>> S scale track is S Gauge just like O scale track is O Gauge.
>> It is that simple?
Nope. Not simple at all and not technically correct as described above. First of all, there is no such thing as "S Gauge" or "O Gauge". The American prototype railroads have a standard gauge which is 4'8-1/2" as correctly mentioned by Craig above. There is also narrow gauge which commonly covers all the various gauges smaller than standard gauge. In America, there is also wide gauge which covers all the various gauges larger than standard gauge. One example of wide gauge is the BART system in the San Francisco Bay Area which measures out to be 5'. "Gauge", as most of us realize, is the distance between the inner surfaces of the rail heads. And, broadly speaking, there is narrow, standard and wide. Got all that? I won't even get started on the various gauges of railroads in foreign countries.
To complicate things, various toy train companies offer track made to their own unique gauge dimensions. And in addition, there are some modelers who simply must have the exact correct dimension and nothing else. These folks are called P:64 or P:48 or P:87 as the case may be. The P-modelers simply take the prototype dimension and divide it down and build their models very accurately. More accurately than most of us will ever do. But ya gotta admire them for what they do.
"Scale", on the other hand refers to the proportion of the model to the real thing. S scale is typically labeled 1:64 which means 1" on the model equates to 64" on the real thing. O scale is 1:48, HO is 1:87. Each different size of model train has its own proportions which are usually referred to as the scale of the train.
No.....scale has nothing to do with weight. Google has not realized that yet, but we are working on them.
Now to your question: What gauge is S scale track? The answer is "it depends". If you are talking about NMRA specifications, you will see differing dimensions for standard gauge, narrow gauge, hi-rail and proto here:
http://www.nmra.org/index-nmra...ecommended-practices .
The gauge dimensions are all there for your inspection and they are all different. It is probably safe to say that Lionel O and American Flyer S have even more differing dimensions for the gauge of their proprietary track systems.
The above is the technically correct answer to your question. The ballpark guesstimate is "about 7/8". And remember, there is no such thing as S Gauge or O Gauge except in the minds of American Flyer and Lionel enthusiasts.
But since we are all nuts about trains, we eventually find common ground and life goes on.
Hope this helps......Ed L.
