"HO scale originally got its name from a German phrase ..." according to newspaper article

It came from a reference to 1/87th scale being one-half of O-scale (1:43.5) or "HO" for "Half O".  

--Greg

"Half" in German is "halb" so it could be that the first reference to HO was in Germany. Marklin was a pioneer in HO but I don't know who was actually first. 

If you look at the Wikipedia article on "HO Scale" it gives what looks like a reliable history of the derivation of the term, including that in Germany it is or was referred to as "halb-null" meaning half 0 (number) rather than "O" (letter). This apparently derives from various descriptions of this scale dating back to the 1920s which designated it as "00" or half "0." Frankly I have never noticed whether any European manufacturers, including Marklin, actually use "H0" in their publications.

This is horribly complicated by the fact that many of us pronounce the letter and the number, O and 0, the same.  I think that while originally it was, halb null ( in English translation "half naught"), or H0, it is unversally HO (the letter, not the number) now.  Everyone seems to call our gauge O (the letter) not zero or naught or

The more relevant fact (obvious to us modellers) is that HO is "Half-O". Granted, it appears that the German company Marklin was the first to produce HO scale trains. It appears the reporter did an overly hasty job of researching the topic on Wikipedia, reading just the first few sentences. He seems to have missed the point that HO really means "Half-O" and made what I thought was a rather odd remark about "got its name from a German phrase".

What year did Marklin introduce HO?  It is widely accepted that Bing created the first HO train in 1924 with their 4mm table top railroad, but it was not referred to as HO until a few years later.  George Stock was the first person to offer HO models in the US in 1930.

Ooops, senior moment and sloppy research on my part !  From mis-reading this sentence:

The name HO is derived from the fact that its 1:87 scale is approximately half that of O scale which was the smallest of the series of older and larger 0, 1, 2 and 3 scales introduced by Märklin around 1900.

What we call "O" gauge here is called Spur "0" in Germany. Spur means gauge and zero is "Null" in German, so it is Zero gauge.  H0, as mentioned above, is Halb Null.  BTW, the German toy industry started the naming of toy train gauges in the 19th century.  0 was orginally the smallest size, with 1, 2, and even a 3 gauge. 

John

Hi all,

As far I'm correct: H0 is officially introduced in 1951.

In 1935 (not 1900!) Marklin and Trix introduced their 16,5mm gauge rail system, I think it was on the famous Leipzig Toy Fair.

Trix named it Trix Express

Marklin named it 00 and Bing and Bub called their trains Tischbahn (table railway). But they were all 16,5mm.

Halb Null is correct, Null is the number Zero. To get matters complicated many Europeans pronounce H0 like the letters, only modellers or insiders say Halb Null.

Kieffer