HOe Scale

HOe Scale

HOe or HOn30 is a popular rail transport modelling scale/gauge combination widely used by modellers of European, American, and Japanese narrow gauge railways.

The term HOn30 (and sometimes HOn2½) is generally used when modelling American prototypes while H0e is used for European prototypes. In the Britain the term HO9 is sometimes used. All these terms refer to models of narrow gauge railways built to the world's most popular model railway scale of HO (1:87) but using a track gauge of 9 mm (0.354 in)—the gauge used for N scale models of standard gauge railways.

The scale was invented by Egger-bahn in 1963.

HOe is one of the gauge/scale combinations defined by NEM. According to that standard, HOe represents narrow gauges between 650–850 mm (25.59–33.46 in) though it's often used to represent 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄₈ in) gauge railways as well. In strict scale HOe represents a true gauge of 783 mm (2 ft 6.83 in) so is very close to the gauge of the 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄₂ in) and 760 mm (2 ft 5 7⁄₈ in) gauge railways most widely used in Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian empire as well as to the 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) gauge used in parts of the British Empire.

HOn30 is often used to model the 2 ft (610 mm) gauge railroads in the US state of Maine. The first HOn30 / HOn2½ RTR brand introduced in the US was the AHM MinitrainS., initially manufactured by Egger-bahn and later by Roco and Mehanoteknika Izola, also known as Mehano.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of HOn30 is that RTR models are still scarce. One exception is The Minitrains line that has recently been upgraded and reintroduced under the brand BCH MinitrainS.