Are the Continental European Tinplate O Gauge cars the same as our O Gauge?

If scale, they should use the same gauge we do.    However, the scale is larger.    European/Brit stuff is scaled 1:45 vs ours 1:48.     In England it is defined as 7MM to the foot, which by the way is exactly twice what HO (Half O) is.

There's also Merkur trains, who produce modern-era tinplate trains and track, at roughly 1/45 scale (there is a photo in the article of a Merkur passenger car next to a postwar Lionel steam loco).

---PCJ

I have British and French Hornby wagons, coaches and clockwork engines, German (I think Bing) passenger cars, Merkur cars and misc.  All runs well on American tubular track ie Lionel, K-Line, Marx

I'm with ogaugenut - Hornby, JEP, Bing, Marklin, KBN, Bub, Fandor, and Paya - all run just fine on tubular track.  The only issue you may have - depending on which engine you are running - is the same issue you can have with Marx and some of the pre-war Flyer - if the engine has thick drivers - usually gearing that matches the circumference of the drive wheel - the engine won't go through Lionel or other switches like K-line and MTH.  For those you will have to use Marx switches or the pre-war Flyer switches.

Depending on maker and era, you are likely to find a variety of couplers.  And "scale" is a very fuzzy concept.

That said, I love that stuff and have a modest collection.

Thanks for all of the advice guys.  Extremely helpful.

Does anyone know who, if anyone, imports or sells Merkur trains in the US of A?

@ChooChoo1972 posted:

Does anyone know who, if anyone, imports or sells Merkur trains in the US of A?

Here's a thread from a few years ago regarding buying Merkur.

https://ogrforum.com/...kur-trains-and-track