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British Outline 'HO' - what's the story?


Steve K
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On 10/12/2019 at 15:19, 47137 said:

A year on, I have just finished building a kit for a BYA covered steel wagon, and I think it is worth posting a photo here to show how a British outline model with bogies copes with curves.

 

In essence,

1) the usual code 110 RP-25 wheel is about twice the scale width of a prototype wheel

2) we expect model trains to go round curves far tighter than the prototype

3) the solebars of a model are often thicker than their scale thickness

 

This leads us to expect to run out of width, but in truth my BYA negotiates a radius 2 curve without difficulty. I hollowed out the solebars to let it negotiate a radius 1 curve too:

DSCF9980.jpg.a1a94aefe36716f327bdae4b5312715e.jpg

 

I think this helps to show, 1:87 scale is a practical proposition for modern prototypes. I am enjoying a layout where the overall appearance of models on the track is correct (scale gauge) and I can exploit tight curves on hidden tracks.

 

 

 

- Richard.

 

As with P4 - a "close to scale" gauge is practical with diesel and electric stock , where you have bogies and no motion.

 

The serious problems come with big steam and outside motion .... 

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40 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

As with P4 - a "close to scale" gauge is practical with diesel and electric stock , where you have bogies and no motion.

 

The serious problems come with big steam and outside motion .... 

 

You've completely lost me here.

 

The BYA is a wagon with wheels between the solebars rather than underneath them, and I made my post to stimulate discussion of possible wheel options.

 

Steam locomotives are well-understood by contributors here and irrelevant to a BYA.

 

I respectfully suggest, you simply forget the fact that H0 scale models happen to use the same 16.5 mm track gauge as your DOGA '00'. British H0 is a specialised and minority interest, unconnected to 00 and irrelevant to you. Pretend, if you possibly can, that H0 is simply a scale chosen by other people, much like TT or S. Reiterating one well-known limitation of the scale serves no benefit to you or your organisation, let alone anyone else or this thread.

 

- Richard.

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1 hour ago, Ravenser said:

 

As with P4 - a "close to scale" gauge is practical with diesel and electric stock , where you have bogies and no motion.

 

The serious problems come with big steam and outside motion .... 

 

Though P4/S4  modellers still do manage to build big steam with outside motion.

Edited by rocor
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One thing with HO is the huge amount of non-rail items to complement the layout. Brekina do quite a few H0 RHD British outline cars of which a couple attached for example. 

Interesting how they have even more detail than Oxford Diecast yet in a smaller scale. I think plastic is the best medium for small scale model vehicles but that we are wedded to Diecast in this country.

the mini van has the proper pressed grille too unlike the Cararama version ! 

 

ECEA1235-1D71-4BAE-BABE-75217141C603.jpeg

9F46C1FB-4AA7-4F32-BF56-B857565188E5.jpeg

49890C51-9534-46A9-BBE8-C8903414D5A8.jpeg

B4532CAD-A3BF-4C30-9FE7-2570756A8C9B.jpeg

DD1C4707-2E36-4876-AF91-B6ED3B0D8C9B.jpeg

3E79AF5B-957D-4647-AFEF-C9222B4A60B8.jpeg

Edited by ianmacc
Additional info and typo corrections
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2 hours ago, rocor said:

 

Though P4/S4  modellers still do manage to build big steam with outside motion.

 

But they won't go round sharp curves.

 

And you get exactly the same issue in S7 

 

It's a heck of a lot easier to build something in a "scale" gauge if you only have to deal with diesel and electric traction . It's also a great deal easier to rewheel stock.

 

My point is simply that going P4 or S7 (or HO) is a great deal simpler if you stick to modern image. Big mainline layouts in P4 do exist but they are almost always non-steam (Mostyn and Calcutta Sidings are obvious examples)

 

I'm simply pointing out that certain subjects are much more tightly constrained by exact scale gauges than others. Horses for courses. Any layout that runs a BYA will avoid the worst difficulties / constraints posed by exact scale gauges

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15 hours ago, ianmacc said:

One thing with HO is the huge amount of non-rail items to complement the layout. Brekina do quite a few H0 RHD British outline cars of which a couple attached for example. 

Interesting how they have even more detail than Oxford Diecast yet in a smaller scale. I think plastic is the best medium for small scale model vehicles but that we are wedded to Diecast in this country.

the mini van has the proper pressed grille too unlike the Cararama version ! 

 

ECEA1235-1D71-4BAE-BABE-75217141C603.jpeg

9F46C1FB-4AA7-4F32-BF56-B857565188E5.jpeg

49890C51-9534-46A9-BBE8-C8903414D5A8.jpeg

B4532CAD-A3BF-4C30-9FE7-2570756A8C9B.jpeg

DD1C4707-2E36-4876-AF91-B6ED3B0D8C9B.jpeg

3E79AF5B-957D-4647-AFEF-C9222B4A60B8.jpeg

 

Wow, those are stunning, I don't particularly want to have an HO railway but I could easily collect a few of those cars to go with the few HO cars I've already got.

 

And it's a shame that some people associate the term "plastic" with "cheap and nasty" when it is a better material for some applications (I'd say small scale model cars are one, as you can mould finer details or so it seems).

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That's wonderful work on the BYA, well done, Richard!

It's really nice to see another British H0 scale practitioner demonstrating that this scale is every bit as much 'useful' as any other scale - I do not know why so many people love to jump on the bandwagon of decrying the scale unless it's some sort of jealousy or inverted snobbery for "us" getting the scale/gauge ration correct when they got it so wrong!?!

I note that people who model in S or 3mm or 2mm don't attack us, they just get on with their own modelling, kudos to them.

 

Meanwhile for those who persist in saying that British H0 doesn't work, I'll just leave this here;

48113532636_e1f9037f88_c.jpg

 

A DJH kitbuilt H0 scale dub-dee 2-10-0 on my "Watlington" layout, that is a lovely runner and pulls all those old Playcraft 21T minerals with ease! They are over-width but I'm slowly working my way through them.

 

As for plastic model cars, I've been collecting them for about thirty years or more and even my oldest models are way better than the diecast efforts.

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On 01/06/2018 at 12:53, rue_d_etropal said:

The hybrid imperial/metric mix up was already there before greenley. When Bing wee commssioned to produce some model of British outlne ar turn of the century(19-20), they mixed the two.

 

Could be argued that S 91/64) might have been a better choice for smaller scale that O, but like many , they wantee to boast about having the smallest models(Like Z and T now). Not that it was even a case of small houses only being able to have smaller trains, as most of potential customers had the space.

 

The problem with any niche market is the cost of development and whether it iscost justified, hence why I took the 3D printing path. In fact you can have any scale(within reasonable boundaries) you like with 3D printing. All it takes is to ask politely and it can be done. Might have to wait, but not as long as waiting for some r2r models.

 

If you stick only to plastic bodies. The mechanisms are the difficult bit.

 

Andy

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On 11/12/2019 at 17:29, Ravenser said:

 

As with P4 - a "close to scale" gauge is practical with diesel and electric stock , where you have bogies and no motion.

 

The serious problems come with big steam and outside motion .... 

It's not a problem in the rest of the world!

Clearly building an exact scale to gauge (which H0 is) eight coupled loco with outside motion and splashers that will go round 15 inch curves involves some compromises. I have several of them and though I don't make them go round 15 inch curves they would if asked and they work and look just fine. They're RTR products so I suspect the splashers are a bit wide to scale and there are probably other compromises too. Scratch or kit built locos would require fewer compromises but whether in OO or H0 they'd still require some.

What I've never got my head around is why we ever allowed such a fundamental compromise of the whole thing just to avoid some of those compromises in steam locos That really was the tail wagging the dog. However, we can't undo a hundred years of modelling history so while most modellers of Britain's railways seem to be happy to be stuck with that gross compromise, those that aren't have the choice they've always had between EM (and more recently P4) or H0. Generations of modellers have built perfectly satisfactory steam locos in all three and, in the case of H0, have been doing so since the mid 1920s.

 

( I can't figure out how to include a second quote when editing so must continue in a new post)

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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3 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 

It's really nice to see another British H0 scale practitioner demonstrating that this scale is every bit as much 'useful' as any other scale - I do not know why so many people love to jump on the bandwagon of decrying the scale unless it's some sort of jealousy or inverted snobbery for "us" getting the scale/gauge ration correct when they got it so wrong!?!

I note that people who model in S or 3mm or 2mm don't attack us, they just get on with their own modelling, kudos to them.

 

I think it could be that many British modellers still think that H0 is a "foreign" scale. Though I know what it means and why it's needed, the phrase "British H0" has always slightly amused me. H0 is British, It's practicality was demonstrated by members of the Wimbledon MRC in the 1920s and it was given its name by the editor of Model Railway News  several years before the NMRA standardised it in North America and about twenty years before an international conference of model railway associations did the same for Europe. Fortunately they voted against calls for the gauge to be 1:87 scale and everything else 1:80 scale to "overcome difficulties"; British modellers were not so lucky,  

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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On 11/12/2019 at 17:29, Ravenser said:

 

As with P4 - a "close to scale" gauge is practical with diesel and electric stock , where you have bogies and no motion.

 

The serious problems come with big steam and outside motion .... 

 

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

It's not a problem in the rest of the world!

 

True, it's not, but then again they don't have the very tight clearances at platform level we have in the UK - there's something like 40% more width between the wheels and the loading gauge envelope, assuming you have dead scale wheels. Even with modern proprietory wheels standards there's going to be 50% more clearance for outside cylinders on a UIC gauge model. It is, no doubt possible working to fine tolerances, but translating that over to R-T-R models would be harder. Of course, inside cylinder steam locos shouldn't be a problem any more than diesel or electric outline.

 

loading-gauge-comparison.jpg

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15 hours ago, Andy Reichert said:

The hybrid imperial/metric mix up was already there before greenley. When Bing wee commssioned to produce some model of British outlne ar turn of the century(19-20), they mixed the two.


(actually AR never said that; RdeE said it and AR quoted him. Beware of quoting quotes on RMWeb, because the attribution goes awry!)
 

It might be worth pointing out that Greenly co-designed the Bing tabletop system, so his fingerprints are all over the mixing of units, which was something he happily did in other contexts too.

 

Which might sound like a ‘pop’ at Greenly, when I certainly don’t intend that. The tabletop system was a truly wonderful toy, very clever indeed when viewed in the context of the times, and Greenly openly, and cogently, explained the choices he made. 

 

Possibly unfortunately, 4mm/ft scale was already the front runner in the UK when Hornby introduced Dublo, which is presumably why they adopted it, thereby firmly cementing its lead. Hornby made a very good decision in adopting permanent magnet motors, while others (in Europe, not so much the US) were still using wound-field motors, and that would have allowed them to go down to H0 if they’d wanted - neither the N2 nor the A4 with valances would have presented a valvegear challenge, although perhaps they could “see that one coming”.

 

Seems an appropriate thing to ponder on the night the general election results are being called ...... why British model railways are in Europe geographically, but in their own strange and isolated place mentally.

 

 

Edited by Nearholmer
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1 hour ago, BernardTPM said:

 

 

True, it's not, but then again they don't have the very tight clearances at platform level we have in the UK - there's something like 40% more width between the wheels and the loading gauge envelope, assuming you have dead scale wheels. Even with modern proprietory wheels standards there's going to be 50% more clearance for outside cylinders on a UIC gauge model. It is, no doubt possible working to fine tolerances, but translating that over to R-T-R models would be harder. Of course, inside cylinder steam locos shouldn't be a problem any more than diesel or electric outline.

 

loading-gauge-comparison.jpg

That's true Bernard but the OP is interested in British outline H0 not British outline P87 which would be just as demanding as P4 for the same reasons.

The UIC interchange standard wasn't in any case universally available and  some railways, such as the l'Ouest in France, were notorious for the small loading gauge of certain lines. So , though some coaching stock did, steam locos rarely used the full UIC loading gauge especially as there were a fair number of higher passenger station platform that encroached on it. 

My real argument though was that it's far better to use a consistent scale and compromise with it  where necessary than to start with a massive scale compromise just to try and avoid some of those compromises. The horse has long since bolted but 4mm/ft 16.5mm gauge was predicated on tyre widths that nobody would dream of using now and which were widely criticised at the time. So in order to avoid having splashers or cylinders set a bit too wide on some steam locos we pretend that 4ft 1.5inch gauge track is standard gauge. It isn't and it's very obvious that it isn't even without rolling stock. If the sole purpose of model railways was to show off steam locos only seen from the side then maybe there'd be a point to  OO but it isn't and, seen from the end, every piece of rolling stock just look wrong.

I don't see why working with British outline rolling stock in H0 should be any more difficult than working in EM.

 

Your comparative loading gauge diagram is interesting, where did you find it?

 

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think it could be that many British modellers still think that H0 is a "foreign" scale. Though I know what it means and why it's needed, the phrase "British H0" has always slightly amused me. H0 is British, It's practicality was demonstrated by members of the Wimbledon MRC in the 1920s and it was given its name by the editor of Model Railway News  several years before the NMRA standardised it in North America and about twenty years before an international conference of model railway associations did the same for Europe. Fortunately they voted against calls for the gauge to be 1:87 scale and everything else 1:80 scale to "overcome difficulties"; British modellers were not so lucky,  

 

Thanks, David!

What is surprising about all this is that H0 is actually a British scale! Invented by either Bassett Lowke, Henry Greenly or the three pals at the Wimbledon MRC, I am not not entirely sure.

I guess it's kind of like my great uncle, Albert Edge (whose name won't appear on any searches) who "invented" the television at about the same time as Logie Baird and Farnsworth, however only their names are remembered as their devices were technically superior, like Betamax and VHS video!

Never mind, I like being truly British!

John.

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:


 

It might be worth pointing out that Greenly co-designed the Bing tabletop system, so his fingerprints are all over the mixing of units, which was something he happily did in other contexts too.

 

Which might sound like a ‘pop’ at Greenly, when I certainly don’t intend that. The tabletop system was a truly wonderful toy, very clever indeed when viewed in the context of the times, and Greenly openly, and cogently, explained the choices he made. 

 

Possibly unfortunately, 4mm/ft scale was already the front runner in the UK when Hornby introduced Dublo, which is presumably why they adopted it, thereby firmly cementing its lead. Hornby made a very good decision in adopting permanent magnet motors, while others (in Europe, not so much the US) were still using wound-field motors, and that would have allowed them to go down to H0 if they’d wanted - neither the N2 nor the A4 with valances would have presented a valvegear challenge, although perhaps they could “see that one coming”.

 

Seems an appropriate thing to ponder on the night the general election results are being called ...... why British model railways are in Europe geographically, but in their own strange and isolated place mentally.

 

 

 

That was not my quote.

 

Andy

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I have a small collection of British outline Lima H0 that I don’t know what to do with. No idea whether it’s worth anything either. Could anyone suggest the best way of selling it apart from eBay? I’ve tried a post on a Facebook sales group but that got no response. 

 

I  get the feeling that it’s so rare that no ones interested in it at all : ) 

 

 

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AR

 

indeed you didn’t say that, and I never thought you did. I quoted Rue de Etropal, using his words that you quoted, and RMWeb has attributed them to you - very weird. 
 

It will probably now emerge that RdeE didn’t say it either, but was quoting someone else!

 

I’ve added an explanatory note in my posting.

 

K

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9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Your comparative loading gauge diagram is interesting, where did you find it?

It's a composite of about three diagrams I found, tidied, rescaled where necessary to be consistent and I added the two colour sections to show where the British loading gauge actually has a little extra room and to make it less confusing there.

 

Fair point that UIC wasn't universal on the Continent.

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5 hours ago, Silly Moo said:

I have a small collection of British outline Lima H0 that I don’t know what to do with. No idea whether it’s worth anything either. Could anyone suggest the best way of selling it apart from eBay? I’ve tried a post on a Facebook sales group but that got no response. 

 

I  get the feeling that it’s so rare that no ones interested in it at all : ) 

 

PM sent.

 

- Richard.

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17 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think it could be that many British modellers still think that H0 is a "foreign" scale. Though I know what it means and why it's needed, the phrase "British H0" has always slightly amused me. H0 is British, It's practicality was demonstrated by members of the Wimbledon MRC in the 1920s and it was given its name by the editor of Model Railway News  several years before the NMRA standardised it in North America and about twenty years before an international conference of model railway associations did the same for Europe. Fortunately they voted against calls for the gauge to be 1:87 scale and everything else 1:80 scale to "overcome difficulties"; British modellers were not so lucky,  

 

 

I agree with you entirely. I have spent some years pondering whether I should be writing about British H0 or British HO, and really the "British" qualifier is quite unnecessary. It would only be meaningful if British applications of H0 used some peculiar ratio. I've spent an hour or so editing my blog to remove my worst references to "British" H0, but with 80 odd pages it will take some time to get through the lot.

 

Many thanks.

 

- Richard.

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10 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

Thanks, David!

What is surprising about all this is that H0 is actually a British scale! Invented by either Bassett Lowke, Henry Greenly or the three pals at the Wimbledon MRC, I am not not entirely sure.

I guess it's kind of like my great uncle, Albert Edge (whose name won't appear on any searches) who "invented" the television at about the same time as Logie Baird and Farnsworth, however only their names are remembered as their devices were technically superior, like Betamax and VHS video!

Never mind, I like being truly British!

John.

Hi John

Interesting about your great uncle. I'm heavily involved with the Royal Television Society so will ask someone I know who has gone into the medium's early history if he knows the name.

 

I find Henry Greenly an ambivalent figure as he more or less invented the hobby of railway modelling as something different from either toy trains or model engineering (I have the first two years of the magazine he published with Wenman Basset-Lowke) However, once he'd pronounced on something like a set of standards he expected everyone to simply accept them. "Now that's settled once and for all.." as he said well before the First World War about a decidedly coarse scale set of standards for O gauge. 

 

It was 00 gauge 5/8inch or 16mm that was introduced to Britain by Bassett Lowke and Henry Greenly I think originally as the Bing table top toy but at some stage Greenly applied a scale of 4mm/ft to it for scale modelling. The Wimbledon MRC pals argued that the correct scale for 00 was 3.5mm/ft and demonstrated its practicality with various models and a layout- A.R.Walkley's famous portable goods yard- in 1925 and 1926 . 

I have a set of pre-war Model Railway News which, from its inception in 1925 until the arrival of Model Railway Constructor in 1934, was the only (though not the first)  magazine in Britain and possibly the world dedicated to railway modelling.

 

It's quite interesting to follow the argument.  Basically the Model Railway Club favoured Greenly's 4mm  while the Wimbledon club and some others including I think the Manchester MRS favoured 3.5mm but very few people were actually modelling with OO gauge. Edward Beal certainly started with 3.5mm scale (though he later switched to 4mm) and apart from the true gauge/scale one advantage of the scale was that it allowed drawings for the far more popular O scale, which were often reproduced at half size, to be used directly. 

 

A few years later 4mm scale seemed to be gaining ground, though sometimes using  the correct 19mm gauge with at least one large layout built in that gauge,  In the end, to avoid confusion,  A.R. Walkley  declared in MRN that henceforth he would describe his modelling as half O.  J.N. Maskelyne the editor of MRN later said that the term HO  was growing in use though I suspect it was he who coined it.

 

During the war when very little actual modelling was taking place the British Railway Modelling Standards Bureau (grandly named but essentially just the editors of the model railway magazines and a couple of others) deliberated on standards. With each manufacturer following its own standards, these were sorely needed as a famous letter from Lord Brabazon to the MRN pointed out. They seem to have also been inspired by the work in the late 1930s of the  newly formed American NMRA which, amongst other scales, set its own standards for HO (16.5mm & 3.5mm/ft) and OO (19mm and 4mm/ft) In the end in the smaller scales the BRMSB published standards for HO,  nominal OO and "Scale OO"  (18mm & 4mm/ft) They had debated adopting 19mm gauge but decided that it would be a problem with Britain's far smaller than American loading gauge. Scale OO was of course renamed as EM.

 

It's curious though that in France, where railway modelling was largely based on British practice, the small scale was 1/87 (sometimes 1/86) with a gauge of 16.5mm but until about 1950 this was still known as 00.

 

 

 

 

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Excellent summary.

 

As you’ve probably worked out, my magazine stashes cover the same ground, and it’s fascinating to follow the twists and turns, and occasional short-temperedness, of the debate ....... arguments took so much longer before the internet, or perhaps took the same time, but with fewer contributors and a lot fewer written words!

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Here is my Roco S160 posed on a radius 2 curve. A 2-8-0 is never going to be pretty sight on such a tight curve, but the engineering design works well and the model meets Roco's claim for operation on a 438 mm curve. Actually, all of my H0 RTR runs on these curves.

 

Yes, the pony truck wheel is in front of the cylinder, and of course this won't suit every British prototype. 

 

A bit of a long shot I know, but it would help everyone if those who try to detract from the usability of H0 for British outline could work from facts instead of posting sweeping and unfounded generalisations.

 

- Richard.

 

DSCF0014.jpg.62c90509ff0a95936689b60fce874082.jpg

 

DSCF0013.jpg.070688ec420e6ba79e7403739a95705a.jpg

 

 

 

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