OO Gauge Across the Pond > ScotRail from the Scottish Highlands to the Appalachians

The train looks great running on the club layout, Kevin.  Am I right in thinking the OO scale train is running on an HO layout.

UK OO should probably be called OOnsomething as it does run on HO track which is somewhat narrower than true OO track. I'll leave it to the mathematical wizards to figure out exactly what it should be!

I have a Hornby OO 1934 "Brighton Belle":

I think that it would look good up there in Appalachia.

@Mark Boyce posted:

The train looks great running on the club layout, Kevin.  Am I right in thinking the OO scale train is running on an HO layout.

Yup Mark.

The Brits OO shares the same gauge track as HO in the rest of the world. Where the difference lies in the scale size of rolling stock, structures, vehicles etc.

OO is 1:76 to HO's 1:87.1

Funny how scales differ around the world. For us, O is 1:48, for the UK it's 1:43. N Scale is even more fun with 1:148 (UK), 1:150 (Japan), and 1:160 (US), all using the same gauge track regardless of scale.😄

Thank you, Dave, Kevin!  
I knew OO was 1:76 but didn’t know it shared the same track gauge as HO.  Now I know why so many vehicles are 1:43.  I did not know that N track has different scales in different countries.

Brighton Belle looks great, Dave!

Correct its too narrow. Some UK modelers use EM which is 18.2 mm gauge. Similar in spirit to proto 48 modelers in the US. It came about because there were no motors small enough to fit in UK outline locos that tend to be much smaller the in the US.

@Amfleet25124 posted:

Yup Mark.

The Brits OO shares the same gauge track as HO in the rest of the world. Where the difference lies in the scale size of rolling stock, structures, vehicles etc.

OO is 1:76 to HO's 1:87.1

Funny how scales differ around the world. For us, O is 1:48, for the UK it's 1:43. N Scale is even more fun with 1:148 (UK), 1:150 (Japan), and 1:160 (US), all using the same gauge track regardless of scale.😄

I was aware of most of those ratios, but didn't know that N in Japan is 1:150 - that seems odd since a lot of N scale was manufactured there.

I'm also amused by how the Brits mix and match metric and imperial measurements despite having gone metric decades ago (on my last visit, highway signs still displayed distances in miles and speeds in MPH).  The scales are often referred to by millimeters to the foot - OO is 4mm scale, N is 2mm, and O is 7mm.  Why would someone compare millimeters to feet?  To further complicate things, British TT was traditionally 1:100 (3mm) but Hornby recently introduced TT in 1:120 scale.

@Amfleet25124 posted:

Yup Mark.

The Brits OO shares the same gauge track as HO in the rest of the world. Where the difference lies in the scale size of rolling stock, structures, vehicles etc.

OO is 1:76 to HO's 1:87.1

Funny how scales differ around the world. For us, O is 1:48, for the UK it's 1:43. N Scale is even more fun with 1:148 (UK), 1:150 (Japan), and 1:160 (US), all using the same gauge track regardless of scale.😄

What a Beautiful train set, the colors are magnificent. Thank you for sharing the photos and the scale difference’s .

@Mark Boyce posted:

The train looks great running on the club layout, Kevin.  Am I right in thinking the OO scale train is running on an HO layout.

If that set was in O gauge I would be all over it. What a beautiful set.

@ThatGuy posted:

If that set was in O gauge I would be all over it. What a beautiful set.

I believe that something similar is available, but it's probably 2-rail with scale flanges.  There's very little 3-rail O being produced; it's usually referred to as "coarse scale".

@ThatGuy posted:

If that set was in O gauge I would be all over it. What a beautiful set.

@Mallard4468 posted:

I believe that something similar is available, but it's probably 2-rail with scale flanges.  There's very little 3-rail O being produced; it's usually referred to as "coarse scale".

I would jump on a set like that in a heartbeat.  Preferably full 1:48 scale in 3-Rail at 18.75 inches (the DMU units are 75 feet long).  I'm sure that there are some 1:48 RDC chassis out there that a 3D printed body would mate to.

@Mallard4468 agree with you on the mixing of the imperial and metric units. For as much grief as the UK and the rest of the world give us about the metric system, my rental car speedometer was in mph, as where all the road speed and distance signs in the UK.  I checked the speedo of the car that my aunt who lives outside of London drives, and yes, it was in mph , but I digress, so we don't stray off topic.

Not mentioned but European O is 1:45 scale. Also, I recall an layout visit in Model Railroader over 45 years ago of a layout using 17/64 scale.

As for Japanese N scale being 1:150, remember that except for the "Bullet Train" lines, all other Japanese railroads are 3'6" gauge, so the scale makes sense.

Stuart (Hi Kevin!)

@Amfleet25124 posted:

I would jump on a set like that in a heartbeat.  Preferably full 1:48 scale in 3-Rail at 18.75 inches (the DMU units are 75 feet long).  I'm sure that there are some 1:48 RDC chassis out there that a 3D printed body would mate to.

...

I just looked - Heljan has (or as the Brits would say, have) announced 2 and 3 car DMU O-scale sets in 9 different liveries.  I don't know if they will be making the particular model or livery that you want, but they're probably close.  Rails of Sheffield has an announcement with artwork on their site.

When you get a set (in a few months or longer), please post pics.