.4

Of course, what is right does not always look right is always a good 'get out clause'!