The forerunners of H0/00 gauge

[sncf231e]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 

FOUND! it's titled 'Bing's Table Railway'.

 

 

The book is shown in my video 

 

And there is at least one other one:

 

Regards

Fred

Edited August 10, 2021 by sncf231e

[PaulRhB]

Has anyone managed to get their hands on the Berg book. All I got when I tried to order was publishing is delayed. 

[Nearholmer]

The Bing is getting all the attention, but the Mignon is interesting too.

 

I was particularly taken by the overhead electric version when Mr Carne exhibited the range at a TCS meeting. IIRC, it has proper, working OLE, and each section of track is stamped from a single piece of tin, so that it provides the return "mat", a bit like "bumper car" track.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Nearholmer

[sncf231e]

 

I have the Berg book, but do not remember where and when I found it.

 

JEP Mignon (but not the overhead electric version):

 

Regards

Fred

[Mark Carne]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

The Bing is getting all the attention, but the Mignon is interesting too.

 

I was particularly taken by the overhead electric version when Mr Carne exhibited the range at a TCS meeting. IIRC, it has proper, working OLE, and each section of track is stamped from a single piece of tin, so that it provides the return "mat", a bit like "bumper car" track.

Thank you for remembering! Here is a photo of my Mignon display, from the first time it was exhibited, at the Beckenham and West Wickhem Model Railway Club annual vintage show.

 

Mark

[kevinlms]

11 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

Interesting comparison to the Chopper Tank

The number of wheels is correct!

[PaulRhB]

4 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The number of wheels is correct!

Well the boiler fittings are pretty close too, just it’s higher to fit in the mechanical bits as Mark alluded to  

For the period it’s much closer than a lot of the O gauge clockwork stuff. 

[Il Grifone]

The cab, bunker, and side tanks are pretty close. It's the rest that's a bit off. For the period it's not bad. It looks more like a 'Chopper' than Dublo's 6917 looks like a 'Watford Tank' (or 6699 a 56xx or 2594 an E5) or the standard 0-4-0T of the time looks like anything (It's an engine, Jim, but not as we know it!).

[Nearholmer]

54 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

For the period it’s much closer than a lot of the O gauge clockwork stuff. 

 

0 scale at that time was pretty much divided, between a few very near-scale things, notably the Bing George the Fifth, which was a blooming good model for a mass-market item, and a much greater number of "good quality toy trains". A lot of the very good pre-WW1 material had gone out of production, and it took a long time* for largish-market, semi-scale things to re-emerge; one might say "just in time to be killed-off by the next war".

 

*Thinking about it, the Bing Ivatt 4-4-0 was quite an early introduction, 1923/4 IIRC, and that was pretty good, and there was the Precursor Tank. The BL Moguls probably count, but they were a bit later.

 

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Ruffnut Thorston]

18 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

 

The library is still going according to the web!     but no sign of the book in the catalogue. 'Bing' just brings up some wretched rabbit!

FOUND! it's titled 'Bing's Table Railway'.

 

Lego rails are spaced at 5 pegs apart which suggests about gauge 1.

Looking I found this:

https://www.amazon.it/italiani-istruzioni-costruire-locomotore-mattoncini/dp/8869283097

 

I will not start Lego trains!  I will not start Lego trains!  I will not start Lego trains!...

L Gauge…..Lego Trains. 
 

It is far more advanced than I thought….a whole different hobby!
 

From the Collectors Gazette…19 March 2021.

 

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/collectors-gazette/20210319/281595243296149

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Trains

 

 

https://www.holgermatthes.de/bricks/en/train-systems.php

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2021 by Ruffnut Thorston
More added…

[Mark Carne]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

0 scale at that time was pretty much divided, between a few very near-scale things, notably the Bing George the Fifth, which was a blooming good model for a mass-market item, and a much greater number of "good quality toy trains". A lot of the very good pre-WW1 material had gone out of production, and it took a long time* for largish-market, semi-scale things to re-emerge; one might say "just in time to be killed-off by the next war".

 

*Thinking about it, the Bing Ivatt 4-4-0 was quite an early introduction, 1923/4 IIRC, and that was pretty good, and there was the Precursor Tank. The BL Moguls probably count, but they were a bit later.

 

 

The Bing for Gamages Ivatt 4-4-0 was thankfully one of those semi scale items that was made before and after WW1. I have a pre 1914 example, which I don't have a photo of to hand unfortunately. Which I immediately found in the relevant file on the computer after posting this comment!

 

Mark

Edited August 11, 2021 by Mark Carne
Found photo!

[Il Grifone]

How can you have Lego Trains and nothing Danish?

 

That is apart from this one  https://brickset.com/sets/182-1  which doesn't really count as looking like nothing at all (and missing a red band from her chimney). There is no way I'd pay ~1120€ for it though. It makes this a good boot sale bargain:

https://brickset.com/reviews/set-182-1

A wine red brick for the coaches might have been a good idea too!

 

I will not start Lego trains!  I will not start Lego trains!  I will not start Lego trains!...

[PaulRhB]

I decided to see what might have been if the clockwork was smaller. 
 

[Il Grifone]

It's more like a 'Chopper' than some more recent 'models'.

 

This one for example:

 

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk02yRq2UTFE7H7JBg5jOmnLRdsh0L

 

EDIT I intended the 08, but virtually any one on the page will do.

Edited August 12, 2021 by Il Grifone
Rushed - take out dogs walkies and SWMBO shopping

[Mountain Goat]

Double post.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Mountain Goat
Double post.

[Mountain Goat]

On 10/08/2021 at 20:19, Pacific231G said:

H0, as a name, came rather later, at least in Britain (but scale model railways as opposed to toy trains on the one hand and model engineering on the other originated in Britain,) Originally,  sizes were defined by gauge (as in model engineering) so no. 2 no.1 and, for those who were space starved, no. 0 gauge. 00 was originally referred to  as no. 00 gauge but Greenly chose to make the scale 4mm/ft for that gauge while others used the correct scale of 3.5mm/ft. Greenly, who was a miniature railway engineer, seems to have seen model railways as very small miniature rather than scale model railways  and he had an aesthetic and engineering preference  for making the scale of the model larger than that of the track (as on the RHDR and the Rattie)  There was a bit of a battle about this in the 1920s and 1930s and eventually A.R. Walkley, whose ground breaking 1926 Portable "00 " Gauge Goods Yard , had most definitely been 3.5mm/ft,   announced in MRN that henceforth he would  refer to his models as "Half 0"  scale which J.N. Maskelyne, the editor of MRN and a long time advocate of  3.5mm/ft, later shortened to H0.   

 

Looking through my bound volumes of MRN, I can find a lot of discussion of using 4mm/ft scale with 19mm gauge but  only one or two actual layouts.  E.R. Twining referred to  the gauge but the first actual layout I can find was H.D. Pinnington's  in 1939 . He does mention that Stewart-Reidpath couldn't come up with an insulated two rail loco chassis in less than 19mm gauge so others  were presumably experimenting with this gauge which was adopted in America as 00 gauge.  One or two people were talking about 18mm gauge to avoid some of the problems of Britain's small loading gauge but it was the BRMSB, which met during WW2 when the halt to model manufacturing gave hope of a clean sheet post war "reboot", who sttled on 18mm gauge for "scale 00" (later rebranded EM)    

 

19mm gauge using 4mm scale really took off in America for a while and it was known as "American 00".  I know someone who showed me one of the locos and it was massive and heavy!  Makes the Rivarossi H0 Big Boy look small and toylike! I don't really know my American locos, but this was a large one. I seem to think it may be a Baldwin though I would have to ask him. It was around three or four times the weight of a larger 3 rail Dublo loco and double the height and long!  I can see why the USA decided to use H0 instead, and by then 16.5mm gauge was becoming popular so whichever country started using that gauge first made sense at the time for UK and the USA to use it, even if the UK stayed with 4mm scale.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Mountain Goat

[sncf231e]

7 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

 

19mm gauge using 4mm scale really took off in America for a while and it was known as "American 00".  

Lionel, the largest toy-train maker in the US, introduced 00 with a gauge of 19 mm in 1938; since it was not successful they stopped making it in 1942.

 

Although this thread was not meant to be a discussion thread for gauge and scale, it went that way anyway. For those really interested in that subject I have written an e-book about it which can be read or downloaded, at no cost of course, from my website:

http://sncf231e.nl/gauge-and-scale/

Regards

Fred

Edited August 13, 2021 by sncf231e

[Nearholmer]

19 minutes ago, sncf231e said:

Although this thread was not meant to be a discussion thread for gauge and scale

I’m coming round to the view that Britain has three national obsessions:

 

- the weather;

 

- television documentaries about the Nazis;

 

- model railway gauge/scale combinations.

 

So, naturally, any discussion will always gravitate to one or more of these.

[Il Grifone]

20 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m coming round to the view that Britain has three national obsessions:

 

- the weather;

 

- television documentaries about the Nazis;

 

- model railway gauge/scale combinations.

 

So, naturally, any discussion will always gravitate to one or more of these.

 

For Italy, it's just the first two. We've just had record temperatures (48.8º C) and get Mussolini too! ("Who?" asks the rest of the planet).

The third has already been settled, though it took a while to decide that H0 was to be 1:87 (not 1:87.1) rather than 1:80 (or 1:100 for coach length and buildings - there are still some of the latter about!)

Instead we get the 'glories' of past Italian pop music (best watched with the sound turned off!).

[railroadbill]

52 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m coming round to the view that Britain has three national obsessions:

 

- the weather;

 

- television documentaries about the Nazis;

 

- model railway gauge/scale combinations.

 

So, naturally, any discussion will always gravitate to one or more of these.

Re point 2, there is an Internet trope called Godwin's Law (suggested by an American lawyer called Mike Godwin)  which says that the longer an on-line discussion continues, the more likely that Nazis and Hitler will be mentioned, at which point the discussion will end.  The person(s)  introducing Nazis will be considered to have lost the debate.

[Phil Parker]

23 minutes ago, railroadbill said:

Re point 2, there is an Internet trope called Godwin's Law (suggested by an American lawyer called Mike Godwin)  which says that the longer an on-line discussion continues, the more likely that Nazis and Hitler will be mentioned, at which point the discussion will end.  The person(s)  introducing Nazis will be considered to have lost the debate.

 

I think you'll find the Nazi mention has to be in accusatory tones, and then the moderator (also a Nazi according to Facebook) will administer suitable punishment all round.

 

Slightly off topic, but wasn't there a German super railway planned with a wide track gauge? I seem to recall there was a book on the subject. Perhaps you could model that in HO, using P4 track...

 

[PaulRhB]

8 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

Perhaps you could model that in HO, using P4 track...

O gauge track would be closer to the 3m Breitspurbahn gauge  

 

[railroadbill]

 

Could also have been 4 metre gauge (!)

 

Somewhere I've seen an animation of what this could have looked like.  I suspect no-one has actually built a model of what this could have been due to the nature of the people who wanted to build it....a "what if" a bit too far.

 

More here

https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/11/17/nazi-super-trains/

 

Didn't take long, did it?     

Edited August 13, 2021 by railroadbill

[PaulRhB]

Anyhow back towards the topic! 
I’ve got six of the Bing locos but three don’t work. Has anyone got info on replacing springs for these? I have another idea to use a motorised van with batteries inside as I reckon I can do that without much damage with a chassis taped underneath and wires passed through a tiny hole. 

[GoingUnderground]

Any debate about OO cannot be carried out without reference to what was happening in the rest of Europe and in particular in Germany.

 

Trix and Maerklin both launched their 16mm gauge systems in 1935 and both called them 00 not OO as "name" was derived from the fact that the existing gauges, in order of diminishing size were given numbers and were 3, 2, 1, and 0 (zero not the letter "O"). Hence 00 was meant to indicate smaller than 0 gauge. The scale of these German 00 models was slightly elastic but is approximately what we know today as H0.

 

Maerklin and Trix continued to call their 3.5mm:1ft models 00 after WW2. Maerklin started using H0 instead of 00 in their 1950 Katalog and German Trix appeared to do likewise, their 1951/52 German Katalog describes their models as "H0 (00)". This change in nomenclature probably arose as part of the move amongst continental European manufacturers to establish common standards and use H0 for 1:87 scale, presumably to avoid confusion with UK OO which had become 4mm scale on 3.5mm scale track, or American OO which was different again.

 

Back in 1938, Hornby/Meccano wouldn't have called their system H0 or refer to it being H0 as that wasn't in common use until a over a decade later. So I'm not in the least surprised that they called it "Dublo" using the letter O when referring to the number 0 as that was what Maerklin called their system (00) and Dublo had an awful lot in common with Maerklin products of that era.

 

Thus, I'm inclined to go with the view that UK OO was an accident caused by the problems associated with getting motors and running gear to fit in to UK outline body shells made to 3.5mm scale. Whilst the rest of Europe and the USA changed to using the H0 (half Zero) name for 1:87 scale, retaining the OO name in the UK was just a recognition of the fact that we were using a different scale/track gauge combination to Europe and the USA.

Edited August 13, 2021 by GoingUnderground
To correct typos