To the kind attention of HORNBY

From a personal perspective, I would think it highly unlikely that you'd get much of a market for HO (and hence a return on your investment) for far too many years after the introduction of your first HO RTR model. The problem is this: in OO, there are several UK outline manufacturers, each of whom is producing several models a year and each of whom has been doing so for some time. Thus, there is a broad range of locomotives, coaches, wagons and now even units from which the beginner can take their pick. Moreover, all of the Big Four companies and BR are well represented (compared with HO) in OO models, allowing for the modeller/collector to have some geographical variety in their fleet. With HO, however, any new manufacturer (or existing manufacturer moving into UK HO) has to contend with this lead which OO has and which OO will continue to build on as manufacturers tool up more prototypes. All this makes OO much more attractive for the wider public, who don't really mind the fact that OO is prototypically incorrect. That we are now seeing pre-Grouping and oddball diesel prototypes appearing in OO indicates just how much of a lead OO has on any challenger. An HO range would be stifled by this competition, not least because there's not even a wide range of trade support in terms of kits to back up the RTR produce and because it would take a while to build up a useful range of prototypes which can be used in a layout of a particular era or region.

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

QUOTE (Brian Considine @ 4 Aug 2008, 06:27) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I did not mention the FLM offerings because of the limited range & the price (which was clearly unacceptable to the
European manufactures at the time simply did not understand the need for a hybrid scale/gauge.

Has anybody mentioned Trix who attempted to produce in a hybrid scale for the British market at 3.8mm to the foot if i remember correctly? Needless to say it bombed as it pleased no-one in the UK despite some quite good quality items? Every attempt to comercially manufacture British Outline in HO has been a disaster for the manufacturer. Face it, it will never happen it is not viable. Even the first Eurostars produced to HO by Hornby and Jouef as a joint anglo/french project sold very poorly (as they still do s/hand) if my shop was anything to go by!

David Y

QUOTE (5696Arethusa @ 5 Aug 2008, 10:49) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>All new designed locomotives and rolling stock to be offered in RTR OO and a guage closer to that which it should be EM/S4/P4.

Didn't Dapol try that with some of there locos, the J94 seems to come to mind.

QUOTE (Dinwiddy @ 5 Aug 2008, 14:51) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Has anybody mentioned Trix who attempted to produce in a hybrid scale for the British market at 3.8mm to the foot if i remember correctly? Needless to say it bombed as it pleased no-one in the UK despite some quite good quality items?

Indeed some of the Trix items were excellent and others, the Warships for example, were dire.

Anyhow Baykal and I can always dream of a RTR 8F.......

Regards

QUOTE Certainly it must have done over the water.
As in providing coach packs of intermediate sets? If so then I can confirm that Mehano do two different intermediate coach sets for one of their TGV liveries. WE saw them in a model shop in Reims last month. A full set - power cars + two intermediate coach packs - came to about £400 which is where we lost interest , especially as it wasn't for a double decker TGV-Est set. There was no sign of the announced Jouef record breaker TGV set but then I don't think it's due until the Autumn. As on previous visits, trains get a pretty small amount of space in French model shops, especially compared to die cast cars.

And if you think £400 is steep for a full TGV set, if you are modelling TGV-Est in the Reims region, you need two! We saw a couple operating in multiple as we travelled along the A4 towards Metz.

David

I always think the best test of your favorite idea is to ask yourself whether you would put your own money into it if you had it ,not as a vanity project but as a hard nosed business decision,as if your companies survival depended on it .I think suddenly it would become a lot less attractive to invest in ,rather than another "out of scale" but sellable locomotive if it was your own 50 grand or so and all it entails in terms of another highly wanted mass market loco not being produced however much it is damned by a few purists . A manufacturer once told me that he mainly ignored the "why dont you make a ......? " as from past experience less than half the people who requested ended up buying it and no-one else was interested .If a request coincided with his own favourable gut feeling ,it stood a chance of being made at least .

QUOTE (rossi @ 6 Aug 2008, 20:29) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I always think the best test of your favorite idea is to ask yourself whether you would put your own money into it if you had it ,not as a vanity project but as a hard nosed business decision,as if your companies survival depended on it .I think suddenly it would become a lot less attractive to invest in ,rather than another "out of scale" but sellable locomotive if it was your own 50 grand or so and all it entails in terms of another highly wanted mass market loco not being produced however much it is damned by a few purists . A manufacturer once told me that he mainly ignored the "why dont you make a ......? " as from past experience less than half the people who requested ended up buying it and no-one else was interested .If a request coincided with his own favourable gut feeling ,it stood a chance of being made at least .

I second that.

QUOTE (34C @ 8 Aug 2008, 10:16) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>The one sensible scenario I can see is on the introduction of a new type of loco or stock which runs in numbers in substantially the same form in mainland Europe and the UK. A manufacturer with both HO and OO ranges might find it rational to use one lot of research to produce models for both scales. But you would still find (as with the ROCO 08 or whatever it actually is) that the HO models would carry mainland European liveries, the OO models UK liveries, because the manufacturer knows full well what will sell in commercially viable numbers in each market.
How many locomotives (& rolling stock for that matter) are we talking about ? - maybe time to start a list ? we could start off with the 66 - an easy one as they are relatively new & out there in huge numbers in 1 : 1 scale.