Talk:T gauge

Scale or gauge

T Gauge vs. T Scale. I believe this page should be called T Gauge not T Scale. T Gauge is almost universally used in discussions of this. There is also the scale/gauge issue that occurs many times in model railroading. In this case the gauge is 3mm which would only be approximately 1/450 scale for standard gauge -- 3 * 450 = 1350 vs. standard gauge being 1435mm. The scale/gauge calculation is also off for the currently available Japanese prototype equipment which runs on 1067mm gauge track, which would be 2.4mm in 1/450 scale. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmyers7 (talk • contribs) 23:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The manufacturer's description is "T gauge". The exact scale ratio shown on the packaging is 1:450. All other "scales" which may be shown in model railway books and magazines (2.222 mm = 1 m; 0.677 mm = 1 ft; 0.02667 in = 1 ft etc.) are necessarily approximations. At 1:450, a track gauge of 3 mm does indeed come out at a scale 1350 mm or 4 ft 5.1496 in. However, at such small scales, manufacturing tolerances need to be extremely fine; the difference between a scale 1350 mm and a scale 1435 mm is 85 mm, or just 0.1889 mm on the model. That is less than the thickness of two sheets of 80 gsm paper. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

G Scale

Why is G scale mentioned in this article? --Redrose64 (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Eishindo, the manufacturer, sells T scale models as accessories for G scale layouts. They offer a complete set that includes T scale track and special ride-on trains, plus G scale figures and other accessories in the set. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.125.187 (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

How does that work? G scale has a scale of between 1:22.5 and 1:32 running on 45 mm gauge track. The ratio between the gauges of G and T is 15:1 - they just cannot go together. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:47, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The T Gauge trains are being used to represent an amusement park ride. See the photos here: http://www.t-gauge.net/related.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dks2855 (talk • contribs) 01:45, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Sources

There are now about a dozen references, but most, if not all, are in Japanese, and so fail WP:NONENG. English-language sources should be found. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be used in preference to non-English ones, except where no English source of equal quality can be found that contains the relevant material. Does this not suggest, then, that the Japanese sites will have to do? The only reliable source in English is http://www.t-gauge.net/, but since it's a "personal" website, it's not considered suitable (even though this particular site is actually more reliable and up-to-date than the manufacturer's own website). So, at the end of the day, the article has no suitable references available to it. May as well remove the whole thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dks2855 (talk • contribs) 23:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say that the references should be removed entirely, nor that the article should be deleted. However, I am warning that others might well use the lack of verifiable sources as grounds for deletion (see WP:DEL#REASON, particluarly the criterion "Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed"). What I said was simply "English-language sources should be found" - the product is sold in Britain, so I can't believe that there are no suitable sources. There must be something - have you tried looking through back issues of the various model railway magazines? It must have been covered by, at the very least, Continental Modeller It's not as if you have to go back very far - a little over three years, say forty issues max. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:21, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I honestly don't think the topic is worth exhaustive research, or gnashing of teeth over what verifiable references are available in what languages or magazines (especially as I'm in the States with no convenient way, let alone the time, to sift through back issues of Continental Modeller). There was an article published in a US modeling magazine recently, but it's so full of errors that it's unsuitable as a reference. I've already done enough research here http://www.t-gauge.net/ to satisfy most modelers, if not most Wikipedians. Anyway, the links at the bottom of the page should provide people with sufficient information to verify for themselves that the article is reasonably accurate, without having to parse out the whole thing point by point with footnotes. If some uber-anal Wikipedian doesn't think the article merits keeping, it will be no great loss if it's deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dks2855 (talk • contribs) 13:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I would be most disappointed (at Wikipedia) if this were targeted for deletion. "Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed" would not seem to apply since there are Japanese-language sources available. Sometimes we just have to wait for the suitable English-language secondary sources to be written... -- EdJogg (talk) 09:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

T scale Shinkansen

Currently, T scale Shinkansen models are not available. 121.102.122.122 (talk) 11:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

TY scale

The article states that T scale (1:450) is the smallest scale commercially available, but isn't TY scale (1:900) even smaller? Could an established editor who is an expert in the field check it out and update this and any related articles appropriately? Thanks! 99.102.205.182 (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I just read the following on the link you provided:

How do they run? - A motor/gearbox inside the layout base drives a belt inside the track, which pulls the train around the layout. The motor is normally powered by a wall power transformer (some layouts are powered by a 9VDC Battery or manually operated).

In order to be recognized as a model railroad, the locomotive or the train needs to be able to move by themselves and not because they are pulled by some mechanism outside the train (cf. the German Wikipedia article Typisch ist, dass die Lokomotiven durch einen eingebauten Antrieb selbst fahren können.). Meursault2004 (talk) 23:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Manufacturers

Can someone edit the article to more clearly explain the manufacturer situation with Eishindo, Railway Shop, etc.? ColinClark (talk) 01:18, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

External links to model shops with T gauge ranges?

Moved from my user_talk:Andy Dingley#T gauge

Hmm .. I think I still disagree with the inclusion of these. The page is about the product, not about the vendor, and in that way the pages are indirect. Moreover, we do not include external links because they are about the same product, we include them because they add information (which is either not included, or can not be included). Neither site offers information about the subject, they provide a place to buy it. And looking through it, these two sites, and also the Japanese and German sites, do not give any information beyond what is already in the document. These links plainly fail our external links guideline. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

This belongs at Talk:T gauge, not here. I'll move it over in a moment.

We should have pages that offer information, we should link (and only link) when they add information that we can't get otherwise.

I'm not a fan of external linking, but for the T gauge article there's just such a dearth of information otherwise that I think it's justified to link to these reseller sites because they are focussed on the product of relevance and they show the range of product available. If we don't have these as links, we lose this information and make a (much) poorer article. I can't see any other way to get this information.

It's just not true to say that these sites "do not give any information beyond what is already in the document", as without them there's almost no information in there. The article states that Japanese outline models are available, but it ignores the German and UK models - UK is becoming surprisingly popular, even though it's very restricted in choice. What's the choice of track available? These might be insignificant matters to the generic WP editor, but they do matter to railway modellers. There's also a long tradition of interest in collecting catalogues as artefacts in their own right and indulging in a bit of window shopping. Just look at prices on eBay for an old '60s Triang-Hornby catalogue, let alone something pre-war from Bonds or Bassett-Lowke. Clearly the commercial catalogues are highly valued within the hobby and website links are their modern descendant.

If you want to prune ELs from model railway articles, there are also far richer targets out there. Many of the articles really are little else but. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

You've made a perfect case for using the external links for references. What the other articles regards, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. These still do not belong as external links at all. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:34, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

As I said on your talkpage: you've just made a perfect argument for using these are references. Still, these links do fail our external links guideline, and as you suggest, that is then happening on many other pages as well (see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS). Basically, this is a failure of WP:NOT#DIRECTORY - these pages do not provide prose about the subject, they provide the material, and that is not what is the scope of Wikipedia. Also note that articles do not need to have external links, there are subjects without external links as well and that is not a reason to include some that fit. Guess we will have to have a wider discussion on Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard#T_gauge. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd have no objection if you re-wrote the article to extend it and support it with those sites as refs (although the usual incorrect idiocy of "All refs must meet RS" will then probably show up). However simply removing them without doing that is going backwards, not forwards. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:40, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

No, that is not my task, however, I do think that it is my task to show that this page, and likely others, do not follow our policies and guidelines (in this case for external links). And these are probably reliable sources. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:42, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

And bringing an article in line with our policies and guidelines is not 'going backwards' .. following our policies and guidelines is expected of everybody who is editing here. These links simply do not provide any information beyond the article itself (except for some information which is already included and for which these would be perfect references). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:44, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Forgive me if I don't have much respect for the, "I'm not required to go forwards, but I've found an excuse to go backwards, so I'm going to do that instead." standpoint. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:46, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Forgive me if I don't have much respect for the 'bringing articles in line with our policies and guidelines is going backwards' standpoint (and actually, bringing articles in line ith policies and guidelines is going forward ..). Anyway, I've asked for independent input on these issues. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:54, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

When you prioritise WP:BUREAUCRACY at the cost of reducing article quality for readers, then you're going down quite the wrong path. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

No, the article quality does not deteriorate - none of the external links provide any information that is not already in the article (at best they confirm some of the information that is in the article). These links fail our inclusion standards purely on the basis that they do not add anything to improve the article quality, and hence their removal is not reducing that at all. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)