To the kind attention of HORNBY

Robert.....surely if one had an issue with an out-of-scale gauge.......then one also might as well have an issue with the prototype appearance of the track itself?

[Although I agree, one does not necessarily fall in line with the other?]

therefore I suggest that actually ripping up the trackage one has is but a small pain......made smaller by the quantity and quality of the stock one has?

even reverting to 3.5mm scale [british outline],for the purposes of a more correct scale/gauge combination [compared to 4mm, OO gauge?]..surely also leads one to considering the use of more realistic-looking track? Ie, bullhead rail and chairs?

Of which I think there is little or nothing in the trade?

For 3.5mm/foot [HO ] to be of any real use to modellers, a manufacturer is perhaps going to need to supply a reasonable cross-section of locos and stock? [high-profile locos are of little general use?]

This to capture those modellers who are disatisfied with the 4mm scale status quo to the extent they are prepared to make a fresh start altogether?

A chicken and egg scenario?

personally, I would be inclined to look at 3mm scale, or one of the other les popular scales, in an equal light with HO.

Considering that much emphasis will be place on modelling skills, improvisation, etc?

British HO is a non-starter. The relevant British modellers are heavily committed to 4mm with its huge trade support - including huge ranges of specialist components - and will not change because it would set them back decades in terms of the range of products available

With the very greatest respect to ebaykal, I don't believe there is much of a market out there amongst HO modellers for British outline stock. Those outside the UK with a strong interest in modelling British railways will almost certainly pursue it in 4mm . My impression is that outside the British Isles, interest in modelling British railways is largely confined to ANZ and Canada, and to a significant degree, though far from exclusively, driven by expatriots . In ANZ , the limited trade support for local prototypes may be a factor . There doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest in modelling British subjects on the Continent, and some recent items in the magazines about the British Railway Modellers of North America suggests it has about 400-500 members

Only a handful of British loco types have ever worked beyond Frethun yards, and Class 66s are already available in HO and TT. That leaves RODs (O4), 8Fs, WDs, and Dean Goods . Most of those only did so in wartime - modelling 1939-45 or 1914-18 used to be somewhat off limits in Britain though the taboo seems to breaking down a bit recently, and I'd imagine the feeling agianst modelling these periods would be ten times stronger in Continental Europe . Nearly all the types concerned are mundane black 2-8-0s : Bachmann's WD in OO hasn't been a best seller from what I can gather , and we still have no RTR ROD in OO , never mind HO

Adding my twopence 'orth to all that. I'm not trying to burst ebaykal's bubble, but it has been tried before. Lima had several HO models in their range and several more in the wings but sales of the existing ones were poor enough to prompt the change back to OO. Rivarossi had a very nice looking Royal Scot and coaches (although I have read somewhere that these were not true HO either). Fleischmann has been mentioned above - pity they chose three different styles of Bulleid coach so they didn't make a "proper" set. Playcraft (Joueff) had an extensive range of budget priced BR HO models back in the 1960s (I know I wanted many of them at the time!).

Some years ago the British HO group tried to commission Heljan to produce a class 37 in HO. That was also stillborn due to not enough interest, ie the market for British HO is simply not big enough to support production of British HO even in limited edition runs.

Times and interests change so, in mitigation, maybe the time is right now, or maybe it'll be sometime in the future, for British HO to emerge as a viable market but, notwithstanding all claims to the contrary, there is not a huge amount of support for British HO modelling.

QUOTE Ummmm - think what are you asking for - HO correct gauge is 16.5mm.... so its already "OO ready" in fact and you can run as much of it as you like, actually increasing the average accuracy of your layout in relation to loco and track gauge

Or perhaps:

If continental models were made on OO would you like the track to become 18.82mm gauge or the track to narrow to about 15mm so it has the same incorrect wheels to track relationship as English OO?

now, I believe that was done, many moons ago.....however, the track gauge really is an irrelevance nowadays,,,seeing as the continental makers have been happy to produce Irish prototypes to run on what is, for them, narrow gauge?

and.....what about the Japanese models, designed to run on 16.5mm gauge track, which is quite 'out of gauge' for the prototype?

then there's the issue of 'scale?'

when Rivarossi [i think it was] used a different ratio to all the others?????

then there's the issue of coaches which weren't long enough? [1:100 scale length??]

as has been pointed out many times.....the track GAUGE can only really be noticed when viewing head-on?

If the APPEARANCE of the track reflects what one see's on the prototype, then the illusion is complete.