New Zealand Model Railways

Every train nerd worth his salt needs to play with toy trains once in a while.

My brother Paul and I used to hang out with Rhys and Evan Batchelor playing war in the sandpit and wargames in the house until finally my parents got sick of that and bought a Hornby trainset out from its box on 11 July 1981. The rest as they say is a terrible, terrible mistake.

A quick primer on modeling NZ railways: Somewhere between the pioneers who built absolutely everything for their models from bits of old sewing machines and disused tractors, but before the widespread availability of kitsets today (and money to pay for them), the average schoolboy modeling the NZ railway scene normally started with commercial equipment from the US or UK and built an oversized top for it to represent NZ's 3 ft 6 'narrow' gauge. 

Thus the most common size is Sn3.5, or S scale (1:64) bodies on HO track. Those with a spare barn-sized room together with some metalwork skills and welding equipment lying around may be tempted to try "9mill", a 9mm to the foot (approx 1:34) scale body on 32mm O gauge track. A more recent, and entirely practical development, is NZ120 = or TT scale (1:20) tops on N scale equipment, which grew in popularity over the 1990s. I have elected to dabble in all three and present my research below.

Apologies for the crappy scans in most of these pages, they will be redone at some stage. Click on a green arrow below to begin the journey...