"O Gauge" vs. "O Scale" Explained. And What Is O27?? 

I thought your method of separating the cars, from larger to small with a different car in between, was ingenious. very well done video.

Much needed explanation of the differences,well done thanks.

Reference level explanation of the topic, Excellent details & illustrations of the differences, Thank U 4 creating this vid for curious minded O gauge fans

A great explanation of a complicated subject.

Thanks for sharing 👍

Great information, so many questions I’ve had were answered, thank you 😊

By the way, I was reading some old (60s and 70s) issues of Model Railroader and discovered that O scale was almost always referred to as 1/4" Scale. The only time O scale/gauge was actually called that was in a few ads--mostly selling Lionel trains. Probably the reason for this is because at the time O scale three rail was kind of frowned upon. They wanted to distinguish it from the "real" O scale and so termed O scale two-rail (which is sometimes now available with a slightly smaller gauge and called Proto:48) to be 1/4" scale. In more modern magazines, it would seem that even the simple honor of having "scale" in its name has been removed from O scale three rail. Lionel (or K-Line, Marx, or maybe even Menards) layouts are referred to as "O27" layouts, even the scale ones where the only visual (and hence important to scale modelers) difference between O-scale two rail is that the track has an extra rail and the couplers are bigger. It is my opinion that the entire hobby of model railroading had a schism, probably in the 60s or so. On one side of the split is the "toy trains" portion of the hobby--O scale three rail, standard/wide gauge, and AC S scale (I'm going to distinguish between that and DC S scale because S scale is actually rather popular on the scale end as a smaller alternative to O scale two rail). On the other side is the scale stuff--the ever-popular HO, N, O scale two rail, DC S scale, G scale, Z scale, and even the infinitesimally small T scale (T scale is not very well known, but is rather popular amongst those who know about it--maybe the fact that it is possible to build an impressively large layout in a space that is measured in decimeters has something to do with it. T scale has a gauge of 3mm. For comparison, the all-powerful HO has 16.5mm, N has 9mm, and Z has 6mm (or 6.5mm depending on who you talk to)) (I got really sidetracked there!). As it happens, I'm on both sides of the hobby. I have HO trains, N scale trains, and O scale three-rail trains.

Very informative ,thank you .

Awesome informative video, 😊👍

Very informative video thank you

Excellent video on difference! Yes it can be confusing to distinguish. Like your tip of running both car types together. Best of all you get to run post war Lionel & Marx cars rather then gather dust on a shelf !

Lionel O gauge track 5 ft instead of 4 ft 8 and a half in so there is a difference and the distance between both Railhead. I remember companies in the 1960s that would make scale cars with scale detailing and the underframe would be situated to accept Lionel truck or scale trucks and you body mount the coupler like KD. I have a brass Hopper car with scale dummy couplers I was flabbergasted at the size difference between that and a Lionel coupler if people used the term O gauge strictly for three rail type toy train it would be less confusing for beginners. None of the other scales have this problem. Like the third rail this is the Dead Hand of Lionel reaching from the grave.

I forgot the 6454s existed X29 style cars are always attractive

I'm confined to the space available in an apartment, so it's O-27 on the carpet for me, haha.

well done.

Example i run o gauge track but I run i sm32 scale which is 1/19 equates to approx 600mm or 2foot narrowgauge

I realized just now that K-Line's switcher has an inaccuracy!

Far as scale for I pick up car's I like size doesn't bug me that much I run post war mpc and modern cars on my train's

I've seen a couple places on the Internet claiming Lionel 0-27 trains are merely S -scale. Seriously?

O scale is two rail DC. O gauge is three rail AC.

People should use the term gauge for anyting 3 rail and old scale for to rail my phone is a piece of crap excuse and accurate grammar.