Garden railways

It's an indication that an isolated model isn't enough to cause any modeller to chose the more logical scale.

That doesn't work for HO modellers - unless of course one has a large scenic area in front of one's layout so that the trains are reduced scale to the foreground. :-) You're absolutely right that one needs more than a loco and track to build a layout, or in Fleischmann's case more than a Western Region Loco and three Southern Region coaches.

Regards, Greg.P.

They are 3.8mm scale, closer to OO than HO, so you can't sell them to me :-(

When they were first introduced they were to a superior standard than any other proprietry UK (OO) coaches. Rivarossi fell into the same trap with their Royal Scot and LMS coaches, which were beautiful models, but to 1:80 scale.

Regards, Greg.P. NZ

Actually it probably does. Ditchling Green is probably only 2' deep. The street is at one end of the layout going from front to back.

While it leads to a level crossing, the layout is a through station operated as terminus to fiddle yard, and you don't see trains on the level crossing.

The street itself tapers from 7mm scale at the front to maybe 6 or

There was also an unrebuit Royal Scot and LMS coaches.

I was refering to all those 4mm scale models produced in the UK.

Certainly, but that was 1:80 scale, much closer to 1:76.2 than 1:87, but useless to either scale.

Yes, built to the UK loading gauge and not the Bern gauge you trolling idiot.

Now kindly f*ck off, troll.

It proves that there is no market, perhaps if you understood the history of the German and British DH locos you would also understand why Fleischmann produced the BR D800 model, if there was a general market for British H0 there was nothing to stop them from following up on the said model - perhaps with a Western...

In other words - because there is no market for such a model...

So why don't you run Hornby tinplate M/MO rolling stock on your layout with OO wheels fitted - they must be near enough to OO loading gauge.

Regards, Greg.P.

I suggest you go and look at the British 1:87 scale website, there are about two dozen locos listed there, from a $2000- brass LNER A3 down to a conversion of the Roco Dutch shunter, with numerous British and Dutch kits of British locos. I must say that I am amazed at how big the market actually is. There are Southern, GWR, ROD etc prototypes offered.

Huhh? There are almost no US manufacturers of US models because you consider there's no market for British HO???

You really can't grasp the fact that if the UK used H0 (3.5mm) scale and built bridges etc to the UK loading gauge no H0 model of European or USA stock would fit through them!

Not from were I'm sitting in the UK, and that is the market which matters to any manufacture of British outline models, but you knew that...

:Jerry: wrote: [...]

Jerry, I'm not thinking about building a UK layout and trying to run non-UK rolling stock on it. I'm thinking about a non-UK layout with some UK visitors. Which is entirely prototypical. A 4mm model just doesn't look right - it's too big, and its proportions are wrong compared to the

Of course you know that diesels built to UK loading gauge are being used outside the UK, some of them in Europe, even. A bunch of those are being built in London, Ontario, at the moment. 66s, I think. They were a number of pictures of them in pale grey undercoating posted on alt.binaries.pictures.rail. They look very interesting next to the current crop of N. American 6-axle monsters. Especially when one considers that they pack almost as many horses under the hood as their US/Canadian cousins!

Anyhow, to get back to some serious model railway discussion:

I do have a few UK OO items. I've sketched a few two-level plans with a a GWR line at the lowest level of the layout, with the Canadian line running about 40 to 60cm above that, using shadow boxes to increase the visual separation. With more space than I have, one could interlace the lines at almost the same level (just minimum vertical spacing apart), arranging the lines so that only one of them is visible in any one scene. Again, visually separate the scenes in shadow boxes.

Cheers!

But that is a commercial problem, no manufacture is going to make a profit on selling the (relatively) small amount of UK stock to people who live outside the UK, their profit will come from UK sales - if the UK was to adopt H0 they would (for the reasons above) loose their sales of non UK stock within the UK.

Yes, and there is room in the market for H0 models but it doesn't mean that the UK needs to switch scales, the number of UK designed and built locos in use on 'mainland Europe' is very limited.

They were a

Funny that, considering that they are, as you say, N. American, designed and built...

Why not just build two layouts, the 'typical' GWR branch line need not take up much space, hence the reason why I suspect layouts based on the GWR have been so popular in the UK for years.

Size of room....

Blame George Stephenson - not actually a relative of mine, but one of his aunts married my great-great... grandfather.

What _you_ are failing to understand is that there is a potential market for HO UK models outside the UK, just as there is a real market for non-UK models in the UK. The increase in total sales of any given model lowers the unit price. I fully realize that a wholesale UK change from 4mm to 1:87 isn't going to happen - I'm merely pointing out that it needs to happen.

Regards, Greg.P.

No, blame the people who followed, he invented the railways, he can't be to blamed for the mistakes of those who though they knew better!

There is nothing to stop those model being produced if there is a market, Trix, Lima and a couple of other manufacturers proved that there is no market in the market were most sales would have to be - history PROVES that you are wrong...

Less the sales they would loose of course, 90pc of UK modellers would stop buying RTR models, replacing them with 4mm kits...