How To… Use A Peco SL-336 Track Gauge

This post may seem very ,mundane, and in reality it is. However, it cam about on the back of a genuine need. All will be explained in a post that will be coming soon for ‘so far no name’.

When ever you buy a Peco SL-336 N Gauge track laying gauge (or for that matter its big brother the PL-36 for OO Gauge) it comes as a single piece of plastic with no instructions. Not very helpful for the average modeller like me. We know that we need them to space their track out correctly, but isn’t sure what each notch is for. Hence me curating tis post that can be used a set of instructions for all modellers

You will notice that there are notches sticking out on both the top and bottom of the little red plastic measuring gauge from Peco. Also that they are spaced out different distances on either side.

How to use

We’ll start with the tabs or notches if you like on the bottom of the gauge which you can see are positioned closer together.

These are for aligning Peco Streamline or Flexi track as it some times also know in modelling circles. Using this measure gives you a distance in N Gauge or N Scale between the track centres which if you scaled it up would equate to a scaled up distance of just over 3.8m in real life – closely resembling a 3.5m standard that you would see in real life in 1:144 miniature.

It would of course be remiss of me at this stage to observe however that the distance between tracks in the real world in the UK does vary depending on a number of conditions. These include, where the track is laid, how long ago the track was laid, the radius and also the overall purpose of the track.

The measurement on the top of the PL-36 or PL-336 (where the tabs you can see are spaced further apart as shown in the above photo) is intended to be used if you are laying Setrack from Peco. These will give you a scaled up representation of approximately 5.1m.

Although this increased track spacing does find it’s way on to the railway network on the odd occasion in real life. You will find that the decision from Peco who are the manufacturers to space Setrack this way has a lot more to do with the practicality and useability of the model. Also it deals with the space you will need for tighter radius curves and also point-work rather than attempting to realistically recreate life.

And also…


The other feature of this oh so handy little piece of red plastic from Peco is the square end of it. That is used to measure your platform heights. This is used by placing one or more of the device’s plastic tabs on the top of your newly laid rails. With it then in situ your platform surface should be to the same height as the top of the gauge. That is of course if aiming for a level of prototypical accuracy on your layout.

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