Scale/Gauge Comparison

[nachoman]

First of all, there were few 40' boxcars in narrow gauge> Most were 30' or shorter. D&RGW did have some 40' narrow gauge reefer cars, though. So, finding an appropriate model for visual comparison to an N-scale 40' boxcar may be tough. Doing the math, a 40' N-scale car would be 3 real inches long. A 40' HO scale car would be 5.5 inches long. But, I think that was already explained and not what you were after. Since the typical narrow gauge car was 30', it would be about 4.1 real inches long, still longer than the 3 inches of the N scale boxcar.

And - HOn3 track is a little bit wider than N-scale track, so an HOn3 layout will take up more space than an N scale layout.