Coarse Scale O Gauge

[Bassettblowke]

4 hours ago, rockershovel said:

I once knew a driller with a strong cockney accent

 

 

The beginnings of a Limerick surely

[Nearholmer]

Please do try chelation, though; it does work very well.

[Bassettblowke]

I shall gladly give it a whirl that’s if my long suffering wife hasn’t had me carted off to the asylum first. Toys Trains was bad enough now the lunatic is mixing potions in the kitchen ! I can hear it now.

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

From what I can work out, 0 was indeed the smallest feasible at the time. 

 

It wasn't included in the initial standard set of gauges (I, II, II, IV, now 1, 2, 3, 4), which is why it had to be 0, and it was originally cited as 35mm because, like all the others at the time, it was measured between the centres of tin rails, the heads of which were rolled into a 3mm diameter section, so became 32mm when the move was made to measuring between inner faces.

 

There were attempts at other "small" gauges, including IIRC 24mm and 28mm, but 0 triumphed because Maerklin promoted it and most of the other Nuremburg firms adopted for reasons of compatibility.

 

Incidentally, I'm fairly sure that what we know as G1, at 48mm, was roughly Zwei Zoll, Two German Inches, and 0 at 35mm is roughly 1.5 Zoll.

 

(It is, of course really 0, nought, not O, oh, and French and German speakers render it properly as zero or null.)

 

 

 

Americans render it as all sorts of things, which needn’t surprise anyone. Jim Otto, legendary iron man of the original Oakland Raiders, wore the number #00 which he claimed was pronounced “aught-O” as a pun on his name. 

[Bassettblowke]

Enough of pliers already here’s what Jenolite did to these spare Hornby Series auto couplings. I will certainly give the treacle/water mix a go once I’ve sorted a few suitable guinea pigs. 

 

[Nearholmer]

Cruelty to cavies is a crime.

[Northroader]

I washed my guinea pig and I couldn’t do a thing with it.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Northroader

[Bassettblowke]

It either that or a Beagle

 

[Nearholmer]

You’ll need a bigger jam jar then.

[Bassettblowke]

Or a very small Beagle

[Il Grifone]

The confusion between 'O' and '0' can be blamed on their interchangeability in English. Strictly it should be 'nought' (or zero) but Hornby calling their range 'Dublo' gave a sort of official sanction. I don't know about 'Acho' in France however, as it is generally 'zero' on the continent (In Italian too).

 

Jenolite's formula seems to be an 'Eyes only' secret but I did find this  https://jenolite.com/data-sheets/

 

Orthophosphoric acid is nasty stuff....   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Il Grifone said:

The confusion between 'O' and '0' can be blamed on their interchangeability in English. Strictly it should be 'nought' (or zero) but Hornby calling their range 'Dublo' gave a sort of official sanction. I don't know about 'Acho' in France however, as it is generally 'zero' on the continent (In Italian too).

 

Jenolite's formula seems to be an 'Eyes only' secret but I did find this  https://jenolite.com/data-sheets/

 

Orthophosphoric acid is nasty stuff....   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphoric_acid

 

But saying “Oh” for “nought” is well established in spoken English. Locomotive wheel arrangements are commonly pronounced so, as are telephone numbers and other numerical codes, however they are written. The eponymous spy does not introduce himself as “Double-Nought-Seven” 

 

Orwell only uses the numerical form, but the TV programme is pronounced “Room One-Oh-One” - so that is the official, BBC English House Style Guide form. 

 

Computer programmers sometimes use the form, although in THEIR context O and 0 are quite distinctly different.

 

”Acho” is not-so-very-far from the French pronunciation of HO, although to the English speaker is sounds like a stage sneeze. How the French pronounce either term, I neither know nor care. 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by rockershovel

[GRASinBothell]

I have often wondered whether the pronunciation in the English-speaking world of the numeral zero as the letter O had anything to do with the way the number was treated on portable typewriters (anyone remember those?). They generally had no key for the numeral zero. You had to use the capital letter O. Of course, they also generally lacked the numeral one, and you had to use a lower-case L for that.

Gordon

[Il Grifone]

Newspeak, in the project to eliminate surplus words and simplify the language, would probably have suppressed all of the alternatives leaving just the 'oh' (It would have been needed for the letter) so One-Oh-One would be likely  to be the correct form. I've often wondered why not eliminate the plural altogether rather than standardise adding an 's'. Perhaps we shouldn't give 'them' ideas....

 

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Il Grifone

[sncf231e]

In my (very interesting ) e-book on gauge and scale I had written this small paragraph about 0 and o:
 

The European MOROP issues the NEM (Normen Europäischer Modelleisenbahnen = Standards of European model railways) standards; they use explicitly the 0 (zero) in gauge names. https://www.morop.eu/downloads/nem/de/nem010_d.pdf

The American NMRA however uses the capital letter O in their standards. https://www.nmra.org/sites/default/file ... 009.07.pdf

 

I mentioned that the track gauges for toy and model trains are indicated by a letter or number. As described the first gauges were given Roman numerals and when a smaller than I gauge was created it was called 0-gauge. In common parlance the zero might be pronounced as an O and it might also be written as an O. I remember well that in the large train shop Merkelbach in Amsterdam a lady asked the shop assistant for an HO train; he instantly corrected her by saying the HO is Oatmeal[1] and H0 are model trains. Of course, the shop assistant should not have tried to correct his client; the shop was declared bankrupt later. Also 00-gauge is often named and written OO gauge; OO is of course a double O and Hornby trains in this gauge were once named Hornby Dublo (which has nothing to do with Duplo toys, even if I normally pronounce it like that). My spelling checker gave alerts when I used the word gauge with a number before it, but not with a letter before it; a hyphen should be included. So, in this document I write H0-gauge, 00-gauge, 0-gauge or 1-gauge and Z gauge, N gauge or S gauge. Often the letter and number follow the word gauge, i.e. Gauge 1 and gauge H0; I try to be consistent by not doing that here.

 

[1] HO Oatmeal was launched in the second half of the 19th century by Hornby's Oatmeal Company of Buffalo, USA. In the 20th century it was exported to Europe where the product still under that name in stores can be found but made today by the Quaker Oats food company that is owned since 2001 by the soft drink company Pepsi Cola. It is noteworthy that the H of HO Oatmeal stands for Hornby; the train manufacturer with the same name never made any H0 but kept to 00.

 

And here you can read or download a completely free copy of my e-book: http://sncf231e.nl/gauge-and-scale/

 

Regards

Fred

 

[Il Grifone]

Spell checker speaks American. I've lost track of the number of times I've had to correct it!

There used to a version for proper English, but it seems to have disappeared.

 

I've never used a hyphen between gauge/scale and Its number/letter and don't intend to start now.

 

The gauges/scales increase by approximately √2, but the difference between gauges 1 and 2 was too small to be worthwhile leading to the demise of the latter. It has resurrected recently with 1:29 scale models on 32mm gauge track.

The strange habit of measuring gauge between the centres of the rails (it makes track gauges rather awkward I would have thought?) has resulted in Italian metre gauge being 950mm.

 

I have seen the theory that standard gauge derives from the distance across the rumps of two horses pulling a Roman chariot (or more likely a waggon or cart) which let to the early plateways being 4' 6" gauge. fitting flanged wheels to these vehicles would have required the back to back to be the same and thus required about 3" more on the gauge.

 

(All of the above IMHO)

[Nearholmer]

In a tin-toy-making context, measuring between the centres of the rails makes perfect sense, because everything is set by the punch-cuts in the sleepers, and there is no need to go pfaffing about calculating dimensions by subtraction.

 

The move to measuring gauge of toy track ‘properly’ came when people (notably Winteringham) started to make ‘scale’ track, using drawn solid rail, on a commercial basis.

 

The ‘game’ was to get scale track to accept wheel-sets originally designed for tinplate track, which led to the Greenly 1909 standards, which have large check-rail clearances to suit a narrow “back to back”.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Nearholmer

[Il Grifone]

In reference to the above  waffle  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/  

 

Roman war chariots weren't really a 'thing'  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot

 

I suppose it does make it a bit easier to measure between rail centres, but it's not that difficult to subtract the 3mm diameter of the rail head to set the track gauge. I think it was just copying how  the real thing did it. (Once you change the rail section you are in trouble, which is why the idea was dropped, I suspect.)

 

Greenly was always keen on narrower than scale track gauge, but really it's the only way to get overscale thickness wheels to fit in a scale width model body. The distance over the outside faces of the wheels has to be to scale (or less to accommodate valvegear). It's less of a problem with Continental or American prototypes because of their larger loading gauge*. Allegedly 00 comes from the early Bing train sets.  Greenly's reply to the comment that they were too large for H0 (built to The German loading gauge was that they are 4mm scale.

 

*American 00 scale has a 19mm gauge. The different design of their rolling stock with bogies and a central member rather than twin solebars (and  often only 4 wheels) encourages a wide gauge rather than narrow to get around curves The extra width can be lost in the loading gauge (an extra foot or so helps a lot) and not indulging in the luxury of wheel splashers helps too.

 

On zero and oh  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_number_0_in_English

 

The first year of the 21st century was 2001 of course! (ducks for cover).

Edited November 23, 2019 by Il Grifone

[rockershovel]

I strongly suspect that the real answer is that if you are setting out to build a horse-drawn tramway to haul coal, defined by the known general dimensions of horses and the well-known limits to what a horse can reliably pull, you end up with a gauge of between 4’ and 4’6” - which was a common range for early tramways. 

 

If the tubs have loose wheels on the axle, then the gauge isn’t tremendously important. Defining dimensions by centre-to-centre dimensions is quite common engineering practice. Variations in gauge resulting from varying rail sections isn’t an issue when you have a single route and your rolling stock is made to fit, and only required to work on that route. 

 

Early tramways and primitive railways were designed using the engineering practices of the day. As railways emerged as an engineering field in their own right, specific practices emerged from experience. 

 

[rockershovel]

Some local English dialects still use the forms “owt” and “nowt” for “something” and “nothing” 

[Bassettblowke]

It was interesting listening to Fiona Hill’s testimony at the impeachment enquiry in the US, whilst her accent has softened during her time in the US it’s still immediately recognisable. What a crying shame for this country that we loose this calibre of person and retain the dross that swills around in our upper echelons.

[brianusa]

Me and Fiona - just like that!  Although I still retain my classy Plymouth accent!

    Brian.

[rockershovel]

6 hours ago, Bassettblowke said:

It was interesting listening to Fiona Hill’s testimony at the impeachment enquiry in the US, whilst her accent has softened during her time in the US it’s still immediately recognisable. What a crying shame for this country that we loose this calibre of person and retain the dross that swills around in our upper echelons.

 

I’ve been following No 2 Son’s progress through a graduate trainee scheme with a quite major employer with some interest. Approximately 50% appear to have remained for the two years, another 25% have left in the time since. I’m not tremendously surprised by this, I remember encountering similar figures forty years ago in civil engineering, plus ca change. 

 

This country treats its wealth creators as subservient to the financial elite, and neglects the training of those who might be the next generation of wealth creators. It was never any different. That’s WHY almost 2 million left between 1945 and 1980; my late father used to remark scathingly that “the Conservatives wanted to reset the clock to 1938, but didn’t dare try”. It’s why I finally abandoned trying to make a living in this country in the 90s, although I’d ventured widely in previous years. 

 

I still speak with a distinct cockney accent, although my good wife takes the view that an indistinct cockney accent would be nearer the mark.  

 

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by rockershovel

[Bassettblowke]

The great Philanthropist and business man and one time richest man in the world Andrew Carnegie was a Scot born of working class origins, he had little time for the monarchy and its trappings a firm believer in education and self advancement he had no time for privilege and inherited wealth. A great Scot and an even greater American. We have down the road from where I live a Carnegie library provided free gratis by this great man and closed recently due to austerity cuts by the local council. Unfortunately a century later  we still live in a society that panders to the privileged with their inherited wealth which stifles opportunity for the vast majority of the population who are constantly drip fed the lie that the greatest talent lies within the privately educated so called elite.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Bassettblowke
Spelling

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Bassettblowke said:

The great Philanthropist and business man and one time richest man in the world Andrew Carnegie was a Scot born of working class origins, he had little time for the monarchy and its trappings a firm believer in education and self advancement he had no time for privilege and inherited wealth. A great Scot and an even greater American. We have down the road from where I live a Carnegie library provided free gratis by this great man and closed recently due to austerity cuts by the local council. Unfortunately a century later  we still live in a society that panders to the privileged with their inherited wealth which stifles opportunity for the vast majority of the population who are constantly drip fed the lie that the greatest talent lies within the privately educated so called elite.

 

 

 

TBH, I think the majority stopped believing that particular canard, quite a long time ago. Orwell was of the opinion (“In Defence Of P G Wodehouse”) that “Bertie Wooster was killed around 1915” and I’d reckon that belief in the abilities of the upper classes was lost around that time.