Any North Americans prefer the British style of engine/rolling stock?

[Firestorm]

I'm Canadian and I grew up with a HO model train set with the American style diesels. But the Thomas fan in me prefers the way that the European (ie British) steam engines/diesels and rolling stock look. It just looks better but I can't really explain why. Maybe it's because there's more of a style to some of them than the square and block on wheels style of some of the American diesels.

Maybe I'm just rambling about nothing.

[jettrainfan]

I prefer British steam over American, and same with coaches. Thomas sort of got me into it, but the blue bell railroad was what really got me in it. What i like is the tank engines. I do like the black 5s, Class A1-4 and the school classes but its really the tank engines. Americans only got 0-4-0s and 0-6-0s, while with logging, you get a few more classes, but they didn't see that much main line action in my opinion. Plus, they got some cool looking engines like the 0-4-4, i'd like to see one of those in southern green!  (the British got a southern railway and they did own one.)

Diesels, they're cool but i prefer the Class 04, 08, and 20. Anything else i can find a diesel i like better in no time.

[NarrowMinded]

I think in general (not Always) people like what you are exposed to most when you are young, I think the porthole windows on british loco's look silly and I don't like their coaches much either they always remind me of shacks on wheels.

NM

[jward]

being a die hard emd fan, i'd love to go see the jt42cwr's in action. you probably know them better as class 67. they have a 12 cylinder 710, which is rarely used in north america. the closest  north american equivalent would be a gp59, which i always liked listening to when we got them on the shelocta trains i worked.

[Doneldon]

I think NM has a good point when he says we tend to like the familiar, and I think that extends beyond trains to music, architecture, cars and just about everything else. But back to trains. We have to remember that North American and European (especially British) railroads are fundamentally different, so they look and operate differently.

European railroads generally travel much shorter distances and are accordingly used much more often for personal transportation. North American railroads cover vast distances by comparison and, as a consequence, are not used as much for personal transportation other than metropolitan transit. All of this leads to European trains which are shorter, cars which are smaller, and car fleets which have a greater proportion of passenger equipment. The long distances in North America means trains here are much longer, individual freight cars are much larger (to carry huge quantities of bulk products like grain and coal) long distances to population centers, and fewer passenger cars except in places where they are used for commuting, not travel per se. We need much larger motive power to haul these long, heavy trains. 10,000-ton trains are not at all uncommon here and our trains can get significantly heavier than this at times. Between the distances and the size of our trains, small locos and tank locos are essentially useless. So our trains are beefier and more brawny, reflecting their utility, and European trains are smaller, yet more charming, quaint and personal. This is no different, to my mind, than using available oil as fuel in much of the North American west yet coal in the east where it is plentiful, or even "conventional" fire boxes where softer, faster burning coal is found and modified fireboxes where hard Anthracite coal dictates oversize fireboxes to produce the same amount of energy.

But for me, put a steam engine on the front and it's a wonderful thing, whether it's a tank loco sweeping a local through a broad curve in the lush English countryside or double-headed Northerns muscling a merchandise freight over Tehachepi. Just my opinion.
                                                                                                                                                                  -- D

[Terry Toenges]

That's why I like the pre-1900 stuff. Just because it's different and the variety. The modern stuff I can see anytime.

[Jim Banner]

I never met a train I didn't like.  I have a few British locomotives and cars and every once in a while, when no one is looking, I get them out and run them on my very North American layout.  Maybe this is related to some of my earliest reading - books/magazines about things like "black fives."

Jim

[bobwrgt]

I love all steam engines.
I have several Hornby engines because of the design and color they have. The English have more passenger trains with smoke deflectors and bright color plus large drivers. The tenders also come in different styles.
I have plenty of Black American engines.
I also like the French and German engines. They also are of a different style, have smoke deflectors, and plenty of external detail. The detail is not as hidden as on the American engines. The black and red or green and red color also helps.
The American engines do have much better lighting and some are much larger because of the distance they had to travel and longer trains.

Bob

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

I never met a train I didn't like.

Got that right, brother!

But, for myself, at the risk of offending the British or Europeans in general, to me a steam locomotive, especially a road engine, without a pilot and a pilot truck just doesn't seem natural. ...

[Woody Elmore]

I agree with Jim Hammer - Give me a Black Five in LMS livery and I'm a happy camper. ( I guess I like it because it would be right at home running on the Pennsy!)  When I bought my last black auto I had it lined (striped) with white and red ala LMS!

[railsider]

The British "HO" stuff is actually OO, which is equipment in 1/76 scale, but it runs interchangeably on US HO track. The difference is that US HO stock is 1/87, about 13% smaller than OO stuff (except for the wheel-gauge, that is). Because it's a tad larger, you can get more detail, and a slightly larger motor. (Has anybody sat down and figured out which one is really the authentic scale, and which is either too big or too small for the track gauge, which is the same on both sides of the Pond?)

The second difference is the couplers. If you have the British-made Bachmann Hogwarts Express, you know what I mean. Like US NMRA couplers, there are efficient but not authentic-looking. That's why so many US modelers prefer Kadee or other knuckle couplers: they look like the real thing. In North America, that is. British trains, as most of us know, and European ones, too, couple differently to/from American ones, in the real 1:1 world. The main point is that the Euro-style couplers are clunky-looking, but reliable as all get-out.

The big difference, of course, is that British models look like British trains. They have a whole different style and panashe about them. As with so many other things in life, if you like it, you like it, and if you don't, you don't. Bob's yer uncle, as they would say in that part of the jolly old world: that's how it is, mate.

I run a Hogwarts, and love it. But my prize is a Hornby Stevenson's "Rocket" that runs like a charm, and is a real historical document. (On another thread here on the B-Board, several people comment that the other historical line, Bachmann's DeWitt, John Bill and so forth, tend to be somewhat flimsy and prone to becoming static models. Mine haven't -- yet -- but they are hard to couple with those drawbars and pins. No such problem with the "Rocket" and its sturdy metal Euro-couplers.)

Hooray, says I, for the differences, because there's somebody who likes each variation. If only it were easier to get one in the home of the other, and vice-versa.

[Doneldon]

railsider-

I think US HO is more accurate gauge in terms of the railhead to railhead dimension being scale for 56.5 inches. Using 1:87, scale track width is .649+ inches, admirably close to the .65 inches of HO track. And 1:87 is also very close to the "half-O-gauge" interpretation of HO. O-gauge is, of course, 1:48 in the US but it was originally 1:43.5, making HO as  close as one can get to the original size of O-gauge (or O-scale).

We forget that there were several confusing different versions of gauge and scale in the early days of O and HO model railroading, pretty much like what we see today with Gauge-One, G-scale, 1:24, 1:20.3 and many other different proportions running on the same same track gauge. In reality these are all different scales, everything from 1:32 to 1:17, running on the same gauge track.

What matters most, though, is whether they are more fun than anything else you can do with your spare time. In that department, gauge and scale become meaningless. Let's face it: we play (yes, play) with trains because it's plenty of fun!

                                                                                                     -- D

[Woody Elmore]

OO or double O uses 4 mm to the foot. That being the case, the gauge comes out to something like 19mm. In America double O used 3/4 inch gauge for the track -the same as On3.

Back in the 1930s, there were few motors small enough to fit into an HO size locomotive so manufacturers like Scalecraft, Nason and Lionel went to 4 mm a foot. I'm sure the British intent was to enlarge the models to fit a suitable motor while not tinkering with the gauge of the track. True OO is about 11% bigger than HO.

One last thing - european O scale is 7 mm to the foot - HO comes from dividing the O scale measure in half.

[ebtnut]

The scale and gauge discussion can go on almost ad infinitum.  I agree with the thought that what you grew up around and are fimiliar with is what you will most like later in life.  I wouldn't model European trains because I grew up around U.S. trains, including the very end of steam.  But, I do admire other nation's railroads, and have traveled some in the UK and Europe, where it really is a revelation as to how they go about running trains.  The Europeans also have a more tolerant attitude toward running "heritage" trains, especially in the U.K., than we do here.  That may in part have to do with the fact that most railroads over there are government-controlled, while ours are all private corporations (aside from Amtrak). 

Just to be clear on the HO/OO front, domestic OO used the proper track and scale relationship.  The Brits went to 4mm scale because their equipment was uniformly smaller then ours, and the available motors would not fit in a 1/87 scale model.  Because our steam locomotives were much larger, we could use the proper scale and gauge.  Had it not been for World War 2, U.S. 00 might have won out over HO as the dominant scale.  But for whatever reasons, Lionel did not revive their line, and many of the other manufacturers (Mantua, Varney, MDC, etc.) opted to stay with or go with HO.

[jsanchez]

  I have never been to England, but I do love British trains, I bought a used British N scale collection at a Florida Hobby shop about 20 years ago and was hooked, I really like the style of British steam engines and coaches. I have spent a lot of time researching and learning about British trains, I guess to me it was something new and different and I have always had a fondness for British things, Monty Python, the Beatles, MG's, Jaguars, etc.
By the way, Bachmann's British trains are very well done Graham Farish in N and Branchline in OO. 

Interesting thread.
Jim
www.pamodelrrsupply.com