What scale is H0m?

Put simply, H0m is the scale that modellers would use is they wanted to portray a real-life railway that has a 1-metre track gauge and wanted to model it in H0 scale.

Metre gauge railways are a common sight around the globe with many mountain railways, metro systems and tramways opting to use the gauge. Technically metre gauge railways are classed as narrow-gauge railways but for many countries, the gauge has been installed as their standard. Brazil uses metre gauge track to cover 14,595 miles of their network.

HOm scale models conform to the following dimensions:

• A scale of 3.5mm to 1 foot, this means that 3.5mms of an H0m model represents 1 foot in real-life
• A scale ratio of 1:87, this means that the real-life object is 87 times larger than the model
• A gauge of 12mm (not to be confused with scale), this refers to the gauge of model track that HOm trains run on (12mm between the rails). This is the same as TT track.

In conclusion: H0m is a combination of a 3.5mm scale model that runs on 12mm gauge track.