Modelling British railway prototypes is a hobby where railway modelling is applied to British prototypes. For historical reasons, British model scales have developed somewhat separately from those in other countries, and the commercial standards;

00 gauge OO gauge or OO scale (also, 00 gauge and 00 scale) is the most popular standard-gauge model railway standard in the United Kingdom, outside of which it is virtually unknown. OO gauge is one of several 4 mm-scale standards (4 mm to 1 foot, ...

and

British N gauge British N gauge is a model railway scale and gauge, rolling stock is to a scale of 1:148,
''teladesign.com'' track i ...

are unique to British prototypes. The railways in Britain were for the most part

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

, and consequently most support focuses on these scales. Narrow gauge, and broad gauge standards also exist. British modellers tend to focus on British subjects, and most of the commercial support is British-based, but modellers of British prototypes exist across national boundaries.

Standard gauge prototypes

Commercially available standards

There are two major commercial standards;

(4 mm:foot, 16.5 mm gauge), and

British N gauge British N gauge is a model railway scale and gauge, rolling stock is to a scale of 1:148,
''teladesign.com'' track i ...

(2.05 mm:foot, 9 mm gauge). Ready-to-run (RTR) equipment is available in both standards. Hornby Railways and Bachmann Branchline offer major RTR support in 00 gauge; Graham Farish (part of the Bachmann group) offer RTR support in N gauge. Previously commercial support was available for

British TT gauge 3 mm scale, also known as 3 mm finescale, is a model railway scale of 3 mm: 1 ft used for British prototypes. Introduced as British TT gauge, it sits approximately halfway between British N gauge and OO gauge, but is not as po ...

(3mm:foot, 12mm gauge). All three of these commercial standards suffer from being too narrow to accurately represent the track gauges, and as a result,

finescale Finescale standards or Fine Standards are model railway standards that aim to be close to the prototype dimensions. Reduction in toylike, overscale flanges, pointwork, etc. In Britain it is particularly used because small British prototypes meant ...

standards have been developed.

Finescale standards

As a consequence, of the track gauges, plus overscale track, finescale standards have been developed. These include EM gauge (4 mm scale, 18.2 mm gauge),

P4 gauge __NOTOC__ Protofour or P4 is a set of standards for model railways allowing construction of models to a scale of 4 mm to 1 foot (1:76.2), the predominant scale of model railways of the British prototype. For historical reasons almost all manuf ...

(4 mm scale, 18.83 mm gauge), 3 mm finescale (3 mm scale, 14.2 mm gauge), 2 mm finescale (2 mm scale, 9.47 mm gauge). Others have adopted

H0 gauge HO or H0 is a rail transport modelling scale using a 1:87 scale (3.5 mm to 1 foot). It is the most popular scale of model railway in the world. The rails are spaced apart for modelling standard gauge tracks and trains in HO.NMRA"Mod ...

Narrow gauge prototypes

The most straightforward way of modelling narrow gauge is to adopting a larger scale but with the track from the appropriate gauge. Thus, the most common standard for narrow gauge modelling are

009 009 may refer to: * OO9, gauge model railways * O09, FAA identifier for Round Valley Airport * 0O9, FAA identifier for Ward Field, see List of airports in California * British secret agent 009, see 00 Agent * BA 009, see British Airways Flight 9 * ...

(4 mm scale, 9 mm gauge) and 016.5 (7 mm scale, 16.5 mm gauge). These tend not to accurately represent real scales, so again there are products made to the smaller gauge but with sleeper spacing, etc., suitable for the larger scale narrow gauge trains.

Societies

Societies include the following: * British 1:87 Scale Society - support for British H0 scale * Double O Gauge Association - support for

* 009 Society - support for 4 mm scale narrow gauge. * EM Gauge Society - support for 4 mm finescale (EM and P4) * Gauge 0 Guild - support for 0 gauge * Historical Model Railway Society (HMRS), support for historical model railways. * N Gauge Society (NGS) - support for N gauge (including international N gauge standards) * Scalefour Society (support for P4, including Irish broad gauge and Great Western broad gauge)

Magazines

Magazines include: * ''

Railway Modeller ''Railway Modeller'' is a monthly British magazine about model railways now published by Peco Publications in Beer, Devon. It has been in publication since 1949 with Vol. 1 No. 1 published as The Railway Modeller, being an Ian Allan Production ...

'' * '' British Railway Modelling'' * ''

Model Rail ''Model Rail'' is a British railway magazine focusing on rail transport modelling. It was first published in 1997, after running as a supplement to ''Rail''. ''Model Rail'' is published 13 times a year. It contains articles about railways in ...

'' * '' Model Railway Express'' * ''

Hornby Magazine Hornby may refer to: Places In England * Hornby, Lancashire * Hornby, Hambleton, village in North Yorkshire * Hornby, Richmondshire, village in North Yorkshire Elsewhere * Hornby, Ontario, community in the town of Halton Hills, Ontario, Canad ...

'' Rail transport modelling {{Model-rail-stub