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Hey all,

So I've been thinking about getting back onto the model railroading bandwagon and I found a layout that I really like to fit in out old 1960s bomb shelter: GTW, 1970s (probably upgrade), SE Michigan (Armada/Romeo area). There's just one problem.

It's O gauge.

Because all of my stuff is HO and I am not a huge fan of O gauge, is there a way for me to convert the measurements (11ft X 15ft) from O to HO to know exactly how big it'll be? I have a few other ideas to possibly mesh with it but I can't seem to find anything on how to convert the size down a scale and without it, this whole thing comes to a grinding halt.


Thank you for the help, in advance!

--NSSD70ACe

So I'm confused... You are thinking of purchasing an o scale layout, but are into ho? So you are asking if there is Way to convert the operations down to HO from O? Yes that is possible I suppose. But without more info as to what you want to convert down to it is impossible to say. You can get a lot into an HO 11x15 layout, but if you want to keep the operations of the O gauge layout but model in HO it will be considerable smaller. (I believe that is what you are getting at.) another thing to think about is if this is O gauge proper, or the toy version of O gauge. Because the operations of toy o gauge are vastly different as the cars are designed for tighter radai.
Not sure if that helps or makes sense, but your post didn't make much sense to me either

He wants someone to do the math to convert an O scale plan to HO.

HO is half of O (HO = Half of O). So cut the O scale layout dimensions in half.

Not exactly, because 48 is not half 87.

CRMan5 - It's pretty darn close enough for what you want to do. In fact, because HO is not quite half of O you give yourself a little room for error while building which you will appreciate As for the name see the Derivation of HO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HO_scale.

railohio wrote:Not exactly, because 48 is not half 87.

It's pretty darn close enough for what you want to do. In fact, because HO is not quite half of O you give yourself a little room for error while building which you will appreciate As for the name see the Derivation of HO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HO_scale.

railohio wrote:Not exactly, because 48 is not half 87.

Divide all dimensions by 1.81, except aisles, leave those the same size :-p.
BUT, make sure the O scale plan isn't intended for 3-rail O. Then the
curves will probably be to tight for HO. That O-27 curve would end up
as a 7.5" radius.

And if the plan is Richard Cooke's 11 x 15 you're better off starting from
scratch because that track plan has nothing to do with the actual Romeo
Sub.

Good point about the aisle width and radius however stick to dividing by two unless you're one of these Pie fanatics and carry everything out to the billionth decimal

Brian_F wrote:Divide all dimensions by 1.81, except aisles, leave those the same size :-p. BUT, make sure the O scale plan isn't intended for 3-rail O. Then the curves will probably be to tight for HO. That O-27 curve would end up as a 7.5" radius.

You are so right! However, it would be a nice little and easy to build layout . If it were me I'd use my "modeling license" and add the Ford Engine plant and the proposed (but never built) stone transload both in Romeo.

Brian_F wrote:And if the plan is Richard Cooke's 11 x 15 you're better off starting from scratch because that track plan has nothing to do with the actual Romeo Sub.

railohio wrote:He wants someone to do the math to convert an O scale plan to HO.

Not entirely correct..I was planning on doing it myself I just wanted to know what I would need to do to convert the measurements from HO to O. Even though CM5 has a good point, the bomb shelter is not big enough for it. It's only 11x11, which is why I wanted to convert the measurements from O to HO to make it fit.


Thanks for all the help!

I always wondered what happened to all those old bomb shelters people were building in their backyards, back in the 50s. Anybody remember those air raid drills back in school. I think it was 10 rings on the bell in the hall. Get under your desk and put your head down. They were already scaring the crap out of us.

hoborich wrote: Get under your desk and put your head down.

Duck and cover!


My generation gets a big kick out of watching these. My history class got a good lol out of it. Thank goodness we don't have these dumb drills - which wouldn't save a life!

But you felt safer, and I guess that's all that matters when all you can do it kiss your arse goodbye! (if you even had time to compute that the flash was an atomic bomb before being wiped from the face of the planet)

Now days it could get posted on Facebook or Twitter or whatever and would reach everybody (young people who frequent that stuff) before the sound waves from the siren. My neighbor when I was in High School had an old bomb shelter behind his house. I can tell you for sure that it was used for anything BUT a bomb shelter by all the neighborhood kids.

Don't get me going. The government has been scaring the crap out of us for 50 years.

NSSD70ACe wrote:Hey all,

So I've been thinking about getting back onto the model railroading bandwagon and I found a layout that I really like to fit in out old 1960s bomb shelter: GTW, 1970s (probably upgrade), SE Michigan (Armada/Romeo area). There's just one problem.

It's O gauge.

Because all of my stuff is HO and I am not a huge fan of O gauge, is there a way for me to convert the measurements (11ft X 15ft) from O to HO to know exactly how big it'll be? I have a few other ideas to possibly mesh with it but I can't seem to find anything on how to convert the size down a scale and without it, this whole thing comes to a grinding halt.


Thank you for the help, in advance!

--NSSD70ACe

I'm an O/HO modeler I can take all the O stuff for you