Eric LaNal on Hugh Boutell’s role in the development of HO

More discussion with our crack 30Squares Director of Research, Vince, has turned up a little more about Hugh Boutell. In the very first issue of The HO Monthly, published in May 1948, none other than legendary model railroader Eric LaNal, aka Uncle Eric (who in real life was Dr. Alan Lake Rice, professor of German at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania), penned a humorous, although factual, article called The History of HO Gauge where he makes a brief note on Hugh Boutell’s contribution to HO’s early development,

So, by the end of the Twenties there were in England two scales, Naught-Naught (OO) and HO, both using the same (16.5 mm.) gauge.

Early American HO Layout

A pioneer or two in the U.S.A had caught the midget-gauge fever too, and a pretty little line called the “Marysport & Diddystown” was built in the mid-twenties by Hugh G. Boutell. This is the oldest American line I know of in this pint-size scale. I hear Mr. Boutell is still going strong and wish him well. He is a Model Railroad artist after my own heart.

I think artist is a good assessment given Boutell’s sophisticated scenic railroads. His layouts were right up there with those of peer Aldo Cosomati, an actual artist whose hobby was model railroading, and who likely developed the first OO scenic model railway in England.

Nothing on model buildings of course, but the article is an early indication that Boutell likely had the first known HO layout in the US, and from the picture it was a scenic one.