Dusty Morningwood Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 No, I am not weighing 'hos. I am trying to lay out the gallery of an antique vehicle museum and need to come up with a working unit of measurement for HO scale. We have access to a good selection of HO scale carriages, wagons, cars and trucks to use in our 3D planning model. Do not need to be exact for our purposes, but pretty darn close. I have both engineering and architectural scales, so I am looking for something to tell me what equals 1' at HO scale. All I can find is 1:87 scale, which my math skills cannot find a way to convert to something I am familiar with. I'll check in after lunch and see what y'all came up with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crazy Gun Barney, SASS #2428 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Ok, simple scale but crosses over from standard to metric. in HO scale, 3.5mm = 1ft. That is about .137in = 1ft. Not sure why they picked a metric conversion to feet, seems odd. Must have been some european dude that came up with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noz Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 7/8"=1'???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdeacon Joe Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Ok, simple scale but crosses over from standard to metric. in HO scale, 3.5mm = 1ft. That is about .137in = 1ft. Not sure why they picked a metric conversion to feet, seems odd. Must have been some european dude that came up with it. A lot of the early design and standardization was done by European companies. But, face it, it almost can't help but be oddball what with the standard international rail gauge of 4' 8.5". I think it was "This seems like a good size for kids to play with" for the most common, the O scale (which varies from about 1:44 to 1:48, go figure), and that made HO (half-O) take it's odd ratio. But, to show "this much equals a foot," roughly the thickness of two quarters equals a foot on that scale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Morningwood Posted March 25, 2011 Author Share Posted March 25, 2011 OK. Using the input, 3.5mm is pretty dang close to 1/8" = 1' on my architectural scale. That is close enough for our 3D white model to move the little HO Scale vehicles around in. Thanks, Pards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curley Cole, SASS #56849 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 here is a pretty good reference to the scales: http://www.trainsetsonly.com/page/TSO/CTGY/Scales 1:87.1 scale curley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Driftwood Johnson, SASS #38283 Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Howdy 3.5MM to the foot has always been the standard for HO scale, but in a pinch we often use 1/8" to the foot. 1/8" turns out to be a little bit smaller, and sometimes perspective is forced a little bit by building structures to 1/8" to the foot. Makes the trains look a teeny bit more massive. The reason for the metric standards is because a lot of these scales originated in Europe. At the turn of the Century, all model trains were large because miniaturization of electronics had not gotten very far yet. The common gauges were O, 1, 2, and 3 with O being the smallest. Be aware, there is a difference between gauge and scale. Gauge is the distance between the rails. Scale is the ratio of model size to real size. Although gauge defines the distance between the rails, sometimes different scale trains are run on the same track. Sometimes this is out of convenience, sometimes it is to run larger scale trains on track that resembles narrow gauge track in that scale. Sometimes it was just because manufacturers did not make the trains very close to exact scale. Confused yet? It's kind of like all Schofields are Number Threes, but not all Number Threes are Schofileds. Kind of. O was first developed by the German toy train manufacturer Marklin around 1900. It became very popular in the US with Lionel being the most popular US brand. O scale was set at 1/4" to the foot, and the gauge was set at 1 1/4" between the rails. But actual scale was messed with quite a bit for the toy train market, making the trains larger and still fitting them on the same gauge track. Most O scale trains used three rails and alternating current, with the outside two rails being common and the center rail being 'hot'. Even though it was unprototypical, three rails and AC makes the wiring much simpler on reverse loops, that was part of the appeal. The next smaller scale was S scale at 3/16" to the foot. American Flyer was the most popular maker of S scale trains here in the US. American Flyer used two rails. The trend in model trains has always been for smaller and smaller trains. This was partially because the size of typical homes had been shrinking for a long time, and more railroading could be accomplished in less space with smaller gauges. For some time, manufacturers were playing with different scales and gauges about half the size of O gauge. In 1921 the German manufactuer Bing came up with a new 'table top' gauge they called OO. Gauge was set at 16.5 mm between the rails and the scale was set at 4mm to the foot. With this gauge/scale combination, the rails were actually narrower than they should be, but those were the standards they developed. Trix began manufacturing OO scale trains in the mid 1930s. OO is still popular in the UK. Most European actual railroad equipment is relatively small by American standards. Watch a WWII movie sometime and see how small the locomotives really were, compared to the big American 4-6-2 or 4-8-4 engines that were common here. And we had a lot of engines that were a whole lot bigger than that. So a new scale was developed called HO. It simply stood for Half O. It was not exact, it was only approximately half the size of O. HO used the same 16.5 mm track as OO. But the scale was made slightly smaller, from 4mm to the foot, down to 3.5mm to the foot. Actual scale is 1/87 and a fraction, but 1/87 has always been good enough. Last time I was in England I bought a Hornby OO engine just for the fun of it. It fits on my HO track, but it looks a little bit silly next to most American HO equipment. It is slightly too big. HO trains have always been two rail and DC powered. Before modern digital controls, it made wiring reverse loops more complicated than the old three rail systems. The trend to miniaturization continued when I was a kid. OOO scale showed up and it was approximately half the size of HO. Eventually the name was changed to N because there are Nine millimeters between the rails. And when I was a young man Z scale came along. It was named Z because it was supposed to be the ultimate in how small trains could go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremiah Sullivan Posted March 26, 2011 Share Posted March 26, 2011 No, I am not weighing 'hos. I am trying to lay out the gallery of an antique vehicle museum and need to come up with a working unit of measurement for HO scale. We have access to a good selection of HO scale carriages, wagons, cars and trucks to use in our 3D planning model. Do not need to be exact for our purposes, but pretty darn close. I have both engineering and architectural scales, so I am looking for something to tell me what equals 1' at HO scale. All I can find is 1:87 scale, which my math skills cannot find a way to convert to something I am familiar with. I'll check in after lunch and see what y'all came up with. You might visit your local hobby ship and buy a model railroad scale rule, usually on stamped metal with the popular scales printed along the side. this is assuming you are planning to construct your display to scale. You can easily reverse engineer with a set of dividers and a simple English ruler. The model railroad scale should cost less than $10.00. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Morningwood Posted March 26, 2011 Author Share Posted March 26, 2011 You might visit your local hobby ship and buy a model railroad scale rule, usually on stamped metal with the popular scales printed along the side. this is assuming you are planning to construct your display to scale. You can easily reverse engineer with a set of dividers and a simple English ruler. The model railroad scale should cost less than $10.00. You know, I never even considered that the properly scaled rule might be available. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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