I have read pages and pages about the variety and availability of stock, level of detail etc, but what is the brass-tacks size difference between them? I am entering the fray of building a layout and am trying to get as much information together as possible before I start! Post by skyblue » Thu Aug 21, pm OO gauge is modelled as 4mm to the foot.
So a 6 foot person in OO gauge would be about 24mm high as a model. N gauge is in theory 2mm to the foot although British N gauge is out of scale with the track - see this Wikipedia page. So a 6 foot person in N gauge would be about 12mm high as a model. This means that you can get far more track and longer trains into the same space in N gauge as you get in OO gauge. However, this is not the only thing to consider, as the 'presence' of an OO gauge locomotive or piece of rolling stock is far greater, so in a sense OO gauge feels more like the real thing.
For a beginner, OO gauge would have once been the way to go, however N gauge is now much better catered for in most areas than it once was, although there are more kits available for OO gauge. You can get an OO gauge layout into a 6ft by 4ft space, but it tends to look a bit like a train set although if that's what you want, fine. If you have limited space and want to create a mainline scene, N is the way to go. However if you want to shunt or to just have say, a little branchline terminus, then OO gauge could be the way to go.
Equally, people have built massive OO gauge layouts check out 'Bath Green Park and others have built large N gauge layouts, such as a model of Elgin. It really depends on the space you have available, and what you want to do with it - do you want to do shunting or do you want to watch scale length trains passing through scenery? There is more OO gauge stock available, though N gauge is quickly catching up. Generally, there is more detail on OO gauge models, but many N gauge models have amazing detail.
There is far more OO gauge stock and equipment available second hand than there is N gauge. I hope this helps, and I'm sure others will be happy to be of assistance. Last edited by skyblue on Thu Aug 21, pm, edited 1 time in total. Post by Bigmet » Thu Aug 21, pm Really, you need to see and handle the models to make a good decision. Any local model shops or model railway shows somewhere conveniently nearby? Scale is the ratio between the size difference of your model to its real-world equivalent.
For a variety of reasons, the scale factor used to get set the distance between rails is often slightly different to the scaling factor used for the rest of the models so we end up with railway scale and a track gauge. OO and HO scales being the most obvious. These both use the same Guage of track — For more like it see my guide to Hornby how to guides and the top 4 best model train sets. If you found this article useful you can support me by making a donation on my fund-raising page.
Thanks and happy modelling, Andy. Picture: Track, J. OO Scale is , not as you claim above. OO Gauge 4mm to 1 ft, scale HO Gauge 3. Andy, thanks! The page was updated recently swapping the order in which the gauges are listed, HO and OO changing. My bad. Thanks for pointing this out. Don't subscribe All Replies to my comments Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Please leave this website or click on Reject All if you do wish to use cookies.
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Purchasing new items is usually simple due to a wide range of stock being available from a host of retailers. The used market is also very strong, meaning it's often very easy to find good examples at competitive prices. In other parts of the world, such as the USA, Australia, and continental Europe, H0 gauge is mainly used in place of This has the same track gauge of This makes H0 a smaller scale than Many railway modellers believe this is a more accurate representation of 'true scale' - however it is rare to find H0 gauge in the UK, so if an H0 gauge layout is something you would like to explore, then you will most probably need to find a supplier in Europe or the USA.
The main alternative to 00 gauge model railway layouts are N gauge layouts. These are of a smaller 9mm gauge compared to the The scale ratio varies by the region of manufacture - in the UK this is usually This smaller size allows more track to fit into a smaller area, making it ideal for scenarios where space is limited.
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