HOe scale
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HOe (or HOn30) is a popular rail transport modelling scale/gauge combination widely used by European narrow gauge modellers. HOn30 is generally used when modelling American prototypes.It refers to models of narrow gauge railways built to the world's most popular model railway scale of HO or 1:87 but using a track gauge of 9 mm—the gauge used for N scale models of standard gauge railways.
HOe is equivalent to the North American norm of HOn30 or HOn2.5 and is one of the gauge/scale combinations defined by NEM 010: Ratio, Scale and Gauge. According to that standard, HOe represents narrow gauges between 650-850 mm though it's often used to represent 60cm gauge railways as well. In strict scale HOe represents a true gauge of 783 mm so is very close to the gauge of the 750 mm and 760 mm gauge railways most widely used in Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian empire as well as to the 2 ft 6 in gauge used in parts of the British Empire.
Nobody seems very sure whether the e suffix in HOe derives from Eggerbahn who first popularised the combination of HO scale and 9 mm gauge track or "etroite" the French word for narrow gauge as in voie etroite. The other NEM defined narrow gauges for HO scale are HOm (using 12 mm gauge originally "TT" track) for models of metre gauge and similar prototypes and HOi (using Z scale 6.5 mm track) for prototypes around 60cm- the most popular gauge for industrial railways.
Note that in the United Kingdom where the most popular railway modelling scale is 4 mm/ft or 1:76 scale, the narrow gauge equivalents to HOe and HOm are 009 (2'3" gauge to exact scale but generally used for 2' gauge prototypes) and 00n3 for modelling 3 foot gauge railways—widely used in Ireland and the Isle of Man—on 12 mm gauge track.
The following table lists other combinations that are close to HOe in either scale or gauge;
| Name | Scale | Gauge | Prototype gauge | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 009 | 4 mm/foot | 9 mm | 2 ft 3 in (686 mm) gauge | popular in the UK |
| 00n12 | 4 mm/foot | 12 mm | 3 ft (914 mm) gauge | |
| HOn3 | 3.5 mm/foot | 10.5 mm | 3 ft (914 mm) gauge | mainly in US |
| Sn2 | 4.8 mm/foot | 9mm or 10.5 mm | Used for 2 ft (610 mm) gauge prototypes | |
| HOm | 3.5 mm | 12 mm | Used in Europe to model 1 m (3 ft 33⁄8 in) gauge. |
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