N Scale

There are several popular model railway scales. Scale means simply the ratio between the model and its' prototype. In Finland the most popular model railway scale is H0 (Half zero) with the scale ratio of 1:87. This means that one centimetre in scale model corresponds to 87 centimetres in the full size prototype. Gauge of regular track in H0 scale is 16.5 mm. N scale's scale ratio is 1:160 and standard gauge 9 mm. In addition to the standard gauge, there are two narrow gauges in N scale. A metric gauge prototype is modelled in N scale in 6,5 mm gauge and a narrow gauge in N is 4,5 mm.

N scale locomotive next to a coin.

N scale is ideal thanks to its' very reasonable space requirements. An interesting N scale layout can be built in an extremely small space and therefore it is easy to find a place for an N track in almost any apartment. This is rarely the case with H0 scale which requires about four times as much space as a similar N scale layout.