Talk:OO gauge

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 02:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Double Oh or Double Zero?
The article uses the zero character throughout, but the title uses the letter O. The external links point to one site that is called "Double [letter] O Gauge Association" and a site about the history of "Double [number] 0". Google turns up more pages referring to the letter. I know nothing about model railroads, but I would like to get this article consistent in the most common use of the term. Anyone know? - grubber 23:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No responses here or at Rail tranport modelling, so I am going by Google's results and changing the characters to the letter O. - grubber 05:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

grubber: The original and correct notation is 00, which like the 0 and H0 (half-0) standards are progressions from the older 3, 2 and 1 gauge standards. OO, O and HO should still be present as redirects since they are widely used. But they are not the correct notations so they don't deserve to override the 0 notations as titles in an encyclopedia, even if there are more people who think the name is O and write that than there are people who write 0. I have corrected the article to use 0 notation, keeping it consistent with the 0 scale article. And I believe this article should be moved to the name 00 gauge, with 00 scale, OO gauge and OO scale as redirects. See also Talk:O_scale WinTakeAll (talk) 03:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not gonna touch this article, since I'm American and OO is primarily a British phenomenon, however it should be noted that the "correct" usage in North America is indeed OO, as defined by the NMRA (see: http://www.nmra.org/standards/sandrp/pdf/S-1_2.pdf). You guys do with it what you will... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.90.45.10 (talk) 10:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * At the time in the UK it was common to refer to the numeral '0' when speaking as 'oh', i.e., the letter 'O', so although the scale may originally have been written as '00' it would almost invariably have been spoken as 'Oh-oh gauge'.


 * ...if you listen to someone in an older film stating a telephone number then you will almost certainly hear them pronounce any zero in the number as an 'oh'. That's why UK '01' numbers (the original dialling code for London) were called 'oh-one' numbers when spoken.


 * Before the widespread usage of computers the difference between a '0' and an 'O' when written was not that important, the context usually denoted which of the two it was, however computers changed this, hence the machine use of a 'slashed-zero' to distinguish the numeral zero from the letter 'O'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.130.124 (talk) 12:26, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Introduction
I think the the introduction focuses too much on EM and P4. A brief comparison is usefull but more than half the introduction covers this. Maybe this could be moved into a new section?

Zabdiel 09:03, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've now done this --Zabdiel 09:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Model railway scale/gauge ratio naming conventions (zero or Oh)
Hi All

The letter Oh in scale/gauge ratio naming conventions should not be used. The correct character to be used in all of this is the numeric zero.

This is from the historic fact that when the Gauges 3, 2 and 1 were prevalent before the second world war and a smaller one was introduced they used the progressively smaller number of 0 (zero) as in Gauge 0. When the scale and gauge was halved for the new table top railway (literally half Gauge 0) the term H0 was used. The second character being a zero.

The confusion has set in with the pronounciation of this zero as Oh as in reciting a telephone number in the UK.

The situation has not been helped in that Hornby-Dublo was used as a brand name for a 00 range of models.

All naming conventions should reflect this use of the number zero.

Examples used in the UK market are as follows: 0 gauge, 0n16.5 gauge, 0n14 gauge, 0n9 gauge, 00 gauge, 00n9 gauge, H0 gauge, H0n9 gauge and 000 gauge. Other ratios of course are G, S, P4, EM, P87, TT, N and Z which are not affected by this.

The use of the term 'scale' is rarely used in the UK. The most popular UK model railway magazine and longest in print Railway Modeller, along with its sister magazine Continental Modeller, use the above terms correctly when describing a particular scale/gauge ratio which can trace its origin back to Gauge 0.

Thus all naming conventions within Wikipedia should in this context change to use the number zero instead of the letter Oh.Adrianmc 18:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Your basic premise is misguided. The notations "OO gauge", "O gauge" or "HO gauge" are used across myriad sources. The fact that this practice arose from a misnomer is immaterial, it has become widely accepted and entrenched. To think you can just whisk it away with a flick of a wand, to stuff the genie back into the bottle, it is presumptuous. If you look at Google hits, the versions with O's instead of 0's are clearly more popular. The variation between 00 and OO (and similarly for other gauges) is an undeniable fact and any efforts to remove mentions of it is either misbegotten historical idealism or blatant idiocy. --Agamemnon2 19:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * There is no variation between 00 and OO they are just different naming conventions for the same thing. However that does not preclude us from standardising on one within this forum, making sure that the redirects are in place so that someone searching finds the information they require. If we are going to standardize on one why not choose the one that is more historically accurate. The aim behind this is to remove confusion, surely a good thing. If we really wished to be pedantic the words "scale" and "gauge" should not be used at all as these naming conventions denote a relationship between a particular scale and gauge and are not exclusively one or the other. In some instances the naming conventions will also define a particular set of standards which would include rail height, wheel back to back etc, an example being P4 in the UK. Adrianmc 06:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The fact that there are two conventions for naming is evidence of variation in terminology. As is the far that neither is universally accepted (consider, for example,, or , examples of manufacturers and hobbyists in the UK using the "incorrect" OO notation). This must be documented. We should strive for exactitude, not clarity. The basis of standardization on this encyclopedia (not a forum) ought to be the consensus of usage, not historical minutiae. Since there is no consensus, we must arbitrarily choose one alternative and strive to make the prevailing conflict evident. --Agamemnon2 11:33, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The leading UK manufacturer of this primarily UK gauge for decades, Hornby, refers to it as "00" on its website and this is historically correct as well - it was originally a number. Moreover the European NEM standards refer to it as "00". The article uses "00", so this suggests the title probably ought to be moved back. --Bermicourt (talk) 17:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * According to the Rules of Wikipedia (I didn't invent them) if there is a discussion about usage, the article should be changed back in the first used way (this being 00) and from there we can discuss the usage of OO. So can it be changed back to 00, please?195.169.227.2 (talk) 22:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree - looking at the discussion page it seems the article was moved to 'OO' without discussion from its original '00', and contrary to what seems to be the prevaling mood here. 87.115.180.78 (talk) 02:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, actually checking reveals it started as 'OO'. Ho hum. 87.115.180.78 (talk) 02:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As such, I am going to restore my edits within to OO, as it matches the title. If a move discussion is opened and decides on the 00 title, then I'll personally change all uses to that. But until then, the title and text should match. oknazevad (talk) 02:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

'Pronunciation' of OO and 00
The article needs a paragraph on how the name is said in the various countries. I can't write it, I can only contribute that In the US, I usually hear it said "Double-O". Do British modelers say the same or is it "Ought-Ought" or "O-O" or something else? What is it generally called in Germany, and other countries that use the numeral 0 instead of the letter O? It would help people keep from making an embarrassing mistake if they want to discuss OO with other modelers. 70.112.248.254 (talk) 01:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's a useful short guide to how Brits typically pronounce the numerical sequence "zero-zero", using clips taken from the James Bond films (where Bond is referred to by the numerical prefix "007") ErkDemon (talk) 02:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * DoubleOh DoubleOh (youtube.com)


 * Also for an example of "circular" zeroes that look just like upper-case "Oh"s, see: http://www.hrca.net/images/pictures/80059.jpg (appropriately enough, on a "Hornby Dublo" locomotive). ErkDemon (talk) 02:48, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

So just to be absolutely certain, in summary can I infer that in the UK, "double-oh" is spoken only in connection with Hornby Dublo and otherwise it's "oh-oh"? All the best, Simon. SCHolar44 (talk) 09:29, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
 * So do Brits pronounce it "oh-oh" in the OO scale context, i.e. other than when saying "Hornby double-oh"? And "oh" for the big brother? SCHolar44 (talk) 12:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh for both, just like James Bond. Brits have absolutely no problem pronouncing the number 0 as 'Oh' and don't confuse it as the letter O. We'd talk about 'Aitch-Oh' gauge too, despite always writing it as H0. Nought and zero are obviously used enough to be instantly recognised, but they're just not commonly used in speech, whether this is model railways or telephone numbers. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:58, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Many thanks, Andy. I asked because I'm in Australia and thought the practice here might be different; turns out it's the same for handling O-vs-0 but we say "double-oh" on the rare occasions we refer to 00/OO (because HO is the standard here -- we type and say "oh", as in the US).
 * Not really. 00 (never written as OO) is probably equally pronounced as double-oh and and as oh-oh. I suspect Bond has had more influence here than Hornby.  Hornby Dublo just isn't a big thing - it's something everyone knows, most people probably have a bit of old 3 rail track in the loft (no-one wants it, but you can't bring yourself to throw it out), but it has pretty much no relevance to model railways today.
 * I'd go so far as to rename this article to 00 gauge, per commonname. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)