O & O-27 Car Size?

Absolutely...the O27 size is the smallest size car in O scale.  Be aware that the O27 track has very shallow ties.  Lionel O track has thicker ties.

The actual size of engines, rolling stock, etc., vary from 1/43 to 1/48.  1/48 is called "fine scale."  Really and truly, actual O scale is that one inch on the model equals four feet in real (prototype) life.  There are very few model railroad engines, cars, etc. that are actually and truly O scale size--the majority of stuff you see is undersized.  WHY?

So it will fit easier into the average person's living space.

Rice Burner,

   John you will find this varies depending on the train set from that particular era.

Your 731 freight set if I remember correctly was 027/0, it actually has the trucks to run properly on both tracks.  The size of the rolling stock can vary, however what you need to really be concerned about is the min curve the rolling stock is designed to run on, rather than the exact car size.  Some custom O guage rolling stock may very well be smaller in design than some actual 027 rolling stock, it all depends on the design of the individual car.

PCRR/Dave

Thank you Dave.  That is a better and more clear answer.  It truly depends on who made it, when they made it, etc.  

I think everything is okay to use.  I just ensure that I put the full scale stuff all on one train with a full-sized engine(s) and vice-versa.  I don't mix undersized O with full sized O.  It does look funny to me to see an 89 foot auto carrier trailing an engine that it just absolutely overwhelms in size.

I run some Weaver outside braced wood cars with Williams and MTH Railking cars and they look fine together because the wood cars were smaller prototypes.  The Weaver cars don't look good with Lionel 6464 cars as they are smaller than the Williams and MTH cars.

 I have a Lionel #731 Freight set from the fifties that I believe is O-27 Gauge and I bought a K-Line ,Phoebe Snow, Wood Sided Refer Box Car to add to the set which has O-Gauge on the box and it seems a bit smaller than the cars in the #731 Set, especially the original New Haven Box car in the Lionel #731 Set.

John

The New Haven box car in your No. 731 set should be a 6468-25.  It is a "traditional" O gauge or O-27 gauge car that is not a scale model of any particular real world freight car. 

If your K-line reefer is a K642 it would be shorter then the Lionel 6468 box car.  A K-line 742 reefer would be larger the the K642 and about the same size as a Lionel 6464 or 6468 box car.

Lionel, MTH and Atlas all have O and O-27 sized toy train product lines.  And they all have O scale product lines. 

Lionel calls its toy trains "traditional."  Since the 1970s Lionel's  scale products are marketed as "Standard O." Some of them, like the Lionel PS-1 box car, are well regarded by 2 and 3 rail O scale modelers as very dimensionally accurate and well detailed.

MTH calls their toy oriented products "Rail King" and of those product numbers begin with a 30-.  Some of the Rail King freight cars are 1:48 scale.  They are generally based on pre WW II cars that were of smaller size and do not dwarf more fanciful cars.  Some Rail King steam and diesel locomotives are 1:48 scale and are advertized as Rail King Scale.  MTH's highly detailed O scale models are in their "Premier" line and have 20- product numbers.

Atlas sells O scale models under their "Master Line" and "Traiman" brands.  Trainman models are 1:48 scale but less detailed and lower priced.  Atlas sells their toy train products under the "Industrial Rail" banner.

I don't have any 027 trains. But I know that the cars are significantly shorter.

My question is how much shorter.

If a 40 ft boxcar is 10" long in 1/48th scale, how long is a typical O-gauge 40 ft boxcar and a typical 027 40 ft boxcar?

I could be mistaken but, I don't believe any Postwar period ever mentioned "size" in their descriptions. Another words, I don't ever remember seeing a catalog from the 1950's described a "40' " boxcar. It would simply be listed as a boxcar. About the only descriptive difference I remember was a "Double Door" box car. But still no mention of 40', 50' or whatever. With the exception of Atlas and Weaver, Descriptives probably didn't start until perhaps the 1980"s?

So, as mentioned previous, there were no standards for manufacturers to follow. I betcha a 40' boxcar from Lionel, MTH, Weaver, Williams, and K-line all put side by side would have differences in length, width, height.

So for a new guy who is looking for some sort of consistency could get flustered rather quickly. 

 Look for 1/48 scale on the description, that should help.

Just run 'em all, like John C. said.  If you look at real trains in vintage movie footage, boxcars can be of quite varied size.

This subject is more complicated than it should be mainly due to terminology differences over the years.

When I was growing up (late 60s thru early 80s), my Grandpa referred to his stuff as O27 and my Uncle's as O-Gauge.  But, there was as much commonality as there were differences.  The main difference was track.....my uncle's O-Gauge had a higher profile (taller) which provides better electrical connectivity, 31" diameter curves, and O22 switches with separate power terminals and non-derailing.  The O27 track was shorter, came with 27" curves, and 1121 switches that used only track power and didn't have non-derailing features.  RE:  O27 was a bit cheaper.

When it came to locomotives and rolling stock, my uncle had two sets that were two big to handle the 27" curves of O27....the Virginian Trainmaster set and the Santa Fe F3s with 15" passenger cars.  In today's vernacular these engines were (or were close to) 1:48 scale.  But, even though my uncle ran "O Gauge", some of his stuff ran fine on O27 like his 2023 UP FAs and a 2-6-2 steamer.  He did not own the 773 4-6-4 Hudson which was, I think, the only steam engine close to 1:48 scale in that era, nor did he own the 2-8-4 Berkshire which I believe was rated for minimum 31" curves.

The problem is that O27 does not always mean non-scale or semi-scale.  My grandpa's O27 stuff included a 0-4-0 1656 steam switcher and an NW-2 diesel switcher both of which I'm told are close to 1:48 scale.  But, because yard switchers are generally small, a scale-sized model can handle very tight curves.

I ended up inheriting my grandpa's O27 collection.  I've found that Lionel Traditional, MTH Rugged Rails, and Atlas Industrial Rail are safe matches.  MTH Rail King is at least a little larger and, in some cases, absurdly larger, so I'm very careful with Rail King purchases.  K-line items are usually safe for size matches unless they specifically say "O Scale".

Some of these distinctions are no longer relevant.  If you run O27 tubular track, you can now purchase 42" and 54" curves to allow for operation of bigger engines and rolling stock. 

Hope that helps.

All five of these boxcars are made to run on O or 027 track:

TrainsRMe

Great shot to show the relative sizes of what is called O clearly. Is it possible to ID the cars for us?

Scotie

It would be great if a majority of the manufacturers would come up with a standard for future buyers.  I'm thankful to have an exclusive "local" O scale shop so I may see a lot of products prior to purchasing them.

I really want to buy things of the same scale regardless....

Some of the early O-27 was actually 3/16" (1:64) scale. American Flyer started it before WWII, then Marx and even Lionel to a degree used 3/16" scale. Most all of Marx "scale" O-gauge trains are 3/16", the big tin #21 EMD A units being the main exception.

Scotie, what we have here, from top to bottom in the first photo or left to right in the lower photo, are a Weaver 40' DL&W, an unknown maker of NH (but may be based on the AMT/KMT mold), Lionel Penn 19212 (6464 size), Lionel NYC X3464 and Lionel 9040 Wheaties.

There is such a drastic difference from smallest to largest that I don't usually run the smallest and the largest in the same train.  Rather, I may couple up the Weaver with cars down to the X3464 size, or the Wheaties size with cars up to the NH size in a consist (if that makes any sense).  

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I am definitely saving these two pictures! Thanks for posting. I've been wondering about this exact subject and asked a similar question last year. I got a lot of the same answers mentioned here but as they say, "a picture is worth...'

 So what you are saying is, even though the cars are O or O-27 gauge and they should all be the same size for these gauges, the manufactures of the cars use

different methods to calculate the scale of the cars and also the time the cars where produced also is a factor on the size of the cars.

 Am I at least in the same ballpark?

 When I bought the Phoebe Snow Refer Car, I saw O gauge on the box and I thought that it would match my Lionel # 731 Set cars perfectly but after putting the car in the set I quickly saw the difference in size with the rest of the cars, especially the New Haven Box Car.

 If you want to purchase a separate car for a certain train set like I did, what do you have to do to get the same size car to match the set cars?

 The Phoebe Snow Refer Car I purchased was a special edition car and its not like I had a lot of choice of different companies to buy this car so it would be an exact match, size wise, to match my Lionel 731 Set Cars.

 K-Line was the only company that I know of that manufactured this Phoebe Snow Refer Car so I had to buy this companies rolling stock if I wanted this particular car.

 Can anyone explain to me how you figure these scale ratios out?

Thanks,

John