How small is Z anyway?

While N scale certainly has a better selection of rolling stock, when I first hit on the idea of "Wassen on a door", for obvious reasons, Z was the only scale that was considered.

Why? Because it's small. Small-enough-to-fit-a-lot-of-track-on-a-door small.

Well it's supposed to be small. But when the first of my Z purchases was unboxed, they weren't as tiny as had been expected. The locos certainly don't get lost on your workbench, the track is workable, and as we've seen recently, you can even 'model' in Z.

So to respond to a recent question/comment/request - how small is it really?

Here's a side-by-side comparison that can be readily set up with models on hand - a Z scale Swiss Re 4/4 (1:220) vs an N scale North American Dash 9 (1:160) vs a New Zealand DC in NZ120 (TT 1:120).

Crikey. After having only played with Z this year and not seeing an N scale engine out in the wild for some time, Z suddenly seemed a lot smaller than I realised. Or probably more accurately, N seemed a lot bigger.

In comparing apples with motorcycles, it's fair to point out that a real General Electric Dash 9 is a lot wider, taller and longer than the other two locomotives, but empirically, it would seem that Z is indeed smaller than the others by quite a margin.

But its not tiny. That would be T gauge.