AlexW89 wrote:
Mountain Goat wrote:
Nice. I have lots of 00 in 2 and 3 rail forms (3 rail Hornby Dublo), but I am selling those slowly and concentrating on 0-16.5 7mm narrow gauge.
Nice! I have a general idea of what you're referring to, it's interesting how different the American and European modeling worlds are. Of course American trains are totally different too. I've noticed that a lot of Europeans like American trains, but few Americans like European trains.
7mm narrow gauge is known as 0-16.5 in the UK, 0e in the EU and 0n30 in the USA.
All runs on the same track width as 00 and H0.
There are other gauge widths in the 7mm scale narrow gauge realm like 0-14 (14mm gauge width... 0-16.5 is 16.5mm gauge width using 0 scale, so 0-14 uses 14mm guge width in 0 scale. 7mm narrow gauge is the same scale as 0 gauge, which is 7mm to the foot scale... 1:43).
The good thing about using 16.5mm guge width is there are so many mechanisms and wheels etc from 00 and H0 sources that it makes things a lot easier.
I hope this makes sense.
H0 is 3.5mm to the foot scale.
00 is 4mm to the foot scale. 00 width should be 18.83mm but it is a bit of an oddity. A bit of modelling history. In the USA there was 00 gauge using 19mm gauge width (Close to 18.83 and easier to work with then going for 18.83). I believe Lionel made them. The problem was that 4mm scale was a little too large for USA prototypes so they adopted 3.5mm scale on 16.5mm track instead.
Uk also wanted to use 3.5mm scale to share the same 16.5mm gauge width but the UK prototypes are smaller so back in those days, they made the bodies in 4mm scale, but had them run on the same 16.5mm track width as H0, so manufcturers like Hornby could sell UK models in the USA. Also, the larger prototypes of the USA and within the EU tended to scale down to look a similar size as the smaller UK prototypes... So it was found to be a suitable compromize.
Purists in the UK decided to re-gauge to 18mm which became known as EM gauge (4mm scale) as back in those days there needed a little tollerence for the mechanisms to work, but later finescale modellers did work to the correct 18.83mm gauge width for 4mm scale which became known as P4 (Prototype 4... (4 standing for 4mm scale)).
Now the problem was that most 4mm scale modellers ran their trains to the incorrect 16.5mm gauge track which is convenient to also run H0. As a solution, when Lima (An Italian firm now bought out by Hornby) first entered the UK market, they (Along with a few others like Fleishmann) tested the market to try to sell 3.5mm H0 scale to correct the gauge and scale issues, but when one has the exact same model in 3.5mm scale next to a 4mm scale version, it does look noticeably smaller.
Then Trix decided to compromize by making 3.8mm scale models on 16.5mm gauge track which tended to be inbetween the two so it was considered to be less noticeable to run with 00 nd H0... (Liliput took over production of Trix's 3.8mm scale models for several years around the early to mid 1970's).
The problem here in the UK is that UK modellers are stubborn and love their incorect 00 scale on 16.5mm track. So Lima gave up the British H0, and changed to 00, and Liliput eventually gave up lacking in sales, and 00 sales continue to this day.
It is a bit of a complex history.
USA 19mm gauge 00 dissapeared around the time of WW2. A friend of mine has some and they are massive compared to UK models and the die cast bodies make the locos quite heavy. I think it was a Baldwin 4-8-4. Very impressive, but I can see why they decided to use H0 instead!
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