O-27 gauge
O-27 gauge
O-27 gauge is a variant whose origins are slightly unclear. Some historians attribute its creation to A. C. Gilbert Company's American Flyer, but Ives Manufacturing Company used O-27 track in its entry-level sets at least a decade before Gilbert bought Flyer.
The modern standard for O-27, however, was formalized after 1938 by Gilbert, who scaled the locomotives and rolling stock at 3/16 inches to the foot, or 1:64. After World War II, this practice was continued by Louis Marx and Company, who used it throughout its product line,and Lionel, who used it for its entry-level trains. O-27 track is spaced at the same width as regular O gauge track, but is slightly shorter in height and has thinner rails than traditional O gauge track. A shim underneath the 0-27 track enables the use of O and O-27 track together.
The O-27 name comes from the size of the track's curves. A circle made of eight pieces of standard curved O gauge track will have a 31 inch (787 mm) diameter. A circle made of 8 pieces of curved O-27 track is smaller, with a 27 inch (686 mm) diameter. Full-sized O cars sometimes have difficulty negotiating the tighter curves of an O-27 layout. Although the smaller, tin lithographed cars by American Flyer, Marx, and others predate the formal O-27 standard, they are also often called O-27 because they also operate flawlessly on O-27 track.
The Lionel Corporation is arguably the most famous producer of O-27 track & trains. Its tubular rail is a symbol of the tinplate era. Even today, it offers more or less every price range, from a $2 section of O-27 tubular straight track to a multi-thousand dollar 1:48 scale train sets. Today, it is Lionel, LLC