I AM A BEGINNER IN MODEL RAILWAY,CAN I USE OO SCALE MODEL LIKE PEOPLE, BUS, TREE, ETC. FOR MY HO SCALE TRAIN?
Hello Shahrilayu,
HO scale has a ratio of 1:87.1, while OO’s is 1:76. Thus, OO scale items will be noticeably larger, about 14 percent, than HO scale items. You can use OO scale items with HO if the size difference doesn’t bother you.
Regards,
Paul Schmidt
Thank you for your advice. If thats the case, I’ll stick to all my minitiatures to HO scale so that it will look realistic.
Well let’s not be too hasty. There are structures and scenic items from England that are marked OO/HO – they may actually be halfway between the two and are probably useable. (Just as structures built to 1/8" scale are often usable in HO so long as an HO scale figure is not seen hitting his head on the top of a 1/8 inch scale door!)
The HO track we get from PECO is used for OO trains in England so again there are ways to mix some items. In England HO and OO use the same track except for some fine scale OO guys.
Some guys use British OO mechanisms for American HO steam.
If you ever see old American OO – which used a different gauge in addition to a different scale – you would see a noticeable difference. I once picked up an OO caboose not realizing it was OO until I got it home. It was too big to be usable. Too bad as it was a nice model.
Dave Nelson
I agree, as many of the items sold in the UK are actually re-packaged items from European or Asian manufacturers. The Merit range , marketed by Peco,
are mostly to HO scale but are sold as suitable for both! The scale of many of the old Matchbox range are also variable, some are spot on for HO, some for OO, and others are in-between. Just go shopping with something you know to be in scale and make a judgement as to whether you can use it.
I model to the S4 standard, 1:76 scale on true scale track 18.83 mm gauge. Very similar to the old American OO gauge of 19mm but the wheel standards would be similar to the NMRA standard. Iain Rice is building a P87 layout in MR to similar standards.
When I was young we had to use plastic figures from Airfix that were to an aircraft modelling scale of 1:72 and they absolutely dwarfed the HO figures that came from imported American train sets.
HO figures could be best used in the distance to create a feeling of increased perspective.
“Natural” items, like trees and animals, can be mixed to a certain point as nature doesn’t work to fixed sizes, although, as pointed out above, some things can be too large.
Even things labelled HO can be suspect. I have some German brick paper, and if the Germans can lift those bricks they are a race of supermen. [;)]
Being 6’8" tall myself, I do not reject out of hand scale figures that dwarf others …
dave nelson
Hi
HO scale is 3.5mm = 1 foot OO scale is 4mm = 1 foot runing on 16.5mm gauge unlikw the US vertion which ran on 19mm I believe.
A lot of the acsesory items can be mixed and matched very sucsesfully it is jus a case of carefull selection.
regards John