O scale (or O gauge) is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad scale in the United States and remained so until the early 1960s. In Europe, its popularity declined before World War II due to the introduction of smaller scales.
O gauge had its heyday when model railroads were considered toys, with more emphasis placed on cost, durability, and the ability to be easily handled and operated by pre-adult hands. Detail and realism were secondary concerns, at best. It still remains a popular choice for those hobbyists who enjoy running trains more than they enjoy other aspects of modeling, but developments in recent years have addressed the concerns of scale model railroaders making O scale popular among fine-scale modellers who value the detail that can be achieved.
The size of O is larger than OO/HO layouts, and thus is a factor in making the decision to build an O gauge layout.
Collecting vintage O gauge trains is also popular and there is a market for both reproduction and vintage models.
History
The name for O gauge and O scale is derived from "0 [zero] gauge" or "Gauge 0" being smaller than Gauge 1 and the other then-existing standards. It was created in part because manufacturers realized their best selling trains were those built in the smaller scales.
In the United States, manufacturers such as the Ives Manufacturing Company, American Flyer, and Lionel Corporation used O gauge for their budget line, marketing either Gauge 1 or 'Wide gauge' (also known as 'standard gauge') as their premium trains. One of the Lionel Corporation's most popular trains, the 203 Armoured Locomotive, was O gauge and ran on tracks with rails spaced 1.25 inches apart. The Great Depression wiped out demand for the expensive larger trains, and by 1932, O gauge was the standard, almost by default.
Because of the emphasis on play value, the scale of pre-World War II O gauge trains varied. The Märklin specifications called for 1:43.5 scale. However, many designs were 1:48 scale or 1:64 scale. Early Marx Trains and entry-level trains, usually made of lithographed tin plate, were not scaled at all, made to whimsical proportions about the same length of an HO scale ("half O") piece, but about the same width and height of an O scale piece. Yet all of these designs ran on the same track, and, depending on the manufacturer(s) of the cars, could sometimes be coupled together and run as part of the same train.
After World War II, manufacturers started paying more attention to scale, and post-war locomotives and rolling stock tended to be larger and more realistic than their earlier counterparts. This has been reflected in the change of name from O gauge to O scale: gauge describes merely the distance between the rails, while scale describes the size ratio of a model as it relates to its real-world prototype.
Since the early 1990s, O scale manufacturers have begun placing more emphasis on realism, and the scale has experienced a resurgence in popularity, although it remains less popular than HO or N scale. However, newer manufacturers including MTH Electric Trains, Lionel, LLC, Atlas Model Railroad Co and Weavermodels are making very exact, 1:48 scale models of trains.
In the United Kingdom the dominant O gauge manufacturer before World War II was Meccano Ltd. who from 1920 produced a range of clockwork and electric models under the "Hornby" name.
Standards
The differences in the various O gauge and O scale standards can be confusing. O gauge model railroad tracks typically have their rails spaced apart with the United States National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) standard allowing spacings between 31.75 mm and 32.64 mm.
Scale and gauge
Scale refers to the size of the model relative to the actual full-sized object being represented, while gauge is the width of the model track. Most commercially produced model track is a compromise between appearance and a trouble-free running surface.
Scale
Scale is the ratio of a model dimension to the real life dimension. O Scale in the UK is commonly 1:43.5 or 7 mm to the foot, in continental Europe it is commonly 1:45 or 1:43.5 is also used particularly in France, and in the USA 1:48. Each region tends to design models to its own scale. The NMRA and the MOROP maintain detailed standards for a variety of scales to help model makers create interoperable models.