Talk:HO scale/Archive 1

Power supply
Does anyone know how to calculate power supply requirements for HO scale model racing and train layouts. I am interested in designing an Ho train/slot car racing layout and would like to purchase the right power supplies for the application. GER — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.65.174.225  (talk • contribs)  08:32, 12 November 2004 (UTC)

someone could add a section on this

HO OO Compatibility
I came to this page to try to find out if and how these two gauges are compatiible. May I suggest some content on this issue? Tatty 02:02, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
 * How do you mean compatible? The trains use the same track, but the scales are different, and you wouldn't want to assemble a train with some cars in OO, and others in HO, if that's what you mean.  Even if you could get the couplers to mate, the OO cars would look too big, and the HO cars too small.  If you're talking about accessories like figures, buildings, and road vehicles, that depends on how much you care about scale accuracy. --Badger151 (talk) 07:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Scale Standards
The page is somewhat confusing since it does not make a difference between HO as defined by NMRA and MOROP-standardized H0 which are strictly speaking not identical. For instance, HOe and HOm should read H0e and H0m since they are narrow gauge scales defined in NEM standards and new uses H0 (zero) and not HO. Z220info 23:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

This page is severely lacking
Compared to N scale, this article is lagging behind. Its current focus js rather UK-centric and makes no mention of the substantial German and US communities, even though in both countries it is the single most popular scale. Several paragraphs also require the attention of copyeditors and experts on the topic. --Agamemnon2 23:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Without debating the merit of your argument, your cleanup-rewrite template adition — and the snide remark included with it — is in no way helpful and even borderline vandalism. If you feel the article is so terribly deficient, I suggest you jump right in and improve it yourself. Realkyhick 07:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I haven't the expertise or the knowledge to rewrite the page. My hamfisted attempts at rewrites would merely make the whole thing worse. There are far too many pages on Wikipedia already that have been ruined by well-meaning fools, and I have no inclination to add to that number.

As for the snideness... Cope. --Agamemnon2 10:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The section on curved track is really good, but I think it is rather a lot for this type of page and would be better in a beginners guide to HO scale. could this section be cleaned up a bit or is it all needed? --Billy Rules 18:35, 14 February 2007

HO and scale
The use of the word 'scale' to mean gauge is a severe and systematic technical error. Though HO is commonly connected to 1:87 scale models (over HO gauge wheels) gauge and scale are not interchangeable concepts. It seems railroad pages conscientiously add to the popular confusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.102.78.248 (talk) 15:41, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Manufacturers' Section
I have added several names, and divided the list into current and historical (no longer active in HO) manufacturers.

There are some issues to be resolved about the Manufacturers List:

1- SIGNIFICANCE - How significant does a company have to be to be included. There are thousands of small manufacturers. I notice two have added their names, links, and a bit of sell-copy to the list. I'm new to this article, so I don't want to make any big changes myself before getting a feel for the conventions, but I think these links ought to be deleted or at least shifted down to external links and the marketing copy blasted to a fare-thee-well. Wikipedia is not an ad-board.

2- ACCESSORIES ONLY? - Should manufacturers of accessories only, but no actual railroad equipment, such as Vollmer, Scale Structures Limited, Campbell, DPM, (all buildings, building kits, and accessories) be included? How about scenery outfits like Woodland Scenics?

3- BRASS - There have been many limited-run importers of brass locomotives. Should all these be included? How about the manufacturers, such as Samhongsa?

4- SUMMARIES - Should there be short, neutral summaries of the companies' main achievements? Such as: "Mantua - Early manufacturers of die-cast locomotives and a pioneer of mass-market plastic car kits." This leaves a lot out, but it is the best remembered part of Mantua, and these things shouldn't be more than one line or so, if they're needed at all.

D.Helber 14:28, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Compatible and interchangeable?
Are tracks from all manufacturers compatible/interchangeable? In a way that I can buy different ones and they fit together?

Are all trains compatible and interchangeable, with the same voltage and current, etc?

Are all accessories compatible and interchangeable? Lights? branches? controllers?

THANKS -- Michael Janich (talk) 03:39, 17 September 2010 (UTC)


 * No, no and no. Andrewa (talk) 02:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It depends. Here's a brief summary:
 * At H0 gauge, the track is all the same width but there may be height differences and they will not generally fit together. However you can certainly use locomotives and wagons from different manufacturers on the track of another manufacturer, provided you note the following:
 * Märklin use a 3-rail system that requires locos with a Märklin-compatible motor. Several manufacturers have locos with a Märklin variant. Wagons need to have their wheelsets exchanged.
 * The normal 2-rail system is good for both DC locos and digital locos, you just need to match the controllers to your locos, DC or digital. There is a digital standard, DCC, but watch out for manufacturers with their own incompatible system.
 * Many of the accessories are interchangeable. I use power packs from different manufacturers (but they need to be the same "type": DC or digital). Lights just need AC power - all controllers have that.
 * HTH. But talk to a good dealer or get a magazine before you buy! --Bermicourt (talk) 05:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Formally requesting move (2010)

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. harej 02:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

H0 scale → HO scale — Given the discussion above, I think there is a much better case for HO rather than H0 even if the latter has some historical precedent. A similar discussion for O scale (see here resulted in the decision to go with the letter rather than the digit. I would do the move but the proposed name is occupied by a redirect. Mangoe (talk) 20:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Old Conversation on the same subject.-- Talk tome (Intelati) 20:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What a load of utterly typical ignorant wikibollocks 8-(  I particularly liked:
 * "Interesting historical tidbits" ? Do you even know what the word fact means ? 
 * We have redirects to deal with issues like this. H0 (digit) is correct, for the original use, its inventor's use, and half of the current use. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose then, is what you seem to be saying? (If not, Andy, please delete this comment).--Bermicourt (talk) 12:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. HO, with the letter is far more common. The origin in the letter/number combo is certainly needed for mention, but has been supplanted, reflecting the other modern lettered standards. oknazevad (talk) 22:33, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. "HO" is simply wrong. The gauge may called "HO" ("aitch-oh") in English but that is simply loose usage. In Germany (noting that it is a continental gauge) it is referred to as "Hah-null", which means "H zero" or "H nought", and their literature always refers to it as "H0", e.g. in Modellbahn Daten + Normen ("Model Railway Data and Standards") by Albrecht published by Alba. --Bermicourt (talk) 06:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not really interested in German usage; they can spell and pronounce it as they please. Mangoe (talk) 10:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But they created it !! - Erik Baas (talk) 12:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Support. This is English Wikipedia, and in English it's always pronounced "aitch oh", never "aitch zero". Andrewa (talk) 09:06, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes but we English speakers often pronounce zero as "oh" as in Room 101! --Bermicourt (talk) 12:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But we don't spell it that way. Mangoe (talk) 13:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's my point! So why move the title? --Bermicourt (talk) 18:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Support: It needs to be understood that O Gauge is really "Gauge 0", being smaller than Gauge 1, Gauge 2, Gauge 3 etc. HO is technically H0, but per WP:COMMONNAME, HO is what the title should be. Mjroots (talk) 10:32, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment After going to the Walthers site and checking a dozen or so manufacturers' sites, I have yet to find one using H0; they inevitably seem to use HO. Mangoe (talk) 10:46, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. H0 was first built by a german constructor, on half the size of scale 0 (zero), hence the name (!) "half zero" or H0. Pronouncing it like "HO", as English people do, does not mean the article has to be named HO. - Erik Baas (talk) 12:02, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. @Mangoe. Walthers are a US dealer. Yes they use HO, but all the manufacturers they quote use "H0", so they have misread it. In fact, all the major manufacturers of this gauge use "H0" - see the home sites for Märklin, Trix, Fleischmann, etc. These are the authoritative sources we should be using, not common misuse. --Bermicourt (talk) 12:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, that is perhaps a very Germanic way of looking at it, but the fact remains that the US market is a whole heck of a lot larger, with many, many more manufacturers (not to mention that Märklin and Trix are a single company), and I have not found a single US manufacturer yet who doesn't use "HO". HO seems to be rare in the UK (they tend to prefer OO) but so far every example I've seen uses "HO". As I pointed out at the beginning, in English there really isn't any "zero" scale, but only an "O gauge", which is modelled at two different scales. That's probably why in American English we've tended to go with HO, because it's (sort of) half the O gauge that we're familiar with. Sloppiness is rather beside the point considering that it's not really half of anything. I don't think it's up to us to argue with pretty much every manufacturer out there in an English-speaking country. Mangoe (talk) 13:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Plus, there's the whole issue of WP:COMMONNAME being policy, and the most common name in English-language usage is "Aitch-Oh".oknazevad (talk) 15:01, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * @Mangoe. I'm not German, but I have modelled H0 scale for many years. The "US is bigger" is not really a great argument for correct usage; in any case the US market is probably only on a par with the European market and smaller than the rest of the world. Nor do US manufacturers automatically trump correct usage by the manufacturers in the country that invented H0 gauge.
 * @Oknazeved. WP:COMMONNAME does not insist we must always use the "common name". There are 5 criteria at WP:TITLE of which recognisability is but one and then only common names "as used in reliable sources". Precision is another criterion.WP:COMMONNAME also states that "Article titles should be neither vulgar nor pedantic". I would suggest that "HO" is "vulgar" usage i.e. we commonly pronounce zeroes as "oh", but they're still zeroes. Hence the utter confusion. Let's be precise not common. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But it is spelled with a letter "O" in most usages, not merely pronounced that way. oknazevad (talk) 18:57, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * ...but not by the leading European modellers' organisation MOROP, which uses H0 in English, notably in its official European standards (NEM). --Bermicourt (talk) 20:35, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * And yet, it is spelled HO by the NMRA, so the main standards bodies are a wash and your appeal to authority fails. oknazevad (talk) 08:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Since it is a European standard, it is reasonable to expect that the European standards body takes precedence. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Support: whatever it is called or however it is pronounced in other languages is totally irrelevant to how things are done in English and on the English Wikipedia. The most common usage in English is HO. Lost on Belmont (talk) 00:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No one's using that argument and "common use" is only one criterion out of five at WP:TITLE. Common erroneous use doesn't even figure. A quick survey of around 20 manufacturers listed in this article shows that all the US ones use "HO" whilst the English sites of all European manufacturers (German, Austrian, Swiss, Spanish, etc.) bar Heljan use "H0" as laid down by the European NEM standard. Interestingly even the Hornby site uses "00" (the British equivalent of H0). Since it is a European standard, it seems only reasonable to adopt European (English) practice, especially as the digit in question is clearly the number zero. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wrong. It's a standard popular worldwide, and no more a "European standard" than the metric system. It's by far the most popular scale in the larger US (and Canadian) market, making it as much an American standard as a European one. So let's stop trying to prve which side of the pond is more important and concentrate on what's the most common name in the English language. oknazevad (talk) 17:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So let's see... the standard is first established in Europe as H0, Americans adopt it and call it not unreasonably "HO" in the vernacular (we call zeros "oh" for brevity), but then change it to "HO" as they write it down, then tell Europe to change to their incorrect version because "it's more common" (i.e. "there are more of us"). I have huge respect for the American nation and all they have done, but this is not a great line of argument for an international English encyclopedia. And whilst I don't think "common name" is the only factor here, it seems that H0 is overwhelmingly more common in Europe in English literature than "HO", and is used both by the standards people and the manufacturers here.


 * But hey, there are more important things in life than this! Let's go write some articles! --Bermicourt (talk) 20:08, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But the point, which you seem to be missing, is that "HO" is not incorrect. The name became changed, not merely misspelled, over time in much, and I would say most, English usage, because all the other common modern standards use letters. (Gauge 1, 2, etc. are not common modern standards.)
 * So the penchant for using "oh" for the number zero lead to an actual change in the term. You may not like the way it evolved in common usage, but it did. In short, "H0" is not any more correct than "HO". And it's rather condescending of you to insist it is.
 * The real question remains, what is the most common usage throughout the English language literature from around the world. European manufacturers and associations don't get any preferential treatment because it originated there; they're likely just using the same label regardless of language. That may be commendable in many ways, but it doesn't help determine the English language usage, especially if they're from non-English speaking countries. The US doesn't get any special treatment, either.
 * What about the Japanese manufacturers? It's not a particularly common scale there, as the tightness of living quarters leads to N scale being far more popular. But, Kato, and Tomix, the two largest Japanese manufacturers use "HO". (MicroAce, the third largest, doesn't even seem to offer any HO at all.)
 * The Australian Model Railway Association uses "HO". See here.
 * As noted here at the New Zealand Model Railway Guild, New Zealand's rail network, being narrow gauge, doesn't lend itself to the international standards, but NZers make do by using S scale sized equipment on HO tracks, which gives a good approximation.
 * Finally, South Africa is in a similar boat, as the country primarily uses Cape gauge. N scale seems to be the most popular there. What I could find of South Africa-based manufacturers points to "HO" as well.
 * So, I again say, "HO" is the most common name, of the two fully correct ones, for this scale, and should be the name of this article.oknazevad (talk) 22:07, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not missing your point, I just don't accept it. In my view, "most common usage" is not the overriding factor even if it were proven, which I don't think it is anyway. We'll just have to agree to differ on this one. Regards. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The continuing conceit here is the notion that the original continental usage is somehow binding on the Americans and British and Australians. I would hold that it is not. We do not refer to 0 (zero) scale in the USA, but to O gauge, because it represents two different scales, in the same manner that British OO and American HO equipment run on the same track despite being at different scales. That is why English-speaking countries refer to "half O" and not "half zero".

It does not aid a sensible debate if you resort to emotive words like "conceit" or misrepresent the alternative argument (again). Anyway, as an aside I have expanded the history section to cover the early development of H0, which helps to clarify its provenance a little. Of course after that, the UK use of 00 diverged from H0 (in terms of scale not rail gauge). BTW I don't follow your line of argument that because there are different 0 scale (not gauge) standards in different continents, that the same is true of H0 scale. My sources suggest both the NMRA and NEM use exactly the same standards for H0 gauge and scale. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:11, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * History check I have sought out pages from old American manufacturers, and on this page from a 1937 Mantua catalog you can see that they use "HO". So does a 1948 Athearn brochure and this 1951 flier from Lindsay and this 1939 catalog from Conover and this 1949 info page from Walthers. Here's a Polk catalog from 1944 and a 1939 catalog from Varney. In looking over many, many early catalogs I cannot find a single American manufacturer that clearly uses "H0", and most plainly use "HO". It seems therefore that it was probably called "HO" from the very start at least in the USA. Mangoe (talk) 13:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe Mangoe was using "conceit" in the somewhat archaic meaning of "idea" or "premise". At least that's how I understood him.

oknazevad (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Support per WP:COMMONNAME. When I was actually making these they were only called HO and not H0. So for me the choice is crystal clear.  Vegaswikian (talk) 02:50, 28 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Likewise. I was once rather keen on scenic modelling in this gauge, and never once heard it pronounced or saw it written with a zero. It seems that, once again, we are having a debate over what something should be called. There's no doubt what it is called. Perhaps Wikipedia culture is changing, but our policy seems clear. No change of vote. Andrewa (talk) 20:18, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. I asked a leading British manufacturer and model railway magazine what convention the UK followed. The answer was as follows "British modellers tend to refer to HO (ohh) but there is always debate. The same with OO scale which is referred to as "double O" (Ohh) whereas technically it should be "double zero". The UK unfortunately doesn't really have a standard!  The individual scale organisations tend to create their own!  Some people work to the NEM standards and some work to the NMRA standards." Sadly, it is far from crystal clear! --Bermicourt (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.