transponderings

Moving away from WordPress – important* info

2026-04-27T00:00:00Z

When I started this blog in 2017, I picked WordPress almost at random, just so I could get started with something. And it has worked well enough.

But:

it’s not cheap
it’s a pain to make layout adjustments
the post editor is clunky and sluggish
WordPress.com sites are at least partially hosted in the US.

Because my blog is essentially a static website (comments section aside), I’ve decided to switch to a static site generator (Eleventy/Build Awesome) and a fully European web hosting provider (statichost.eu), which offers a free tier for small sites like mine.

How this might affect you

If you follow the blog, this will be the last post you’ll be notified about. After that, there will be:

no more email updates
no more WordPress notifications
no more Mastodon cross-posting.

If you still want to hear from me

The transponderings blog is not dead, and I do plan to post from time to time (when my AuDHD brain allows!).

You will be able to:

visit transponderings.blog as before
follow/discuss/support the blog on Ko-fi
follow the blog and get notifications using an RSS newsreader.

Thank you so much for supporting my blog. ☺️

——
* important to me, probably not to you!

Waking up: a fragmented autobiography in alarm clocks (draft)

2026-03-02T22:36:24Z

Copal

Michron

Akai

iPhone

labels (draft)

2026-03-02T22:36:24Z

esp within trans (and wider Lgbt etc.) umbrella also rain quilt bag gay(bar)

moving from two genders to gender spectrum between (and beyond), looking at sexualities in relation to this (and sex – see also Whittle)

Chomskyan thing about non-linguistic and linguistic natural concepts: substantive universals vs formal universals

also anything relevant from ‘Labels are dangerous’ talk

infp etc. Cis/trans. Autistic/nt. b/w thinking

Words are labels. We need them.

Singing (draft)

2026-03-02T22:36:24Z

school

gendered choral roles

NYCoS have a national girls’ choir

singing lesson

contralto/countertenor voice

(here or in another post) resonances (head and chest) vs formants

Institutional transphobia deepens in the UK – EHRC again

2025-05-21T00:00:00Z

The United Kingdom’s descent into rabid transphobia continues apace with the announcement on 20 May 2025 of a consultation on updating the (so-called) Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)’s Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations (published in January 2011 and unchanged since, even though there was another consultation on changes at the end of last year).

EHRC chair, Kishwer Falkner

It is less than a month since Kishwer Falkner’s deeply compromised EHRC issued interim guidelines on the practical consequences of the Supreme Court’s judgement on the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 (Kishwer and pals try to flush trans people out of toilets). (Excuse that horrible sentence – I’ve left it in because I’m oddly impressed that I nested four prepositional phrases without thinking!)

Now further guidance is upon us – and I would encourage you, if you can, to let the EHRC know that the proposed changes are completely unacceptable.

This guidance, together with things like leaked Labour Party plans to exclude trans women from its Women’s Conference make it unsurprising, but deeply concerning, that the UK has plummeted in ILGA Europe’s rankings for LGBTI safety, equality and freedom. The UK now has a score of just 6.57% for legal gender recognition, placing it well below Turkey, for instance, and closer to Russia. As a consequence, the UK now ranks 22nd overall among European countries, with a score of 45.65%, a huge drop since peaking at 86% in 2015.

ILGA country scores for legal gender recognition in 2025, highlighting the UK’s position

I don’t have a huge amount of energy for anything these days – one of the reasons my blog has lain dormant for a while. But I’m pushing myself to do a deep dive into the proposed changes to the Code of Practice because it feels really important. And I hope you find it useful – please comment below if you do, or indeed if you think I’ve missed something.

Redefining sex?

In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the EHRC claims to have changed the definition of ‘legal sex’ throughout its Code of Practice, which applies throughout England, Scotland and Wales (but not in Northern Ireland).

Now, I have to confess that I have never (until now) even so much as glanced at this Code of Practice, and as it runs to almost 250 pages, I’m not about to read it from start to finish. Also, given that sex is one of the nine protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010, it’s not too surprising that the word ‘sex’ appears 116 times!

There is, however, no mention of ‘legal sex’ anywhere in the current Code of Practice, and nor is there any definition of the term ‘sex’ in the Code or in the 2014 supplement (which reflects changes in primary legislation between 2010 and 2014).

There are places in both the Act itself and in the Code where the meaning of sex is obliquely clarified as differentiating between men and women or between boys and girls. (Yes, it’s quite painful to read.) The EHRC says they want to change this definition:

‘Legal sex is the sex that was recorded at your birth or the sex you have acquired by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).’

to this:

‘Legal sex is the sex that was recorded at your birth.’

But the former doesn’t appear anywhere in the current Code, or in the Act – or indeed anywhere else on the internet as far as I can see (except that it’s now been quoted on Mumsnet, of course!).

So thus far it’s pretty hard to see what exactly the EHRC is planning to change in the existing guidance.

By the way, numeric references to sections don’t correspond to anything I can see, just to make things extra-hard to understand. The Code of Practice is only directly available as a Word document, which I originally opened in Pages, which didn’t show the section numbers at all. I also tried opening it in LibreOffice, which I thought had done the trick – but the section numbers were completely different from the ones referred to. So I’m just fumbling around, searching for relevant strings of text. (No, I don’t own any version of Word. I wonder if I could sue the EHRC under the Equality Act 2010 on grounds of failure to make their guidance accessible?)

(There is, as a I discovered part way through writing this, a PDF version of the Code of Practice, which strangely enough has the same numbering as the Word document opened in LibreOffice. So I have no idea what the section numbering is that the consultation is referring to. I can only assume that they’re renumbering everything.)

Chapter 2: Who has rights?

Proposed updates to the Code of Practice are not at all clearly identified, so I’ll try to summarise what’s actually being altered, but I won’t touch on inconsequential changes, which generally seem to be there to make the text easier to read.

Chapter 2 of the Code of Practice introduces the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and asks who has rights under the parts of the Act that deal with services, public functions and associations.

Section 2.1: Gender reassignment

Context – oh, and trans kids

For the purposes of the consultation, we are asked to disregard paragraphs numbered 2.1.1 to 2.1.5, these being provided for context. But I’m going to ignore that instruction.

The first paragraph (old 2.17) is essentially unchanged, as is the second (old 2.18), except for a welcome language update, changing transsexual to the more modern (and potentially more inclusive) trans. Sadly, the writers then take a whole paragraph (2.1.3) to explain that the Equality Act 2010 uses the older term, and that they mean the same thing by the latter – so not all trans people are in fact included.

The three new paragraphs 2.1.3 to 2.1.5 are essentially a complete rewrite of seven paragraphs (old 2.19 to 2.25), three containing examples, which it seems the current writers have decided to omit. (I don’t think they’re great examples, but is there to be nothing in their place?)

Old paragraphs 2.19, 2.20 and 2.22 are, I believe, adequately covered by new paragraph 2.1.4. I’m not sure of the usefulness of old paragraphs 2.23 to 2.25 (the first of which is just an example), but they don’t seem to have counterparts in the new document.

The old paragraph 2.21 seems to have no counterpart in the revised Code either:

‘This broad, non-medical definition is particularly important for gender variant children: although some children do reassign their gender while at school, there are others who are too young to make such a decision. Nevertheless they may have begun a personal process of changing their gender identity and be moving away from their birth sex. Manifestations of that personal process, such as mode of dress, indicate that a process is in place and they will be protected by the Act.’

I wonder why the writers have chosen to say nothing at all about trans children?? (Grim sarcasm.)

Gender Recognition Certificates

The existing Code of Practice says in paragraphs 2.26 and 2.27 that anyone who has a gender recognition certificate (GRC) must be treated ‘according to their acquired gender’, that their new birth certificate should be sufficient evidence of their ‘legal gender’, where that’s in any way relevant, and that no one in general should have any reason to request to see a GRC.

The first four paragraphs the EHRC would actually like to have feedback on replace these old paragraphs, and they are horrible.

Paragraph 2.1.6 states that the recent Supreme Court ruling means a GRC doesn’t change a person’s legal sex for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. This is bad, obviously, but I can’t complain that the EHRC are making stuff up here. It was the Supreme Court that did that.

In paragraph 2.1.7, we have our first biological sex. I won’t point out every time this has been inserted, but let’s just say the gen-critters will be pleased. Also, for the purposes of the Act: a trans man with a GRC is a woman and a trans woman with a GRC is a man. Ugh!

They can tell me in paragraph 2.1.8 that we’ll be protected from discrimination ‘because of gender reassignment’, but I don’t really believe them.

And yes, in 2.1.9, we’re now told that we’re only protected from sex discrimination on the basis of our (assigned) birth sex, or indirectly in other cases.

Section 2.2 Asking about birth sex

First of all: oh no you don’t, it’s none of your fucking business!

This is a completely new section. Ten shiny new paragraphs, one being an example. Let’s look at that first (paragraph 2.2.7, my emphasis):

A trans woman goes to the office of a local support group and makes enquiries with the receptionist about the group counselling sessions they offer. Based on the needs of its service users, the group provides different sessions that are single-sex or mixed-sex. The receptionist reasonably thinks that the trans woman is a biological male and, as there are some other people waiting in the office, asks her to come into a side room to get more details about the support she is looking for. When they are in private, the receptionist explains the different group sessions that are offered and asks the trans woman what her birth sex is. When she confirms her birth sex, the receptionist provides her with the details of the mixed-sex groups she could attend.

Sorry, what?! Oh, I see, it’s all done very discreetly, in a private side room. So that makes othering a trans person completely acceptable. Of course. (Sarcasm again, in case you were wondering.)

The first two paragraphs in this section point out (a) that some people, including some trans or gender non-conforming people, may find it distressing to be asked about their birth sex, and (b) that asking trans people about this may risk unjustifiably interfering with their human rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Nevertheless, the remaining paragraphs suggest ways to delicately find out what someone’s genitals looked like when they were born. At least paragraphs 2.2.9 and 2.2.10 do warn about the (potentially criminal) consequences of following this murky path.

Section 2.3: What is sex? What is a woman? (etc.)

This feels tiresome, but here we have another five shiny (why do I keep mistyping ‘shitty’?) new paragraphs about birth sex.

Paragraph 2.3.1 says something, but I’m not sure exactly what. Paragraph 2.3.2 says that equality law only applies to biological men and biological women. No androids – sorry. Oh, and it says that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 means birth sex. Looking at a baby’s genitals – much biology.

Paragraphs 2.3.3 and 2.3.4 basically say having a GRC isn’t going to be of any use in a discrimination case, and directs people to the previous section if they want to know how to get you to show them your GRC.

Paragraph 2.3.5 is probably just there to piss off trans men. Sorry, I mean definitely.

Section 2.4: Sexual orientation

In the first paragraph (now numbered 2.4.1, formerly 2.58), the legally permissible kinds of people attracted to others of the same sex have been subtly changed from a gay man or a lesbian to a lesbian woman or a gay man. The writers reversed the order, perhaps to hide the real change: they seemingly want to make clear that only women can be lesbians – and obviously that means cis women as far as they are concerned. Or does it include trans men? I’m confused. Somebody should write a clarification of the meaning of the clarifying EHRC guidance on the clarifying Supreme Court ruling.

Anyway, they certainly don’t want to consider trans lesbians as attracted to others of the same sex (whether or not they are in possession of a GRC). After all, they would probably argue, trans lesbians are lesbian trans women, who are (in their upside-down world) ‘lesbian men’. Or are trans lesbians actually trans lesbian women, in which case their argument doesn’t seem to work? Angels, pinheads, …

In the fifth paragraph (old 2.62, now 2.4.6 – what happened to 2.4.4?), they seem to take a dig at the solidarity in our community. The paragraph says that gender reassignment (i.e. being trans) is unrelated to sexual orientation. The original added that this is the case despite a common misunderstanding that the two characteristics are related. Fair enough, I suppose. It also refers us to paragraph 2.17, now paragraph 2.1.1 (which is otherwise unchanged). Anyway, they’ve dropped the cross-reference and revised the text to say that the two protected characteristics are distinct despite often being grouped together (for example under the acronym ‘LGBTQ+ people’).

I think the sole purpose of this change is to sow the seeds of division and encourage ‘drop the T’ sentiment to flourish within the queer community. But I don’t think it will be that easy.

Chapter 4: Direct discrimination

The old paragraph 4.20 (‘Discrimination by perception’) contains an example of a (cis?) woman with a medical condition who is discriminated against on the grounds that she is perceived to be trans. That sort of thing’s not going to happen any more, is it? (Sarcasm again – get used to it!)

Anyway, the writers of the revised Code of Conduct have created two new examples, one (paragraph 4.1.2) about racism faced by people perceived to be Irish Travellers, and the other (paragraph 4.1.3) – wait for it! – about a trans woman being discriminated against because she is perceived to be a woman, despite the fact that she is not a woman under the Equality Act 2010. They’re really relishing the opportunities here, aren’t they!

New paragraph 4.2.2, which follows 4.2.1 (old 4.34) stipulates that trans men are protected from pregnancy and maternity discrimination because they are now legally women. (I’m so sorry to have to write this.)

Chapters 5, 8 and 12

I said I don’t really have the energy to do this, and I’ll be honest, I’m flagging here. It’s exhausting and depressing reading through these proposed changes.

Chapter 5 has a new example on indirect sex discrimination (5.1.3) – the provided context also seems to be new material.

Chapter 8 has a new example on harassment (8.1.6b) – and again the context seems to be new, though 8.1.6a was previously one of five examples in 8.13.

Chapter 12 has a new example (12.1.3) about a trans woman applying to join a women-only association. This follows the example in existing paragraph 12.46, now numbered 12.1.2. It clarifies that, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, I would not be allowed to join such an association:

‘A trans woman applies to join a women-only association and her application is refused. This would be lawful because membership is based on sex and restricted to women and, under the Act, she does not share that protected characteristic …’

I imagine it was this kind of thinking that led to the Labour Party’s sudden urge to expel trans women from its Women’s Conference. Perhaps I should keep quiet about being part of the Scottish Green Party Women’s Network (albeit not an active one at the moment).

Chapter 13: Exceptions

Chapter 13 of the Code of Practice is all about the exceptions carved out for various activities that would otherwise have fallen foul of the Equality Act 2010.

The changes to this chapter will warm the cockles of every TERF’s heart (if they have one). Keeping trans people out of sport, providing sex-segregated services, everything that gen-critters campaign for more of.

And I really can’t face reading any more (but you can plough through it in all its gory detail if you wish). I might come back to it later, but to be honest, probably not.

Does everyone in the UK hate trans people?

According to Betteridge’s Law of headlines, the answer is of course no!

It has been heartening to see pushback against the Supreme Court and the EHRC from a variety of sources. And in the last few weeks there have been a number of high-profile letters written in support of trans rights and against the Supreme Court’s biased ruling.

Enjoy all this lovely allyship:

Not in our name: Feminist academics and educators speak out against transphobia – ‘When patriarchy wins, everybody loses.’
Biology is not binary: a letter from biologists, doctors, and other experts to Bridget Phillipson, Minister for Women and Equalities
Historians for trans rights – open letter to MPs – ‘The mistakes of the past need not be repeated.’
Open letter from geographers to the Royal Geographical Society

And the British Medical Association’s Resident Doctors’ Conference last month voted in support of an emergency motion condemning the Supreme Court’s ruling as ‘scientifically illiterate’ and ‘biologically nonsensical’.

The tide will turn, and people who scapegoat minorities for all of society’s ills will lose. In the meantime, don’t forget to respond to the consultation, if you are able. It’s open until the end of June. 💜

Kishwer and pals try to flush trans people out of toilets

2025-04-26T00:00:00Z

I dust down my long-neglected blog to release some of my pent-up rage over recent events, in particular the UK Supreme Court’s ruling last week (PDF document) in favour of anti-trans group For Women Scotland, in which some cis people decreed (without hearing any representation from trans people) that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 means ‘biological sex’ (by which they mean sex assigned at birth), and that trans women are therefore men, and trans men, women (and non-binary people, who knows?).

Kishwer Falkner, House of Lords cross-bencher and chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has latched onto the court’s ruling with unseemly glee and promised some new guidelines on compliance with the law by the summer of 2025. But she couldn’t actually wait that long to put the boot in. The EHRC have just, in the closing hours of Friday 25 April (!), sneaked out an interim update on the practical implications of the ruling.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, but nonetheless horrifically, the update entrenches the most unenlightened reading of the Supreme Court’s so-called ‘clarification’ of the law:

The Supreme Court ruled that in the Equality Act 2010 (the Act), ‘sex’ means biological sex.

This means that, under the Act:

A ‘woman’ is a biological woman or girl (a person born female)

A ‘man’ is a biological man or boy (a person born male)

So far, so awful – this appears to be what the Supreme Court decided. But it remains an affront to the dignity of trans men and women, as well as completely overlooking non-binary people and the million or more people in the UK who are intersex, the vast majority of whom will have been coercively assigned male or female at birth.

If somebody identifies as trans, they do not change sex for the purposes of the Act, even if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

A trans woman is a biological man

A trans man is a biological woman

For the avoidance of doubt, regardless of what the court says: trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are valid, and intersex people are whatever they say they are. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise!

Now we come to the Victorian prudery of gender-critical ‘feminists’ when it comes to toilets and changing rooms. (The patriarchy thanks you for your support!)

In workplaces and services that are open to the public:

trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex

in some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological woman) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities

however where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use

where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities in addition to sufficient single-sex facilities should be provided

where toilet, washing or changing facilities are in lockable rooms (not cubicles) which are intended for the use of one person at a time, they can be used by either women or men

So the EHRC say women like me should no longer be permitted to use women’s toilets and changing rooms. Moreover, in some circumstances, we may not be permitted to use men’s toilets and changing rooms either (not that I’d ever want to). In such cases, however, an additional mixed-sex facility should also be offered. I really can’t understand how people can get so worked up about this!

The EHRC also stipulates who should use which toilets and changing rooms in schools. I can’t imagine that this would cause any problems for already vulnerable trans kids (/s):

Pupils who identify as trans girls (biological boys) should not be permitted to use the girls’ toilet or changing facilities, and pupils who identify as trans boys (biological girls) should not be permitted to use the boys’ toilet or changing facilities. Suitable alternative provisions may be required.

They don’t ‘identify as’ trans, by the way. They are trans! And needless to say, but it’s worth reiterating: trans girls are girls, and trans boys are boys! This guidance is unbelievably concerning. I dread to think what it must be like to be trans at school right now.

Finally, moving from toilet policing – which is obviously fraught with practical difficulties – to the equally problematic policing of sexual orientations (why?):

Membership of an association of 25 or more people can be limited to men only or women only and can be limited to people who each have two protected characteristics. It can be, for example, for gay men only or lesbian women only. A women-only or lesbian-only association should not admit trans women (biological men), and a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women).

I have never considered becoming a member of a women-only or lesbian-only association, despite being both a woman and a lesbian. From now on, though, the EHRC say that I should not be admitted to such an association. They don’t say whether I would be permitted to join a men-only association – though again I wouldn’t ever want to!

I have been to lesbian-only gatherings in the past – and I’m quite sure Kishwer and co would love to exclude me from them. I also wonder what they think of an organisation like SWAN – the Scottish Women’s Autistic Network – whose events I regularly frequent. (Their events are open to all women and non-binary people!)

Needless to say, I will be continuing to use the same single-sex facilities I’ve used for the past eight years. And I hope that most trans people will do likewise rather than being hounded out of public spaces altogether. If enough of us resist, and most cis people see the idiocy of the guidance, it will be unenforceable, and For Women Scotland’s victory will be seen to be hollow.

For more commentary on the Supreme Court ruling itself, I strongly recommend Katherine Alejandra Cross’s article, The Potemkin feminism of ‘sex-based rights’.

Like blogger, like blog?

2024-05-23T00:00:00Z

Since the start, I’ve known this was going to be ‘an aimless, unprincipled blog’, as the tagline says. But maybe that’s just because I know myself too well. Maybe I too am pretty aimless. (Am I also unprincipled? I’d like to think not, but perhaps my views have been nudged along by others more often than I realise?)

Newcomers who don’t delve deeply might think my blog is about LEGO trains. And perhaps I’ve been about LEGO trains recently. But the winds of change will come along eventually – I think I’ve talked about this before, so stop me if I’m boring you, or at least, stop reading – and I’ll be blown into one of my other interest valleys, or possibly into an as yet unexplored valley.

It’s perennially frustrating to find myself on the verge of losing interest in something that has captivated me for a while. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case right now, but I’ve had a couple of close calls, in the form of intrusive thoughts expressing regret at my monomaniacal focus on building things from plastic blocks. I won’t stay the course, I might as well give up now, it’s not my thing, why waste my time!

Without being able to stick to anything for long, even if I give it my all while it has me in its grasp, I find it difficult to identify strongly with any one of my interests. Indeed, it’s sometimes hard for me to even identify my own opinions/tastes/likes, because they don’t sit still long enough for me to get a good sense of them.

In counselling earlier today, I was reflecting on the difficulty I have with decision-making, and in being an active participant in my own life. Yes, I value my autonomy, but somehow I’ve usually allowed myself to be swept along without exercising it to a great extent (with one or two notable exceptions). The qualifications I’ve studied for, the jobs I’ve done, the people I’ve been involved with. For the most part they’ve chosen me, and I’ve been so pleased to have something I can do, or someone I can spend time with, that I haven’t thought much about whether it’s exactly what I want. I’ve just considered myself lucky to have something/someone.

Maybe that’s why I find the whole idea of dating/friendship sites so terrifying. Organic friendships are wonderful. They might not have been intentionally cultivated from the outset, but they work, and they grow naturally. Being confronted with self-descriptions of a group of people who might or might not be compatible with me, and needing to make decisions on the basis of very little reliable information, I am frozen into inaction, paralysed with fear about making a wrong choice. Because I couldn’t possibly change my mind if things didn’t work out. I’d be committed by then.

There’s fear of rejection, and then there’s fear of having to reject someone. I have very little experience of the latter. Even being able to say no to someone when they ask me if I could do something is difficult. I think I’m a lot better at it than I used to be, but there’s always a lingering concern that I will be rejected if I don’t say yes.

I have nevertheless reanimated a couple of accounts on dating apps recently. I’m not holding out much hope of finding anyone that I’d be brave enough to say hello to, but the possibility, however slim, is at least there.

The straight, the curved and the pointy of LEGO-compatible train track

2024-05-03T00:00:00Z

Disclaimer: I’ll be offering my opinions on the merits of currently available LEGO and non-LEGO train track elements. This will be mainly from a theoretical perspective, as I haven’t had personal experience of most of these. I own some lengths of straight track from BlueBrixx, as well as a selection of Fx Track straights, curves and points, which I chose in particular for their appearance. I haven’t used track from any other third parties, and haven’t used LEGO track since the blue era.

Double crossover at Edinburgh Waverley, between platforms 1/20 and 2/19

I’ve probably written enough recently about the scale of LEGO trains, so my only nod in that direction here will be to note from the outset that LEGO track elements, and even the best LEGO-compatible curves and points from third parties, are wildly tighter and wigglier than anything you’ll find on most real railways. Consider these specs:

‘The limiting design values for curve radii shall [at the tightest extreme] exceed 14 standard baseplates.’
‘A length of straight track at least 10 studs long shall be provided between [a pair of] reverse curves if one of the curves has a radius of less than 18 baseplates.’
‘All passenger lines, and freight only lines adjacent to passenger lines, with a horizontal radius of 22 baseplates or less shall be fitted with a continuous check rail to the inside rail of the curve. Check rails shall extend at least 1 baseplate into the straight or circular curve adjacent to the section of track with a radius of 22 baseplates or less and its associated transitions.’

Those are quotes from the UK Railway Group Standard GCRT5021 ‘Track system requirements’ (issue 6, December 2023), apart from the bits in bold, which are my rough translations of measurements in metres to LEGO studs, or standard baseplates (32 studs), scaled from the track gauge. LEGO curves miss out on meeting the minimum requirement by an order of magnitude!

That said, I think it’s still possible to give a good impression of realism with the train track that we have available to us, especially using larger-radius curves from third parties. What follows isn’t about scale at all – it’s just a pity that neither LEGO nor any third party (to my knowledge) offers straight or curved track elements with check rails (which we might as well always use!).

Straight

No, not me. ;)

Since LEGO’s first proper train set appeared – the year before I was born – the toymaker has sold straight track sections that are 16 studs long. Sort of, anyway. The first straight track (in the ‘blue era’) had to be built from white 2-by-8 plates-as-sleepers (US ties) and separate 16-stud-long rail pieces (which were blue, hence the name). But since 1991, with the introduction of 9 V powered track, LEGO straight track has looked pretty much like it does today (though it no longer has metal rails). (LEGO YouTuber Minifig Jez has a nice overview of the history, or you can read LEGO’s own account of its trains through the years.)

Straight history

LEGO has a one-size-fits-all policy, so if you need a shorter length of straight track, you can simply cut it – sorry! – you can often find what you need from makers of LEGO-compatible track. Short straights (especially those in fractional stud lengths) can be very useful for subtle corrections to track geometry. (Double- and triple-length straights are available too, making long straight sections of track easier to build.)

For completeness I’ll mention LEGO’s flexible track here, as it can act as a 4-, 8- or 12-stud straight. Using it for longer stretches seems inadvisable if you can avoid it, as it’s much noisier than ordinary track, prone to causing derailment, and relatively ugly too. (It could make some nice greebling on the outside of a building though!)

Flexible track made inflexible (but still not pretty) by judicious use of tiles (slab track perhaps?)

Besides the 16-stud straight, LEGO offers just one curve and one set of points, in left-handed and right-handed variants.

Curved

LEGO’s one curve, with its radius set in ABS since 1966, is commonly referred to as an R40, that is, a curve of radius 40 studs. (Note that the measurement of radius is to the centreline of the curve. Add 4 studs for the outer edge; subtract 4 for the inner edge.) More specifically, LEGO’s R40 forms 22.5 degrees of arc of a 40-stud circle.

While every train that LEGO has produced can traverse such a tight curve, turning 90° within the confines of an L shape made from three 32×32 baseplates (or if you prefer, within a single 48×48 baseplate), larger trains will struggle, and most trains would appreciate a little extra space. If you have the physical room for it, breathing space for your trains is at hand in the form of a bewildering array of compatible curves from third parties, as shown below. All the way up to R184 (which would produce a circle a little over 3 m in diameter!).

As you can see from the diagram, as you work outwards from one curve to the next, the radius usually jumps by 16 studs. This means that adjacent pairs work very nicely for bends in parallel tracks at a 16-stud spacing. The L-gauge modular standard, should you choose to follow it, specifies the normal position of straight tracks on standard baseplates (or MILS plates) as being 4 studs in from each edge, with 8 studs between, that is, 16 studs between centres.

An overview of the LEGO-compatible curve landscape

Incidentally – I do love a tangent! – baseplates as we know them didn’t appear until 1978 (a little too late for me to have come across them as a child). According to BrickLink, there were four sets that year that included this new element, one being set 165, the goods station, probably the first time tracks were pinned down to a baseplate. This was still firmly in the blue era, and the two tracks on the grey baseplate were positioned at LEGO’s then-preferred spacing of 8 studs centre-to-centre, with sleepers butting up against each other. Fine if you only have six-stud-wide trains and no parallel curves – certainly a great space saver anyway.

I’ve looked at the descriptions of track from LEGO and from six alternative sources, and nerded out on their specs so that you don’t have to – unless you really want to, of course, which if you’re reading blog posts about LEGO by me, you probably do.

Curve-wise, these will all drive you (or at least your LEGO trains) round the bend. Click, tap or otherwise interact with the following images to see in detail what the seven manufacturers are currently offering, as of May 2024. (I’ve tried to be as accurate as possible in this post, but please check manufacturers’ websites before ordering any track!)

LEGO

BlueBrixx

4DBrix

BrickTracks

Brick Train Depot

Trixbrix

Fx Track

Curves from LEGO and six third-party manufacturers

Some key things worth noting:

Injection moulded track. All track made by LEGO, BlueBrixx, BrickTracks and Fx Bricks (Fx Track) is injection moulded, as are four of the curves from Trixbrix (R56 through to R104, but not the half lengths or the special ‘ballast curve’, R104BC).
3D printed track. The remaining curves from Trixbrix are 3D printed, as are all curves from Brick Train Depot and 4DBrix. 4DBrix is a bit of a special case, as they license 3D printing files for anyone to use, and there are several commercial printers who sell 4DBrix track (possibly of varying quality).
9 V track (metal rails). All track made by Fx Bricks is compatible with the old LEGO 9 V system, as are curves R56 through to R120 from Brick Train Depot.
Plastic rails (for battery-powered, push-along or static trains). The remaining curves from Brick Train Depot have plastic rails, as do all track elements currently made by LEGO, BlueBrixx, BrickTracks and Trixbrix, as well as all track designs licensed by 4DBrix.
Ballast. Adding ballast (or any other substructure) beneath curved track can be time-consuming and doesn’t yield perfect results. Trixbrix uniquely offers 3D printed ballast plates for (as far as I can tell) all of its track elements.

Once again, for completeness, I’ll consider LEGO’s flexible track, this time in its curvy guise. In theory, it can be shaped into any curve with a radius of at least 40 studs, though it might be difficult to constrain it to a particular curve in practice.

Though the inner rail becomes smoother as the curve is tightened, the outer one becomes more fragmented, giving the wheels on that side a very bumpy ride! Not only are there big gaps between the segments, but each segment is effectively a small straight track oriented in a slightly different direction from the previous one. So the wheels of a train are forced to make abrupt changes of direction every few studs.

Flexible track flexing its stuff – a boneshaking impression of an R40 curve

That brings me to another option for making large-radius curves, as outlined by Holger Matthes in RailBricks 1 (2007), 32–33. This also involves approximating a curve using a number of straight segments that aren’t fully connected. But the segments can be much longer, typically 16 studs. Using a 1×2 jumper plate (3794 or 15573) and a 1×4 hinge plate (2429/2430), along with plain 1×1 and 1×2 plates, the connection on one side of the track is held apart by half a stud, as shown in the picture. (Apparently there is still a reliable electrical connection when using 9 V track in this arrangement.)

Construction of a ‘grand curve’ using Holger Matthes’s recipe

We can calculate the theoretical angle $\theta$ introduced between successive segments using a little trigonometry and algebra (mathphobes, skip to the last paragraph of this section!). I say ‘theoretical’ as there is always some wiggle room in practice. Setting the origin at the hinge point as shown, and measuring in studs, the point $A$ is at $(-\tfrac{1}{2},\tfrac{15}{2})$, while the point $B$ is the image of the point $(\tfrac{1}{2},\tfrac{15}{2})$ rotated clockwise about the origin through the angle $\theta$.

The point $B$ can be expressed as

$$\pmatrix{\cos\theta & \sin\theta \\ -\sin\theta & \cos\theta}\pmatrix{\frac{1}{2} \\ \frac{15}{2}} = \frac{1}{2}\pmatrix{\cos\theta+15\sin\theta \\ -\sin\theta+15\cos\theta}.$$

So we can relate $\theta$ to the length of the line segment $AB$, which we know is $\tfrac{3}{2}$, as the studs centred on $A$ and $B$ are held at this separation by a jumper plate. Squaring that length:

$$\frac{9}{4} = |AB|^2 = \left|\frac{1}{2}\pmatrix{\cos\theta+15\sin\theta \\ -\sin\theta+15\cos\theta}-\frac{1}{2}\pmatrix{-1 \\ 15}\right|^2.$$

This can be expanded and then simplified to

$$60\sin\theta \mathbin{-} 448\cos\theta + 452 = 9.$$

Since $\cos\theta = \sqrt{1-\sin^2\theta}$, this can be rewritten as a quadratic equation in $\sin\theta$, which can then be solved using the formula for quadratic roots. When we do this, we find that $\theta\approx 3.82$°.

That means a full ‘circle’ would require around 94 straights. If we approximate the circumference by simply adding the lengths of those 94 straights (with an extra quarter stud per join on the centreline), it works out to be about 1530 studs. Using the formula relating the radius of a circle to its circumference, we find that the effective radius is about $1530/2\pi\approx 240$ studs, which is around 1.9 m.

That’s certainly a bit grander than any of the curves available commercially (to my knowledge). Only Trixbrix’s 3D printed, plastic-railed R184 comes close, though I’d prefer to use a real curve whenever I could, as I’ve witnessed the jarring motion of trains working their way round these kinked pseudo-curves. Luckily, we have more options in 2024 than there were in 2007.

Pointy

The layout of set 119

If you’re wondering where the convention of spacing parallel tracks at 16 stud centres comes from, LEGO’s points (US switches) probably have something to do with it. One of the first LEGO train sets (if not the first) to include points was set 119, the ‘super train set’, released in 1968. It was so super that it included not only the almost obligatory oval for watching trains go round and round, but also a siding!

At that stage, LEGO points split one track into two parallel continuations, with one being offset to the side just enough – and no more – that it wasn’t actually on top of the other track. The points took up 32 studs in length.

When 9V track was introduced in 1991, LEGO changed the point design. The straight portion remains 32 studs long, and the curved track is still an S-bend, but it’s not quite complete: the outward turn takes a nominal 25 studs, as does the return curve, but 16 of the latter’s 25 studs require a separate R40 curve. With the addition of an S16 (a 16-stud straight) to the straight portion, the two tracks are brought back into alignment, now with centres separated by 16 studs.

A passing loop using current LEGO points, curves and straights (not actual colours!)

But why might LEGO have chosen that 16-stud separation in particular? Warning: this is another mathematical digression – skip ahead if you wish.

If you want to make an S-bend, whether using points or otherwise, to move a track sideways, and you want to keep things as simple as possible, it makes sense to use two identical single-radius curves in succession, one turning out from the original alignment, and the other returning to the original direction but on the new alignment.

Suppose the element we choose has radius $R$ and angle of arc $\theta$, and that each curve moves us forward (in our original direction) by some length $l$, and sideways by some displacement $d$. We’d like $R$, $l$ and $d$ to be integral numbers of studs.

For all these numbers to be integers, the triangles in the diagram need to be Pythagorean. The first (primitive) Pythagorean triangle (that is, the one with the smallest hypotenuse) is the 3, 4, 5 triangle, but we know that the radius (which is the hypotenuse) is 40 studs, and 5 is a divisor of 40, so we can use the equivalent non-primitive 24, 32, 40 triangle, which gives $l=24$, $R-d=32$, and $R=40$ (so $d=8$). As it happens, this was LEGO’s choice. The length of a point (including the additional R40 and 16-stud straight) is indeed $2l=48$ studs (conveniently also a multiple of the 16-stud straight length). And the lateral displacement of the siding is indeed $2d=16$ studs.

Here $\theta=\tan^{-1}\tfrac{3}{4}\approx 36.87$°, so this kind of S-bend isn’t something that could be accomplished just using LEGO’s standard R40 curves, which have angle of arc 22.5°. LEGO’s points have a 36.87° arc in one direction, followed by 14.37° in the opposite direction, which has to be made up using that extra curve. Had LEGO chosen to make the cut at the midpoint of the S-bend instead, they would have been forced to introduce an additional return curve to match.

You may be wondering whether other Pythagorean triples would work for LEGO points and S-bends. And the answer is yes. For example (just choosing triangles with a hypotenuse that is one greater than the second longest side, to ensure that the 16-stud offset is maintained, and to maintain the curve radii as odd multiples of 8):

Primitive triangle	$l$	$R-d$	$R$	Length $2l$	Offset $2d$	Angle $\theta$
5, 12, 13	40	96	104	80	16	22.62°
7, 24, 25	56	192	200	112	16	16.26°
9, 40, 41	72	320	328	144	16	12.68°

Despite revising the design of the points to increase the separation between parallel tracks, LEGO seemingly didn’t consider uses for points other than creating a parallel siding/sidings or perhaps a passing loop. In particular, it seems they never envisaged anyone wanting to have a main line with two or more parallel running tracks, or a branch line turning through a right angle from the main line.

For one thing, with only one radius of curve (unless you use flexible track), it’s not possible to have parallel tracks going round a bend. (Yes, you can get around it by inserting a few straights, but that’s a clunky and untidy-looking solution.)

Also, if you want a train to go from one track to another, you need a crossover, prototypically made from two points of the same handedness, their diverging routes connected. You can join two LEGO points like that, but at the expense of (a) losing the alignment of track joins, (b) having a much wider spacing between the tracks, and (c) needing four (!) alternating turns in quick succession to get from one track to its neighbour. (And even a 90° branch line requires three alternating turns!)

LEGO did make a double crossover, set 7996, emulating the kind of trackwork in the photo of Edinburgh Waverley station above, but that was in 2007, and it seems it was quickly discontinued.

If you’d find that useful, double crossovers with the same basic R40 design are now available from BlueBrixx (injection moulded), and from Trixbrix and 4DBrix (3D printed). All three have the advantage over the LEGO double crossover of allowing simultaneous running on both straight routes, rectifying a major failing of the original. Trixbrix also offer an R140 double crossover (which, as you might expect if you didn’t skip the maths, is 80 studs long). And 4DBrix’s ‘Ultimate Railroader’ components can be used to build an R148 double crossover.

For single crossovers, which are far more common on full-size railways, there are various options that avoid all the pitfalls of crossovers made from LEGO points (which really only have one application). Trixbrix has points that contain optional components, allowing them to be assembled in crossovers, or used for sidings or branches. These range in radii from R40 up to R120, plus the intermediate radius R148. 4DBrix has an R40 crossover matching its double crossover. You can also use its component system to build R56 and R148 crossovers.

Applications of R104 points from BrickTracks (used by permission)

Injection moulded parts from both Fx Bricks and BrickTracks can be used to build R104 crossovers. Both have return curves for parallel sidings (the Fx Track R64P, which I’ll come back to, and the BrickTracks 11.37° R104B, equivalent to Trixbrix’s R104 ‘ballast curve’). BrickTracks also has an 11.13° ‘turnout’ curve, R104A, which makes up the 22.62° turnout of the points to 33.75°, equivalent to three R104s. (This unfortunately has no Fx Track counterpart.)

It’s easy to get lost in the array of switches and crossings available, particularly those from Trixbrix. Some of their track elements, such as the star crossing (??), look like deviations from the prototype (please correct me if you’re aware of a real one!), but it’s nice to see things like slips, double slips and oblique diamond crossings – even if they’re best suited to people with enough space to model complex station throats. I’m not going to delve any deeper here, especially given that I have no practical experience of their track.

One thing that puzzles me about the Fx Track system is the use of S8 (an 8-stud straight) + R64P (a 22.62° curve of 64-stud radius) + S8 instead of something like BrickTracks’s R104B or Trixbrix’s R104 ballast curve (which together with an R104 make 22.62° curves of 104-stud radius). At first I thought this might be to provide a straight transition section between the turnout and reverse curves, but then the curved part of the point itself definitely has a radius of 104 studs, so a crossover for instance wouldn’t benefit from this. This combination of two straights and a tight curve just seems to get you from A to B by a slightly longer and less elegant route. (I got in touch with Fx Bricks to ask why they’d made this choice, but haven’t had a response.)

A couple of final points on, um, points. These relate to aesthetics/realism.

A British O gauge (32 mm track gauge) ‘medium’ radius turnout from PECO, an R40 set of 9 V points from LEGO, and R104 points from BrickTracks, Fx Bricks and Trixbrix. Short/missing point blades are circled in red, and sleeper/bearer anomalies are highlighted in magenta.

First, apart from Fx Bricks (and perhaps 4DBrix for their R148 points), all the manufacturers seem to emulate LEGO’s design when it comes to the switch rails, choosing (as far as I can tell) to shorten them on the straight route so that there is no point blade to close against the stock rail (presumably relying on the back of the other switch rail to act as a check rail?). I’d be very interested to hear from anyone who knows the reasons for this design choice. (Something practical to do with over-scale LEGO flanges perhaps?)

Second, only BrickTracks R104 and 4DBrix R148 points have anything approximating bearers – the extended sleepers that run from side to side under switches and crossings. As the PECO points illustrate, individual sleepers for the two diverging tracks don’t normally appear until beyond the crossing vee. Trixbrix seems worst in this regard, having some very odd things going on. Ideally, bearers would fit a whole switches-and-crossings assembly, as in the Edinburgh Waverley example at the start, where you can clearly see bearers perpendicular to the two platform tracks running from side to side under the whole crossover.

Curvature, transitions and cant

Pairs of curves of increasing radii

There are things I haven’t addressed in this post, and believe me, I want this to be over as much as, if not more than, you do! But I think I need to say something about the things I’m not going to say much about.

First, curvature. Curvature is a well-defined measure of the bendiness of any curve (within a flat plane). For an arc of a circle, its curvature is simply the reciprocal of its radius. For a straight line, it is zero. (There’s also signed curvature, which is positive or negative depending on whether a curve is turning anticlockwise or clockwise.)

Especially with LEGO and other model railways, we tend to talk more about radii, as we often use complete semicircles, which have an obvious centre. So it made some sense earlier to show curves of different radii in a diagram in which they were all concentric.

In many ways, though, it makes more sense to think in terms of curvature. In the diagram here, it looks as though the R40/R56 pair of tracks are much more tightly curved than the R72/R88 pair, and those are somewhat more tightly curved than the R104/R120 pair, and those are a little more tightly curved than the R136/R152 pair. The change in radius between each pair of tracks and the next is exactly the same, but it doesn’t look like it here. Curvature captures our intuition better.

Also, by adding the same number of studs to radii repeatedly, we'll never get a straight line. So consider instead the sequence of curves R40, R50, R67, R100, R200, straight. The change of curvature between each curve and the next is the same: 0.005 per stud.

On full-size railways, engineers avoid kinks in the track leading to sharp changes in direction (as seen in flexible track and grand curves), and they also avoid sudden changes in curvature, especially at higher speeds. Jumps in curvature are felt as a jolt by passengers, and increase wear on wheels and rails. So even if straight tracks and fixed-radius curves are used, they are almost always connected by transition curves, originally based on the Euler spiral, which changes curvature linearly along its length.

Without using flexible track (which kind of defeats the purpose), we can’t accomplish that kind of subtlety in LEGO. But we could use higher-radius curves to approximate a transition curve, going from straight track to R56, say, by way of R184 and R88 (three roughly equal jumps in curvature). One of the difficulties of attempting this sort of thing is trying to stay within the LEGO System grid.

Finally, in real railways, mainline tracks usually have cant (US superelevation) on curves: anything up to around 150 mm increase in height of the outer rail compared to the inner rail (depending on line speed, curvature and types of trains using the line). This complicates the application of transition curves, but as LEGO modellers we probably don’t have to worry. Cant would take us into the third dimension, even if only by a plate or so, and this post is definitely 2D!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope some of it has been useful and/or interesting. If you’re able to and would like to tip me for the price of a coffee, I’d really appreciate that. Comments, likes, shares and follows are also good!

Tie-ing myself in knots – more LEGO track, briefly

2024-03-31T00:00:00Z

Once more returning to the theme of sleepers (or ties) on LEGO track (see The art of LEGO railway track), I wondered whether I could make a passable representation of modern concrete sleepers, which frequently have a narrower, dipped central portion (and in some cases replace the centre entirely – with a steel bar connecting two separate pieces of concrete).

The central portion is often covered by ballast (the stones that hold the sleepers in place), and so I thought I’d try representing the sleeper disappearing under the ballast by using cheese slopes.

Whereas the 1-by-4 and 1-by-1 tiles favoured by most LEGO track builders can sit on top of the coarse sleepers of the track, and still lie 1 plate below the top of the rail, a cheese slope is a whole two plates high. The kind of thing I’d like to be able to achieve is shown on the left in the picture below, but it requires the use of separate plastic rails, and would completely break down for curves, let alone switches and crossings!

The other three examples here are shown with LEGO 9-volt track, which has pretty much the same dimensions as LEGO RC plastic track. In between the original sleepers, which are two-studs wide and spaced at four-stud centres, it’s possible to drop the cheese slopes down to the appropriate level, so that they sit at least a plate below the rail head.

The trouble is that unless we use a four-stud spacing for our sleepers (which is a bit of a stretch when it comes to maintaining scale), some of the cosmetic sleepers are going to coincide with the sleepers that are part of the track element. There’s no real option I can see other than to omit them in that case. It doesn’t look so bad for two- or three-stud spacing – the middle two options in the picture – and it may (or may not?) look more natural with occasional cheese slopes left out.

From left to right: 1. Sleepers at two-stud intervals, only possible by using separate plastic rails; 2. Sleepers at two-stud intervals on 9-volt track, with the central cheese slopes only appearing on every other sleeper, and some omitted to make the effect more natural; 3. Sleepers at three-stud intervals, with cheese slopes only on the first and second sleepers of each group of four; 4. Sleepers at four-stud intervals.

What do you think of these designs? Is it worth the extra effort, or should I stick to the tried-and-tested Penn LUG standard? I should emphasise that I haven’t tried this at all with real LEGO, and I can’t say if cheese slopes would be more likely than tiles to interfere with the flanges of LEGO train wheels. Do you have any alternative suggestions? Feel free to comment!

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! 🏳️‍⚧️

Choosing a scale for LEGO trains

2024-03-14T00:00:00Z

This is a follow-up to my post a couple of weeks ago, The art of LEGO railway track. I’m coming back to the topic because I had a small problem with a platform I’d built (from a Blue Brixx set) – it’s not quite compatible with my short 8-stud-wide train (also from Blue Brixx, modelled on a locomotive and coach from the famous Rheingold train).

(By the way, I’m not on commission from Blue Brixx. I’m fairly sure they don’t know who I am.)

And then I began to question whether I’d made the right choice about the cosmetic sleepering (even though I justified my decision in the previous post). LEGO’s inherent scale ambiguity really doesn’t help those of us with chronic indecisiveness! (Or should that be indecision?)

So I’m afraid I’m going to have to get even more nerdy this time. Yep!

I’m going to talk about some of the problems of scale in LEGO, whether that’s for trains, buildings or spaceships. And then, with an eye specifically on railways that have some kind of nod towards realism, I’m going to take a detour through the multiple types of gauge in real railways, and the treatments of gauges in toy train sets and scale model railways, before (hopefully) circling back to LEGO (and other brick) trains.

What scale is LEGO?

Last time I said that making a model of a real-world prototype is always going to be an exercise in compromise, thanks to the relatively restricted palette of bricks tied to a stud-based grid. It’s not quite a 3D version of pixel art (Minecraft would be closer!), but it has elements in common.

LEGO set 21347

There is no one definitive scale for LEGO models. After all, how long is a piece of string? How big is a brick? Even LEGO’s own sets based on things in the real world vary considerably, as we can see by looking at a couple of random examples.

LEGO claims that its K2 telephone box (set 21347), including its scenic base, is over 31 cm high – so let’s call it 30 cm for the box itself. It looks as though it’s 11 studs (8.8 cm) wide. The original 1924 phone box was 9 feet (274 cm) tall and 3 feet 4 inches (102 cm) wide. Going by the height, that’s a scale of roughly 1:9, though going by the width it’s more like 1:12. Regardless, it’s pretty big.

Now consider LEGO’s Eiffel Tower (set 10307), which is around five times the height of the phone box, at 149 cm. But the original is 330 m tall, so the scale of the LEGO model is around 1:220. A much smaller scale.

‘Minifig scale’

When it comes to things that aren’t modelled on anything in the real world, but designed purely for their aesthetic appeal or playability, the notion of scale is perhaps irrelevant. If you’re building spaceships, let your imagination rip: anything goes!

LEGO minifigures series 25

However, a lot of us want to create an imaginary world that people could conceivably inhabit, whether it’s a house, a street or an entire city. When I first played with LEGO, any people in my fictional world had to be made out of bricks, or transplanted from a non-LEGO universe. The bizarrely proportioned minifigure (or minifig) arrived on the scene a little too late for me.

Because of the minifigs, most of which are the same size, a lot of creators work in ‘minifig scale’, designing buildings, cars, buses, spaceships and, yes, trains to accommodate these strange creatures. And that makes a lot of sense from a playability perspective. (I’m not sure who coined the term ‘minifig scale’ for this, but it’s definitely been around for a while.)

Tom Alphin (Brick Architect) estimates minifig scale to be something like 1:42 vertically and 1:25 horizontally (front-to back or left-to-right). While it would be perfectly possible to build squat structures using the same scaling factors, they would take up a lot of space. So buildings – and trains – are often actually stretched vertically rather than horizontally! A common compromise then is to include one chair or seat where there might be two or even three in real life.

Mini-doll scale

Friends hanging out at the cat playground (set 42612)

I only recently discovered that LEGO makes some other small people, the mini-dolls in their Friends theme. These look much better to me than the minifigs, though these four short videos by Claire Kinmil (Brickomotion) entertainingly pit the two against each other, ending up with a list of pros and cons for both.

Tom Alphin notes that the mini-dolls are better proportioned than the minifigs, and estimates their scale to be somewhere in the region of 1:38, possibly as large as 1:35. Interestingly that aligns pretty well with the 1:36 scale I came up with in my previous post. Hmm.

Anyway, time for a tangent. Let’s go down our first rabbit hole.

What is a gauge?

On a real railway, a gauge is a standard size for something, or an instrument used to measure such a size, or a device that detects when something doesn’t conform to the standard. I’m not going to talk about the second and third senses.

Among the standard sizes important to railway engineers are track gauge, vehicle (or loading) gauge and structure gauge.

Track gauge

If you only know one kind of railway gauge, it’s probably track gauge, which is usually the distance between the insides of the two running rails, on straight track, measured from a certain point on the head of the rail. (On curved track the gauge is widened slightly. And for some gauges, the distance is measured between rail centres.)

Cross-section of rails on a sleeper illustrating track gauge for standard gauge track (yes, I know the rails should be inclined towards each other, but I’m glossing over a lot of details, painful though it is for me not to mention them all!)

Railways around the world use a huge variety of different gauges, but a few are particularly widely used.

Standard gauge is 1435 mm, and is by far the most common gauge for most kinds of railway, from high-speed rail to tramways. Anything greater than this is known as broad gauge, while anything (substantially) less is known as narrow gauge. Broad gauges include Russian gauge (1520 mm), which is second only to narrow gauge in number of track-kilometres in use, Iberian gauge (1668 mm) and Indian gauge (1676 mm). Among narrow gauges, metre gauge (1000 mm) and 3 foot 6 inch gauge (1067 mm) are widespread.

To avoid confusion (if it’s not too late for that!), I’ll limit myself to talking about standard gauge for the rest of this post.

Vehicle gauge and structure gauge

I’m only going to talk about these briefly, because the relevant standards (even just for mainline British railways) are lengthy and technical, and I don’t pretend to know anything but a small fraction of how these gauges are used in practice.

Roughly speaking, the vehicle gauge is a set of measurements describing the space above and to the sides of a track that parts of a locomotive, freight wagon or passenger coach may occupy during its passage along the track. (In the case of open freight wagons, this space must include any load carried, and is known as the loading gauge.)

The structure gauge, on the other hand, is a set of measurements describing the space above and to the sides of a track that must be kept clear of fixed infrastructure, such as signals, platforms and bridges.

The space within the structure gauge but outside the vehicle gauge is the guaranteed clearance between trains and the structures they pass. There should also be clearance between trains passing on neighbouring tracks.

Structure gauges can vary hugely from country to country, even when the track gauge is the same. Standard gauge railways in continental European countries typically accommodate taller and wider trains than in Britain (double-deck passenger trains, for instance). And many lines in North America, especially freight lines, have structure gauges that are even more generous.

Time to hop down the second rabbit hole.

From toy trains to scale models

At some point in my childhood I ‘progressed’ from LEGO and clockwork ‘toy’ trains to ‘model’ railways, which I saw as more grown-up and serious – something I was less likely to be mocked for enjoying (at least for a while!). I only ever had 00 – ‘double oh’ – scale/gauge trains despite a frustration with its shortcomings, which in some ways are not unlike LEGO’s.

But what do I mean by ‘scale/gauge’? Aren’t scale and gauge two different things? Yes. Model railway standards are a mess.

The earliest model railway standards emerged from the world of toys. German toymaker Märklin (best known for doll’s houses at the time) realised there was an opportunity to sell not just a single toy train but an entire system that would keep customers coming back. A system of compatible rolling stock, track and accessories needed a standard.

They weren’t particularly concerned with accurate scale modelling, so it made sense that the important thing was just to have standards for train wheel sizes and corresponding sizes of track. They introduced systems with track gauges of 45 mm (called no. 1 gauge), 64 mm (no. 2 gauge) and so on.

The painful advent of scales

Later, as people tried to model trains more accurately, scales were derived from Märklin’s track gauges. Assuming a standard gauge (1435 mm) prototype, no. 1 gauge (or Gauge 1) corresponds to a scale of 1:31.9 (usually rounded to 1:32), and no. 2 gauge (or Gauge 2) corresponds to a scale of 1:22.4 (usually 1:22.5).

The exact sequence of events isn’t clear to me, but at some point Märklin, or maybe Bing, introduced Gauge 0, a smaller system than Märklin had envisaged (though we’d now consider it on the large side, almost as big as L-gauge!). It has a track gauge of 32 mm, from which the derived scale is 1:44.8. In continental Europe, this is rounded to 1:45, but Britain to this day perversely mixes metric and imperial units, calling it 7 mm : 1 foot (which is nearer 1:43.5). Not far off, but annoyingly wrong! And modellers in the US have it even worse with a scale of 1:48, for which the correct gauge would be just under 30 mm.

German BR 103 modelled in both H0 and the diminutive Z gauge (1:220 scale, just like LEGO’s Eiffel Tower!) (photo: Uli Kutting via Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 3.0 DEED)

Later, an even smaller scale (though by no means the smallest) came on the scene. At first various manufacturers started to make railway systems with a gauge of 16 mm, half that of Gauge 0, for a scale of 1:90. For some reason, it wasn’t called Gauge −1 (!). Instead it was called 00 (Null Null ‘Zero zero’). But after a short time the slightly larger 16.5 mm gauge took off, under the name H0 (Halb-Null ‘Half zero’) – even though it was now slightly bigger than half of Gauge 0. The scale was at least consistent with the gauge, at 1:87.

In Great Britain, we went our own way again, keeping the 00 name, but for 16.5 mm gauge track and the larger scale of 4 mm : 1 foot (1:76.2). That remains the case to this day. So now you can see why I said 00 scale/gauge. It’s an unholy combination.

(The rationale for British 00 Gauge, aside from the mixed units at least, was that the prototypically smaller British locomotives – smaller vehicle gauge, remember! – were too small at 1:87 scale to fit the motors available at the time. But despite a change of scale, it seemed expedient to keep the non-scale track gauge so that there was some interchangeability between parts for 00 and H0.)

There are many other standards, with various approaches to the conformity of track gauge to nominal scale, but I think that’s quite enough for my brain right now. I don’t know about yours. Historical details above should be taken with a pinch of salt: they’re partly based on my own recollections of things, and partly culled from English and German Wikipedia, and I am not a historian by any means.

Back to LEGO

The 6 foot-by-4 foot model railway I built with my dad was in 00 and had quite a mishmash of track types: Hornby System 6, Hornby/Tri-ang Super 4 and some of my dad’s old Trix Twin 3-rail AC track with most of the centre rails snipped out!

However, for many years after that I aspired to fine-scale modelling (at least from a metaphorical armchair), first considering Scalefour standards (4 mm : 1 foot, with a scale track gauge of 18.83 mm), and later 2 mm FineScale (2 mm : 1 foot, with a scale track gauge of 9.42 mm). But my perfectionist tendency and almost complete lack of practical skills prevented me from even starting! I’m still in awe of what some people can do in these scales. I never even considered ScaleSeven, the fine-scale counterpart to British 0 Gauge, because it was simply impractically large …

And yet here I am contemplating modelling (or playing trains!) in LEGO (and clones), and the scale (whatever we decide that means, but it’s certainly more confusing than 00) is almost certainly bigger still!

On track

The following diagram of standard LEGO track geometry is based on the one shown on the L-gauge website – which goes to show that L-gauge modellers take this stuff pretty seriously! (I’ve redrawn it as an SVG graphic, and made some small changes.)

From this, it’s clear that my previous assertion that the gauge is 5 studs (40 mm) only applies to the centreline gauge. The track gauge, measured in the usual way, between the insides of the running rails, is 37.5 mm (which isn’t a nice round number of studs). Given the loose relationship to a scale model of track, it probably doesn’t make much difference.

To consider another aspect of the above diagram, the rail, which isn’t even shaped quite like a real rail, has a rail head (top part) that is 2.5 mm wide and 6.4 mm above the sleeper. A real rail used on a typical mainline railway might have a rail head that is around 70 mm wide and around 160 mm high (there are many subtly different standards). So at least the width and height of the rail aren’t too far out of proportion to each other.

And a rail that is 2 plates high is a good choice within the LEGO system. Adding the 1-plate high track base to that, LEGO track is 1 brick high, which is pretty nice.

Here you can see prototypical track overlaid on LEGO track, both scaled to the same track gauge, with the lower diagram raising the effective sleeper level by one plate using tiles as cosmetic sleepers:

But 1:28 or thereabouts is quite a bit bigger than the 1:36 I came up with before (based on the centreline gauge) or the 1:38 we’d get from the track gauge in the diagram. So LEGO rails are definitely overscale. Luckily, ballast plates and sleeper tiles do a good job of hiding the lower part of the rail, giving it a smaller visual profile. (And it’s nice to see that the LEGO sleeper length is more or less to scale at 1:38.)

A quick note on how to space sleeper tiles: my original decision may not have been ideal. For one thing, I haven’t thought about curved track, or switches and crossings. Also, it does mean that you need three different tilings even of S16 straight tracks, simply because 3 doesn’t go into 16. For that reason, I’m beginning to have my doubts about its practicality, especially for modular builds.

Turning to wheels

Track isn’t much use without wheels, and in this case LEGO errs in the opposite direction, making wheels that are substantially smaller than those on real trains. (Obviously they have to be smaller – I mean that they’re much smaller even when you take scale into account!)

I haven’t considered steam engine wheels at all, but there’s not a lot of choice there from LEGO (though other manufacturers offer more). Steam locomotive wheels aside, and ignoring the comically small ‘small train wheel’ (50254), current LEGO wheels really only come in one size: the wheels that form part of a ‘train wheel assembly’ (2878, three variants) and the ‘Technic train wheel’ (55423). Both are solid wheels with similar proportions.

The main difference is that the 2878 wheel has a prototypical conical shape to the tread (the part that sits on the rail), while the Technic wheel is flat – which I had mistakenly thought was true for all LEGO wheels, hence my assertion in the last post that LEGO train wheels don’t work like real railway wheels – so not all LEGO train wheels!

The 2878 wheel, the Technic wheel (note the flat tread) and a typical modern locomotive wheel, scaled as before, according to the track gauge; first, on the same baseline, and then, on the right, with a lift corresponding to cosmetic sleeper tiles, so that the rail head is at a comparable height

To some extent the oversize flanges on LEGO wheels compensate visually for their small diameter (most rolling stock wheels these days seem to be somewhere in the 800–1100 mm diameter range). But it’s still not quite enough, and when the flanges are visible, the wheels do look very odd (to my eyes).

There are third-party wheels of different sizes (which I haven’t tried at all, because I’m still just dipping my toes back into the LEGO watery pool of trains or something). But I might consider doing so in the future if I get around to building anything coherent after all this cognitive dissonance!

One thing I should bear in mind though, if I do, is that replacing wheels with wheels of a larger tread diameter will inevitably lift the axle height and hence the entire vehicle. That might make the vehicle a better scale height, or it might mean that some height needs to be trimmed elsewhere.

Adjusting the axle height of vehicles will have consequences for clearance (remember vehicle gauge!), but perhaps the main impact will be on compatibility with unadjusted station platforms. We don’t want passengers having to climb in and out of trains! (Every decision we make has knock-on effects!)

Mind the gap

Remember when I said at the start of the post that I’d had a problem with platforms? It was nothing to do with wheel size. I encountered an incompatibility between the structure gauge of the platform set I’d built and the vehicle gauge of the locomotive set I’d built.

Practically all the trains LEGO has released are built to a vehicle gauge that is 6 studs wide (barring the odd handrail perhaps). They’ve done this since they first introduced trains into the LEGO world, whereas their cars have inexplicably doubled in size over the years.

And lots of people are perfectly happy with 6-stud-wide trains (often shortened to ‘6-wide’ or just ‘6w’). They can look amazing! But to have room inside for people – minifigs, mini-dolls or even just imaginary mini-friends – to move around and have a seat, you really need something wider. Also, though 6-wide trains tend to look fine from some angles, from the front they look as though they’ve been squished in at the sides and are now too tall for their width.

So to fit more detail in, and to make things a little better proportioned, many LEGO train builders create MOCs (‘my own creation’) that are 7-wide, 8-wide or even 10-wide. One downside is that they need more bricks, meaning they cost more to build and are heavier, which means they need extra motors to run, meaning they cost more to motorise. (I haven’t tried motorising anything yet, mainly because I don’t have the space to run anything more than a few centimetres!)

And another downside is that when you buy a platform kit or something else that has an 8-wide structure gauge, 6-wide locos and coaches (which most people have) will fit just fine, but an 8-wide locomotive isn’t going to have the necessary clearance, especially when the handrails and some bits of the underframe protrude slightly beyond the 8 studs!

Conclusions

After all that, I’m not sure I have a definitive answer to what LEGO model trains should look like, except that I realise I’m going to have to take a more relaxed attitude towards scale, and learn to live with compromise. (Can I do that?) I’ll also need to work out whether I want minifigs or, more likely, mini-dolls to travel on (and drive) my trains – if I ever have enough space to build a LEGO railway line that goes somewhere!

Whatever I decide to do, at least there are a lot more possibilities – yay, decision paralysis! – than there were back in my first LEGO era …