Model Railway Forum

Please forgive me if this has been asked before: A quick look through the appropriate fora suggests not. Anyway - quite simply, for a OO layout what would be the ideal distance between track on a double track straight? I know it would be a little wider on curves. I read in an old Railway modeller that 65mm from center to centre is the standard, but having done this, it appears to me a little wide even allowing for OO stuff being a tad oversize for its track width.

I have the Peco tool here for use when laying OO track and the measurements are 50mm for straights and 65mm for curves, track centre to track centre. Though when I have laid a double flexi track round a bend I always use two of the longest coaches checking they do not collide as I move on round, checking at each stage as I go along. The centre of the coach on the outer track to the end of the coach on the inner track. If you have particularly long locomotives or other rolling stock use those instead.

63mm centre to centre is the distance that set track uses. Peco streamline is 50mm. This is still wider than scale. On the sharp bends that most layouts use, you will probably need to widen the 50mm spacing to allow for overhangs and underhangs that occur with longer stock.

On the real railway the interval between adjacent tracks was referred to as the "Six Foot" which was approximately 1830 mm between the rails of adjacent lines (3360mm centre to centre). This has to be regarded as an absolute minimum, and in practice was often greater. In OO the distances will be 24mm and 43mm respectively. However because railway models use unrealistically sharp curves the interval needs to be increased to avoid collisions between the overhang of bogie carriages.

Another thing to consider is a lot of the Western Region of the UK was built to run broad gauge, so even though broad gauge has not been in use for a long time, if one wanted an accurate model of these areas the sectional track geometry spacing is actually not too far off what the spacing is if scaled up to real life. It is only with the railway network which was designed around standard gauge from when it was first made does one have the narrower gap between the pairs of rails (Known as the six foot).

Thanks, chaps, for all the comments which have been very helpful. I have also examined photographs and read up on it a bit. As my layout is a southern one and not GWR I feel I cant keep the 65 mm centre to centre spacing I had started with, so I have re aligned the track with the 50mm centre to centre used by peco streamline. Good job the track laying was in its infancy!

Just make sure all trains can pass each other safely.