ianmianmianm

Thanks Andy. And here's the thing - this hobby is and has been for a very long time really accepting of trans people and so it's clear the capacity to be open and welcoming does exist and society at large could learn a thing or two from us. I think if anything, though, that only makes my experience even more unacceptable, in that we aren't taling about a totally backward cohort of people in our circle.

It baffles me why this has never happened in 16.5mm. I had a layout about 10 years ago with the Hartel track on it which was very easy to use and with a bit of filling and painting actually looked good. There were also some fellas at Eurospoor in Utrecht one year that were selling some set-track pieces which were made with resin and using Peco rail and these were lovely. But I never saw them again. Rue D' Etropal (Recreation 21) designed a track system using 3 printed pieces into which you slide regular Code 100 rail (I think). The pieces are designed for the corresponding rail lengths in existing set track so are fully interchangeable with Peco. They are still on Shapeways Marketplce but the price is now silyl high because of Shapeways' pricing structure. If you message him he might be able to let you buy the files and then print your own through a 3rd party like SGD3D or similar. I know he was considering selling files only at one point as he was so frustrated at the Shapeways prices. Track is a classic reason where this sort of arrangement might be justified. Ian

I've left this a few weeks so as not to identify the show. To explain, as some background, I am a "person of colour". I have been modelling for 43 years, and as an adult and serious modeller for 30 of those. I attend exhibitions regularly, my modelling interests are eclectic and this means my knowledge of the prototype is wide. I also, to be frank, have greying hair, poor fashion sense, am a bit overweight and often have Halfords paint on my fingers. I look like a modeller more now than I did when I started this adventure. I speak English as a native and have all my own teeth, no accent. At a recent show I was looking at a layout and the operator looked at me and said "these are trams, they run in the street in places like Croydon or Manchester". (I've lived in both). I smiled and asked a question about what chassis were being used. He looked back at me and said "they work from electricity in the rails which the motor in the tram collects". I tried again but got a very similar answer. I thought... hmm maybe just a mansplainer. I said thank you and moved off. I was watching an adjacent layout when a young (white) woman with a child approached the layout. The layout owner chatted away naturally and explained all sorts of things that were going on, even why he had chosen not to have the trams pick up from the overhead. I looked at her and, while you can never judge, she didn't seem to be a hobbyist, just an attendee, yet was getting a good in depth guide to the models. And then another chap came up to the stand and I could see the modeller pointing to bits on the layout and smiling away. I wandered off. I swooped round for my 3rd circuilt of the show and it brought me back to this layout again. The operator was joined by his mate, I assume. A particularly nice kitbuilt tram made its way round. I said to them both - "Ooh that's lovely, and it's crawling along so nicely - what motor is in it". A mumble back and I got "it's a special one, made in Austria". I thanked them and walked off, assuming it must be Halling (could he not have said that). I was a few feet away and there was no one else at that layout, and I heard layout operator number one say "Honestly, I thought we were safe from them in this hobby". Operator two said "Hah, you turn on the bloody TV and they're all over reading the news". I left the show. So this is a post specially for those two gents if they are reading. Or others who think like them. What do you need me to do. Do you want me not to come along to an exhibition as it makes you feel unsafe or angry. Should I give up the hobby completely? Is the entrance fee I've paid for the 20 or so shows and swapmeets this year not worth the effort to be nice or just decent. Or my spending in model shops large and small. This has happened a couple of times before, in a roundabout way, but not for a good decade. I think the delayed shock of it and the sheer ruination of what should have been a nice Saturday drive out, have certainly affected me. I went to no events the following week, not becuase I feared something similar again, but because the capacity for joy had been knocked out of me. Fellas, if you two are on here and reading this, please feel free to send me a private message and explain why you needed to be like that.

I just added these guys into the list above. The buildings and paving sheets are probably the most accurate I have seem so far from a supplier https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063968326366&sk=photos

I've just added this one into the list. Some nice Portuguese vuildings. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063968326366&sk=photos

If you're modelling these specifically then you are most accurate doing them in narrow gauge. They are 900mm in real life which meand 10.34 mm at HO scale. The closest you can get to this is allegedly HOn3 for which there is very little available. However if you go down to HOe at 9mm then you have the very cheap and varied Tomix track with 3 o 4 radii. They can be quite nicely painted and weathered up, although I learned the hard way that you need to mask off the joints between sections if spraying.

There was a discussion elsewhere about Lisbon Trams and I posted this info in there, but I thought that for those who, like me 10 years ago, were unfamiliar with what's available for Portugal, or what has been, here is a list of manfacturers and cottage industries I am aware of. Any others you know, please PM me and I can edit this post, so they are all in the same place. Just for those who are interested in modelling I thought I would post a list of resources. I will put this in the Overseas Modelling - Portugal secion as well. For Lisbon Trams: - Atlas Editions 4 wheeler - can be motorised more easily. Has trolley and panto on roof and Carris logos. More modern trucks. - Amarellis - we all know these! Sold branded with the Carris logo by the tram museum, and unbranded by souvenir shops. There is a seller on Ebay who sells reliveried ones with adverts, and also motorised ones as well. - Halling - produced several older models including with open platforms, semi-enclosed platforms, and full enclosed. - Modelismo Artesanale - produced a limited run of the single-direction box-shape Caixote trams - they have doors on one side only. These were also available as kits, but are long sold out. - Resin model of the bidirectional Caixotes, doors on both sides - https://scontent.ffab1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/325758493_840659440345311_8013902041169067125_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=p662fyvopc8Q7kNvgEhMs03&_nc_ht=scontent.ffab1-2.fna&oh=00_AfBmAf35LD_dWJiLrjNCwh9MD3U-ErswBN3sjQHCLtJZXg&oe=663D7A9F this seller on Facebook sells these, but you have to phone him!!! - 3D print files Cults 3D has downloadable files to do your own resin print. Search "1947 Lisbon" on their site. I've done a test print in plastic rather than resin, which is in my photo. - Buses: https://www.facebook.com/easytransportesminiaturas/?locale=pt_PT sells Carris liveried buses as Code 3 models (along with Porto ones too). - Tramads in the UK does four waterslide decals for the advert liveries for the 4 wheel trams. - Some years ago Halling produced some engineering test models for the Alicante version of the Lisbon Siemens Articulado tram. They were unmotored and liveried in the Spanish FGC livery. Only a handful were produced (I Have one set of bodyshells) but they may show up on sale someday. Buildings: - Modelismo Artesanale: A small number of village and railway buildings, but not really suitable for a city model. - Parvus.info : Spanish buildings which work well for Portuguese city buildings. - Sofgreen: A few building kits but mostly Porto types. - Maketforyou https://www.instagram.com/maketforyou1/?hl=en-gb a very boutique producer of high end buildings, a few of which work for a cityscape. - There is another supplier which I can now not find, who does a few building and scenic kits very specific to Portugal. EDIT - here it is https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063968326366&sk=photos - A few of the shops, Espacio Papel e Livraria in Lisbon, La Ferrovie De Paris, and Nettoys in Matosinhos near Porto, all do ocasional limited edition scenic models of things like kiosks and bus stops. Noch also do card scenic sheets of the Lisbon style Calcadas paving. - JG Modelismo is a niche supplier in Lisbon who occasionally stocks scenic items. Trains: - Norbrass and Sudexpress have produced Brass and Plastic, respectively, high quality RTR models of locos and passenger stock and freight stock in 16.5mm gauge. - Arlo Micromodel produce RTR locos, coaches, and kits and conversion items. - JG Modelismo has produced the Nohab 100 and 50 Iberian Gauge railcars and the refurbished Allan railcars as RTR - Mabar, Mehano, Electrotren, Roco and LS Models have at various times produced Portuguese liveried versions of their French or Spanish Models. - PT Trains and a few others have produced wagons - Modelismo Artesanal produce Napoli metre gauge coach kits, will be producing the 9020 series metre gauge locos as RTR. They have previosuly produced the ME-07 railcars, and the series 9500 metre gauge modern railcars. They previously produced a kit for a Drasine (Wickham trolley equivalent) in Iberian gauge and the Iberian gauge Allan railcar. - On Shapeways Marketplace, there are kits for the 9020 locos, the 9000 locos (I think - listed under the Spanish FEVE) and the 9500 railcars, produced by tttrams as a seller these include bodie sides for the locos. I think he or she does them in HO, TT or N scales. Recreation 21 has the Nohab metre gauge railcars, and the 9630 2 car metre gauge DMUs as bodyshells, again in a range of scales. - Trenmilitaria produces the FEVE loco 1500 which became the CP 9020 - you would have to order plain bodies and paint them! For decals, Colorado Decals has traditionally produced the CP railway ones. There is nothing available for Carris. FInally, here's my printed rough test model of the Caixote with a Lisbon buddy. My layout is Spanish but assumes a Spanish tourist town has bought some Lisbon trams, as in La Coruna.

Just for those who are interested in modelling I thought I would post a list of resources. I will put this in the Overseas Modelling - Portugal secion as well. For Lisbon Trams: - Atlas Editions 4 wheeler - can be motorised more easily. Has trolley and panto on roof and Carris logos. More modern trucks. - Amarellis - we all know these! Sold branded with the Carris logo by the tram museum, and unbranded by souvenir shops. There is a seller on Ebay who sells reliveried ones with adverts, and also motorised ones as well. - Halling - produced several older models including with open platforms, semi-enclosed platforms, and full enclosed. - Modelismo Artesanale - produced a limited run of the single-direction box-shape Caixote trams - they have doors on one side only. These were also available as kits, but are long sold out. - Resin model of the bidirectional Caixotes, doors on both sides - https://scontent.ffab1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/325758493_840659440345311_8013902041169067125_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=p662fyvopc8Q7kNvgEhMs03&_nc_ht=scontent.ffab1-2.fna&oh=00_AfBmAf35LD_dWJiLrjNCwh9MD3U-ErswBN3sjQHCLtJZXg&oe=663D7A9F this seller on Facebook sells these, but you have to phone him!!! - 3D print files Cults 3D has downloadable files to do your own resin print. Search "1947 Lisbon" on their site. I've done a test print in plastic rather than resin, which is in my photo. - Buses: https://www.facebook.com/easytransportesminiaturas/?locale=pt_PT sells Carris liveried buses as Code 3 models (along with Porto ones too). - Tramads in the UK does four waterslide decals for the advert liveries for the 4 wheel trams. - Some years ago Halling produced some engineering test models for the Alicante version of the Lisbon Siemens Articulado tram. They were unmotored and liveried in the Spanish FGC livery. Only a handful were produced (I Have one set of bodyshells) but they may show up on sale someday. Buildings: - Modelismo Artesanale: A small number of village and railway buildings, but not really suitable for a city model. - Parvus.info : Spanish buildings which work well for Portuguese city buildings. - Sofgreen: A few building kits but mostly Porto types. - Maketforyou https://www.instagram.com/maketforyou1/?hl=en-gb a very boutique producer of high end buildings, a few of which work for a cityscape. - There is another supplier which I can now not find, who does a few building and scenic kits very specific to Portugal.EDIT - these guys https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063968326366&sk=photos - A few of the shops, Espacio Papel e Livraria in Lisbon, La Ferrovie De Paris, and Nettoys in Matosinhos near Porto, all do ocasional limited edition scenic models of things like kiosks and bus stops. Noch also do card scenic sheets of the Lisbon style Calcadas paving. - JG Modelismo is a niche supplier in Lisbon who occasionally stocks scenic items. Trains: - Norbrass and Sudexpress have produced Brass and Plastic, respectively, high quality RTR models of locos and passenger stock and freight stock in 16.5mm gauge. - Arlo Micromodel produce RTR locos, coaches, and kits and conversion items. - JG Modelismo has produced the Nohab 100 and 50 Iberian Gauge railcars and the refurbished Allan railcars as RTR - Mabar, Mehano, Electrotren, Roco and LS Models have at various times produced Portuguese liveried versions of their French or Spanish Models. - PT Trains and a few others have produced wagons - Modelismo Artesanal produce Napoli metre gauge coach kits, will be producing the 9020 series metre gauge locos as RTR. They have previosuly produced the ME-07 railcars, and the series 9500 metre gauge modern railcars. They previously produced a kit for a Drasine (Wickham trolley equivalent) in Iberian gauge and the Iberian gauge Allan railcar. - On Shapeways Marketplace, there are kits for the 9020 locos, the 9000 locos (I think - listed under the Spanish FEVE) and the 9500 railcars, produced by tttrams as a seller these include bodie sides for the locos. I think he or she does them in HO, TT or N scales. Recreation 21 has the Nohab metre gauge railcars, and the 9630 2 car metre gauge DMUs as bodyshells, again in a range of scales. - Trenmilitaria produces the FEVE loco 1500 which became the CP 9020 - you would have to order plain bodies and paint them! For decals, Colorado Decals has traditionally produced the CP railway ones. There is nothing available for Carris. FInally, here's my printed rough test model of the Caixote with a Lisbon buddy. My layout is Spanish but assumes a Spanish tourist town has bought some Lisbon trams, as in La Coruna. -

Hello - having tried various scale and gauge combinations for modelling Spanish and Portuguese Metre gauge, I kept coming back to the chassis and mechanisms being the driver. I did opt for HOm in these cases due to the availability of scenics but this has left me with a real cost issue in terms of mechanisms as some of the prototypes are quite long and a lot of the less complex TT mechs come out too small. In hindsight I could have gone for TTn3 instead which would have allowed me to use japanese mechs, bodies from TT scale 3D prints, and some wargaming buildings.

I haven't had time to read the thread and found it by accident. However just letting you know that I noticed the OO9 society had a "Barbados Railcar" in their secondhand sales at Narrow Gauge South. It appeared to be an assembled brass kit. It was a bit too chunky for my freelance layout but I had to google it when I got home hence ended up here. I am doubtful if it has sold so if of any use get in touch with them.

Not and never have been a TT modeller but I have variously looked at 1:120 scale with N gauge track for a European metre gauge prototype (finding scenics a challenge) and then settled on 1:87 scale with 12mm gauge track instead (better scenics, chassis challenges). I did see a TT 120 layout at the weekend (operating an A4, and a French diesel I think) and my main interest is in the use of the chassis. Economically, could Hornby have propped up the economic potential of the full RTR products by making the chassis available? Or even gone into this with some partnering of experienced 3D print producers to help develop 3rd party ranges that use some of the Hornby chassis (even selecting Hornby's choices with a strong influence on the potential to partner up). I am sure they spoke at length with Peco and Gaugemadter on the outset of this. I know little to nothing about the commercial aspects of this but have used many many 9mm Kato tram chassis and feel sure the profits from selling these far outweigh the sales of actual Kato trams. FInally - if I am diving into a new layout or project, you aren't going to get me buying a loco with nothing for it to drag. Even in cottage industry niche metre gauge Portuguese we've managed to get our supplier providing carriages and loco in the same year.....

I'm going to need to do something on my layout at the two spots indicated by the blue arrows. They are 3-point turn locations for the radio controlled bus and car respectively. Along the rest of the route there are buildings and foliage that will stop them going over the edge, but here I will probably need to pin some 1cm tall acrylic from packaging as a crash barrier. They may be come the smallest ever perspex fronts on a layout.....

I would right now love to be able to go on holiday there, only because I have yet to be able to find anywhere in London that can do decent Trinidadian rotis and Doubles as well as Singh's in Grand Cayman (the signs on the building are from a different Singh's though). I am ramping up the railcar fleet at the moment.... One I am working on is this one which is from two American schoolbuses spliced back to back with the front snout removed from each. I was going to cannibalise four in total (bought at £4 each) to create something 2-car, then realised how much these actually sell for on ebay, so am hoping the untouched pair sell on there in which case if the price is achieved it will fund cost of the whole conversion. This currently sits on a Kato 4 wheel chassis, a la Park Royal Railbus, and looks reasonable but I might try and find a Bo-Bo of the right length if I see one cheap. At the moment it's the only 2-axle railcar on the roster. The splicing went a bit wrong but a Class 58 diesel grille on each side hides the bodge. The Tomytec 2 car unit is a repaint of these: A better pic below on the old South American layout. The original is a single bubble car with a flat ended non-driving trailer, but the ends of each car unclip so if one end of each is swapped over, you end up with 2 identical cars. The single car is a repaint of one of these: it's in British Racing Green as a suggestion of an "old" livery. The Tomytec railcars are lovely models, and a single car can just about be gotten including motorised clip-in chassis for under £60 from Plaza Japan or Hobysearch. The paint compatibility seems to be variable - the cream with red stripe happily takes an overspray without stripping, but the light blue on the 2-car was not happy to be painted on at all. The Nohab is one of two bodies I bought for a Portuguese HOm layout. I am not totally happy with the shallow roof profile for that model so decided to move one across to this project. I have an old Kato bogie chassis for it to run on which is rather rubbish so looking to track down an N gauge Budd railcar or a Greenmax chassis for it. I am going to complete the fleet with a couple of articulated "Walker" type units from Tebee. Now that Tom is selling as digital downloads, it's better value than buying through Shapeways as , I've bought the print files and will use 2 driving cars and a central power/van car for each, but have these printed in the UK. This will sit on a Kato 109 chassis and just needs some Peco or Roco coach bogies to complete. As I already had three Kato 109s and coach bogies, this was the cheapest way to grow the fleet up to having 5 or 6 units to run, without spending too much more cash.

A bit of a necropost on this. I did see a front barrier system made using cardboard posting tubes. The plastic ends were glued onto the front and spray painted black. The tubes, painted a bright white, simply plugged onto these and had holes in the end through which the rope ran. Totally plug and play, 20 seconds to set up, and when removed the plug pieces were not noticeable.

So I feel rather intimidated posting my layout here seeing some of the well recognised names on here and also the achievements of some of the novices too, and among the threads of layouts I have followed for many years/ This effort was built in a few weeks, and is scenically 4 feet long, but here goes. I have been modelling since the 1980s but have been living between the UK and various overseas jobs since 2013. In most cases, modelling continued while abroad but layouts didn't make it home to the UK. I have never really got into narrow gauge until 2019 when I decided to have a try at building something small and ultra-portable while I was living in Bermuda. A couple of attempts at small OO9 and freelance lines were made, and I was then diverted into making an N gauge diorama of the Bermuda Railway and an N gauge Underground layout. Ultimately it came time for me to return to blighty and the OO9 affair, lovely as it was, it was the least progressed and was scrapped. But I found myself with a couple of railcars and a loco or two which came home. The N gauge layouts, incidentally, each being 21cm by 160cm, were designed to fit in Really useful boxes and came home in two 80cm x 30cm x 30cm holdalls holding 2 boards each. Aviation security at Bermuda LF Wade had no idea what was in the boxes so needless to say I had to go through and open them and scan them all after they'd been checked in. So I'm left with these railcars and a few buildings and bits, and come 2023 I am back in mainland UK again. I tried a couple of micro layout ideas with a South American twist but just couldn't get them to feel right. A house move last year led to them being scrapped but shortly after this, I was able to pick up a 4ft x 15 inch baseboard with a beautiful curved backscene. I wasn't looking for one but it was incredibly cheap and the seller was next door to my employer's head office where I had to visit anyway. So I picked it up one morning and loaded it into my Smart for Two (with just enough room to see the wing mirror and most of the passenger window. And then it promptly sat on its end in the hallway, unused for 10 months. During this time I'd added the odd OO9 item and had also been inspired by Rob Rossington's "Turtle Bay" and Charles Insley's "Fort Whiting". Earlier this month a massive mojo-flash hit. I decided I would have a crack at doing something British and island colonial and see if I could get the feeling a bit more right. Since 2016 I've lived in Malta, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the Channel Islands and in the early 2000s travelled to Gibraltar for work several times a year so surely I could try and recreate some of that vibe of being in Britain and not in Britain at the same time? Last year I also acquired a couple of 1:87 scale radio control road vehicles - a car and a bus, and with the railcars I had being Japanese Tomytec ones at 1:80, and a conversion of a Nohab Portuguese Metre Gauge bodyshell at 1:87, I estabished a rough scale protocol for the layout. Stock would be to HOe scale in either 1:87 or 1:80, although OO scale will be allowed if the prototype loading gauge was small. The layout would include minimal track, with signs of a rationalised track plan and be set in the 1970s or 1980s. Road vehicles were going to need to match the working RC ones at 1:87, so using American and European HO vehicles and some of the few British HO cars made as well. On a few islands, UK and USA car models do mix freely, and on the layout it's not immediately clear if the road are LHT or RHT. Buildings were a bit more of a challenge - I played around with some US outline buildings and also some more Spanish/Latin types but in the end used predominantly OO scale buildings which I already had, and a few second hand purchases. Star finds are the Dapol flat roof shop and flat (I will need to work on that at some point as I am not sure a flat roof works in hurricane territory) which is the Indian Trinidad Roti shop. The Skaledale cricket pavilion is Mis Lilly's Jerk shack. A Fair Price models house acts as an insurance office (I am least happy with this one and its days are numbered) and a couple of faourites are a swapmeet Pola bungalow that has been Caribbeanised (that was £2) and the bottom of an Artitec apartment building facade (I trod on the top half accidentally) which became the police station frontage. Road fixtures and fittings are mainly HO but there is some OO in there - I plan to replace those phone boxes and the post box at some point. So here it is - a really enjoyable build, taking OO9 in a slightly different direction, even if I am allowed to call it OO9. My next couple of builds will be stricter to real railways with accurate stock. But it's been great fun scavenging the bits for this layout, and learning to drive the radio controlled road vehicles takes the place of the loss of shunting.