What scale can/should I use outdoors

It is rare that I beg to differ with someone online but in this case I'm afraid I must.

Scotty55:

I will direct you first to the link at:

where you can find quite a complete starting point for the definition of "gauges" and how they came to be what they are. Your comment that 1:22.5 is not "proper" Narrow Gauge is historically incorrect. It is actually 1.20.3 that is the newcomer to "Narrow Gauge" or as you call it "finescale" which means several things in several languages, to several people across all scales. I'm not even sure what the term "proper" means since the prototypes for 45mm scale Narrow Gauge STARTED as 1:22.5 and was the original standard until the so called "G" scale became trendy. The term "G Scale" is itself a misnomer and if you ask 6 sources how it came to be called this, you'll get 6 different answers.

Please understand that THIS level of scale detail is not important to me, tho I respect the efforts of those who pursue it to this level. I'm one of those nasty Live Steamers who puts the priority of RR modeling on the building of real working steam engines, and worries about the PRECISE accuracy of scale of my layout second. If it looks good to me, .... well.....It is MY railroad after all. :-)

Incidently, anyone know WHY standard RR track (full size) IS the width it is? Guess what. It goes all the way back to the Roman Empire whose chariots left ruts in the road, whose conquerors built wagons to fit the existing ruts, whose descendants built the first rail tracks to fit the width of axles of the existing wagons, whose Rail spacing became standardized in England and Europe and migrated to the "New" world in the west. Whose descendants couldn't navigate the tight turns in the Rocky Mountains leading to narrower gauge, (and being American) settled on 3 ft. which later began to be modeled by enthusiasts in 1:22.5 scale.

Many years ago

Regards,

LDH