Weaver brass scale sizes

Those early brass GG1's are true pieces of art!  Yes, they are 1:48 scale as should be the Berkshire & Torpedo.

First run of the GG1's had motors without flywheels and sometimes required a deft touch on the throttle to bring them to a smooth stop as they would not coast. The 2nd run had flywheels which were a big improvement. If you have an old transformer, many of them started at 6v - 8v which would be a 'jump' on startup as well as an abrupt cutoff when slowing down. Better to have a more modern transformer that started at 0v-2v for smoothness.

Weaver, MTH, and Williams GG1s are essentially the same and many parts outside of the body are interchangeable.  Having said that, they are not quite scale, but a tad short by about 1/2".  I learned this when I put mine next to either my Lionel JLC or 3rd Rail GG1s and saw the difference which got me to pull out my scale nearly 20 years ago. 

Whether this matters to you or not is up to you.  It doesn't matter to me.  I have 20 scale O GG1s in my collection and three are 3rd Rail, two are Lionel, and the rest divided among Weaver, MTH, & Williams.  I suspect the concession was made so that they negotiate 072 curves much more easily.  The drivers are a hair short too on the Weaver, MTH, & Williams ones.  My larger G's require perfect track on an 072 curve to track well. 

Having said that all, I have all eight paint schemes Weaver offered on the GG1 and they are good runners.  As Sam said, the early ones, 4876 Tuscan 5-stripe and 4816 DGLE 5-stripe do not have flywheels.  The later runs also offered QSI Protosound as a separate plug-in module. 

Outside of the GG1 concession, Weaver trains in general are done to 1:48 proportions whether brass or plastic.  I am a big fan of Weaver products and was disappointed when Joe Haytor decided to exit the business even if I understand his reasons why. 

Let me put in a plug for Jonathan's excellent  thread he started some years ago on all things GG1. I well remember the detailed analysis he gave on the history and the differences in the many models we have available. The JLC's were overall the best and closest to true fidelity at a reasonable price with the 3rd Rail GG1 probably the best.  I always liked the die cast JLC although the Weaver brass pieces were also excellent. Even the Williams in plastic is well done. You have some really good pieces to choose from!

Jonathan, can you post a link to your article as many of us found that very useful and informative.

Sam,

Thanks for remembering that thread.  I'm not sure how well it's aged as the links for many of the posts no longer exist, but here is that old thread:

Scale GG1 Comparison

@BillMillerGahanna posted:

Since I can't easily measure the two steam engines against any published prototype dimensions,  does anyone know if these models are 1:43 or 1:48 scale?  Just curious!

All of that prototype dimensional data is available in books and online, to use when measuring your models in inches.