British Equiptment in American HO Scale.

[devils]

Oops British HO none are DCC ready just plain DC
You'd have to look on Ebay for British HO, Fleischmann did a Warship diesel and an LMS Royal Scot (visited the USA in the 30's), Lima initially produced a HO class 33 diesel then switched the range to OO 4mm scale. There have been some limited run Flying Scotsman models in brass produced in Asia for an Austrailian company.
The British HO society have produced etched brass kits.

[devils]

British OO used the existing track gauge that was used by the German manufacturers, the reason for the bigger scale was fitting the motors of the 1940's and 50's into the small British prototypes. The small loading gauge left over from the 1800's dictated the small locos and we are still suffering from it today! Manufacturers of British include Hornby, Bachmann UK, Heljan as the main RTR manufacturers and then there are literally hundreds of smaller companies making RTR and kits of locos, stock and buildings. If you're interested have a look at one of our biggest shops online. www.hattons.co.uk

[simon1966]

Bachmann Branchline and Hornby locomotives and rollingstock will run fine on US HO scale track. My layout uses Atlas Code 100 track and Peco turnouts and I regularly run my Briti***rains.

Most are relatively easy to convert to DCC. The TCS web site has a number of British conversions on it http://www.tcsdcc.com/Installation_list_by_Manufacter.htm

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BR60103

The British do it all a bit differently.
They model O scale at 7mm =1' or 1:43.
So HO is half of their O.
They make OO scale (4mm=1') or 1:76 but run it on 16.5mm track. Almost all the British ready-to-run is in this combination, which may also be called OO/HO.
A large number (but small proportion) of 4mm modellers use a widened gauge, either EM (18.2mm) or Scalefour/Protofour at 18.83mm (dead scale). (Equivalent to Proto87 modelling for HO).
A few masochists are modelling British HO. There is slightly more support for this than for American OO. [xx(]
So the outcome of this is that you can run British OO on HO track. Some of the older equipment will not go through NMRA standard switches, but I expect that everything made in the last 10 years will.
British modellers use the same Peco track that is available here as HO.

The British models being 1:76 look rather normal compared to our HO until you realize that they are larger than their real size would be if they were in 1:87 like our models.


The Code 100 Peco turnouts can be used but have slightly different measurements than the new Peco Code 83 line. The new line is built for American HO use and the older Peco Code 100's are built to Euro standards. I believe the difference is in the frogs tolerances. It is slightly off from ours and will cause some problems at times. I know of severa clubs that use the older Peco and they normally run OK, but they pu***he limit of the standards.

[basementdweller]

My layout has Peco code 100 turnouts purchased here in the United States. My two Hornby OO locos were purchased in England. The brand new Fowler class steam engine runs great on the U.S. track, I added a decoder to this loco and it is a fine runner. In the process of installing the decoder I removed the supressors found in British locos.
I also bought a diesel electric shunter second hand, this loco is alot older and it will not run through the Peco turnouts due to its wheel flanges. So I stuck it on a shelf and haven't tried running it since.
Martin.

[BR60103]

The British do it all a bit differently.
They model O scale at 7mm =1' or 1:43.
So HO is half of their O.
They make OO scale (4mm=1') or 1:76 but run it on 16.5mm track. Almost all the British ready-to-run is in this combination, which may also be called OO/HO.
A large number (but small proportion) of 4mm modellers use a widened gauge, either EM (18.2mm) or Scalefour/Protofour at 18.83mm (dead scale). (Equivalent to Proto87 modelling for HO).
A few masochists are modelling British HO. There is slightly more support for this than for American OO. [xx(]
So the outcome of this is that you can run British OO on HO track. Some of the older equipment will not go through NMRA standard switches, but I expect that everything made in the last 10 years will.
British modellers use the same Peco track that is available here as HO.

[Piedsou]

Here's my take on the issue, but I could be wrong.
'O' scale is 1/4" equals a foot making it 1/48th the size of the prototype.
British HO (or OO as it's called there) came along and it became what the name implies: " Half O" or 1/8" equals a foot. This works out to 1/96th (2 times 48) the size of the prototype.
Standard HO is of course 3.5mm = 1 foot or 1/87.1 the size of the prototype. It's not exactly half 'O'.

Both operate on the same gauge track. For one scale it's correct; for the other it's a little broad.

I know Hornby makes British equipment that will run on standard HO track; there are probably others, I'm sure.

Dale Latham

[Anonymous]

Here is a question that has bothered me for a very long time.

British HO is not the same as American HO; if this is true, why?

Are there manufacters of British equiptment besides Bachmann that will fit American HO Gauge and run on DCC or DC?