QUOTE (Ravenser @ 4 Aug 2008, 16:16)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Quite simply HO was invented after 4mm scale , and that 1937 cutting is rather tendentious - and would have been seen so at the time.
The sequence is - Bing table top - 5/8" gauge , scale questionable
1924 - Greenly prints a table declaring that this is called OO, with 4mm scale, 5/8" gauge
Late 1924 - some modellers from south London sketch out a scale version based on a scale of 3.5mm
1926 - appearance of an alternative proposal based on 4mm but 19mm gauge
Late 1926 - "A name for 3.5mm gauge ( sic) is coming into use in some corners of the model railway world. This is H0 gauge which means half '0' gauge, to distinguish it from 4mm scale, which is adopted in the trade for '00' gauge".
Detailed reference here :
History of OO
I've never heard of the magazine Richard Johnson refers to, but it looks like an early attempt to talk OO out of existance
***The order of invention is totally irrelevant as both predate the letter AND a wider finescale consciousness in the hobby. I'd never heard of the publication before this was drawn to my attention either....
To me Greenly and anything to do with "scale modelling" shouldn't be used in the same sentence....
So... Yes, perhaps, and yes, it was probably one of the series of letters to the editor that has continued from probably prior to then through to now and will probably never stop - and accepting that commercial convenience probably created the scale gauge compromise, it still was not necessarily a sane move when by the time that letter was written, there were already clear standards accepted for 4mm scale / 19mm gauge track....and a fine wheel which would have allowed its adoption had already been made and trialled.... That, to me, is the point.... it would have been possible to getit right, accepting that manufacturers would have needed better precision in valve gear than they have usually achieved given the sloppyness that 16.5 allows them.
Whats done is done though - and its no longer worth raising blood pressure over. UK HO will never be a commercial success, too much OO water under the bridge.
Personally I no longer really care on a practical level - I model both ways in 4mm scale on occasion - and find one no harder to build a loco in than the other.
I gave up on debating the whole scale gauge thing long ago as its not worth tilting at windmills when there's so much modelling to do and enjoy - but I still cannot accept the supposedly clever rationalisations / arguments that are constantly created to defend the conscious and unnecessary bastardisation of accuracy that is UK OO scale.
Richard
