Dr Gerbil-Fritters

Pity. Kennecot Copper was a very distinctive outfit. I caught up with one of their GP39s on the Copper Basin RR, although the high level cab was long gone. Former KCRR #796, now CBRY #502 and this is what it would have looked like originally... as I said, a very distinctive railroad.

Indeed... I can't believe it's been two and a half years since I was in Plattling. That was the last time I went to Germany in fact. So much has changed since then, and not for the better. Anyway, here's a couple of shots I took that day. The weather was awful - freezing cold and heavy rain. I had to shelter in the station cafe a lot...

It's not a turbine electric, but might give some suggestions to a turbine that was designed for coal hauling and was successful...

...especially now that the Saint class is no longer extinct!

Hmmmm....

Back in 2005 I was passing Pinal Feeding on the road to Maricopa, Az and saw a bulk grain in for unloading. It had three units up front, three in the middle and two at the rear. There was no crew on board that i could see, but every few minutes the units would rev up, move one car forward, and go back to idle. I have no idea how this was done, the units weren't RCU in the normal sense. Anyway, I suppose that at approx 24,000hp that's the biggest industrial switcher I've seen!

2400hp....almost a class 45 rather than a 350hp 08! Not really critters, to be pedantic. Much too big and all ex-mainline types. Critters are the 44 tonners and other daft contraptions by Davenport and the like. Biggest industry switcher I've seen is WRIX2490, the 3000hp SD40T-2 that Cargill operate at Verdemont, Ca... foot of the Cajon Pass. I've never managed to phot it though, always buried behind fleets of grain hoppers whenever I passed by.

To be fair, the Nimrod was based on the Comet 4C airframe dating from the late 50s early 60s. In fact, the first two were based on unfinished 4C airframes. UK aerospace was, at that time, notoriously set up as a number of small manufacturers almost like cottage industries utilising extensive hand building and finishing. This was a peculiarity of the UK aerospace industry, and caused no end of problems. It was certainly no match for the precision and mass-production of the US industry at the time. If you would like to know more about just how poor the UK aerospace industry was in the post-war years, I can highly recommend 'Empire of the Clouds', by James Hamilton-Paterson, a very good corrective for the disease of Spitfire Induced English Exceptionalism...

CN/CP KCS is another depressing merger. I forget which one has snaffled KCS... is it CP? And all the shortlines belong to the G&W orange conglomerate... Ho ho bloody ho merry christmas

Or, one reason I lost interest in US railroading (three others being PSR, dominance of intermodal and modern motive power...) I can't recall where I found this, and it's by no means comprehensive. But it does give an idea of the lessening variety of US railroading during my life time. It's not just lines on a chart, every road that disappears is an end to distinctive paint schemes, operating practices, locomotive types, traffic, and so on. I was a very lucky boy that I saw as much variety as I did in the early 2000s before the slump hit. I know there are lots of little short lines, and so on - but I'm a mainline man. And I still miss the Espee and the Santa Fe every time I go out west... Cheer up, it's nearly Christmas.

You could try applying the patented LNER4479 Grant Ham bending process to Peco long points... it will give you gentler radii on the inside of the curved turnous and help avoid the dogleg into the crossing you'll get using the Peco standard Ys, and consistent turnout lengths which always looks smart I think.

I reckon I'm about 20 minutes behind you on that score. Another 'reorganisation' imminent at work. It's what bosses do instead of fixing problems.

So let's see... at the top we've got the lines coming in from New Jersey. Then some Broad Gauge lines... At the bottom we've got a Broad Gauge Under Ground Line, and some more Broad Gauge. I think I've got that right.

Wow! Czech locomotives really are the oddest looking beasts. What's the rationale for their quaint looks? Gerry Anderson wasn't the CME by any chance?

I believe a Mr Jenkinson of Marthwaite had a rather nice branch terminus at one time, with a small twig leading to a tiny station with a limestone loader. Small pax shuttle, (1P and a push/pull coach I recall) and decent freight traffic ensued.

I suspect many crews would still prefer a brain in a caboose to be minding their safety

I'm blaming LNER4479, aka Mr Grant Ham for this...

1) because it's Hornby QC 2) probably assembled on a Friday afternoon...

Please read the following in a Saxon accent... Yes. It vill be good for you. Also, it is 1hr 2mins of only one class of wirescrapenloks. I will find more hours of more wiresccrapenloks, and you vill be wery pleased.

Smashing old Jouef stuff. Still fiddling about. Not much time in the shed of late...

Ooof! Such irreverence! You can go off people you know!! On the left, definitive DR 15kV elok - class E11, built LEW Hennigsdorf from 1961. This one is in the beautiful DR claret livery, but numbered as a DB unit.... out of service since 1998. In the middle the definitive TEE locomotive, the magnificent E03 (you missed photting one still in service at Munich, how very dare you!) Original built in 1965, production units from 1970. 12,000hp of elegance, 103 003 achieved 285kph in 1985 (a record broken by a Eurosprinter at 310kph in 1993) This one is in a very silly livery. On the right, a class E41 - from the very first class of Einheits-Elektrolokomotive from 1956. Nicknamed Knallfrosch (firecracker) because of the noise they make. This one's preserved in a special experimental S-Bahn scheme. These days I find myself more interested in the eloks than in the dampfloks.

I think you'll find that China has ways of persuading its population to work hard. And their education system is developing and expanding rapidly, especially in high-end HE. I've seen it first hand.

The Thai HS lines are all standard gauge... Sino-Thai perhaps would be more accurate. Didn't they offer to build ours for a small fee at one point? They obviously don't own the right pubs, go to the right gentlemen's clubs, or attend the right schools... if they did they would have got the contract.