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Walthers - 2022 Name Train For 2022 the City of San Francisco is the chosen train. https://www.walthers.com/products/name-trains/city-of-san-francisco

And with all the passengers with access to social media to complain about the disruption in real time...

Kato - September 2022 announcements. new release of ES44 "GEVO" engines - FEC new paint scheme, new runs of UP, BNSF, CSX, CP and CN https://katousa.com/N-ES44AC/ The CB&Q "Silver Streak Zephyr" will be re-released, available January 2023 https://katousa.com/n-silverstreak/

Bored at the moment so spent some time on Google... Cooperstown NY - Home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. The pictured bakery was founded in 1887. Town was founded by the father of James Fenimore Cooper, author of "Last of the Mohicans" Ellicottville NY, almost due south of Buffalo NY.

On the other hand the modern efficient rail network means the routes available are constrained to rather predictable choices increasing the security risk/hassle. Most of the other advantages can be done using a hotel suite/floor/etc. The train, much like the former yacht, is a part of the past that doesn't really fit into the modern world for travel planning for the royals.

Tentative deal reached. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62908922

Anyone who stocks any Athearn stuff should be able to order whatever you want (assuming it is still available) - it will just be a matter of finding a retailer you like and making the specific request of the item you want (for best results use the item number provided by Athearn). Rails of Sheffield has posted in the past in this section about stocking and ordering US stuff but there will be other options that may be more to your liking.

2 unions (representing engineers and conductors) will be able to strike Friday. As a result Amtrak has started suspending all services that operate on the freight railroads (essentially everything outside the Northeast Corridor) so they have no trains get stranded Friday. There is a lot of pressure on the US Government to prevent a strike. Amtrak story - https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/amtrak-cancels-all-long-distance-service-nationwide-over-looming-rail-strike/3865423/ Strike story - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/how-a-nationwide-rail-strike-could-impact-consumers-businesses

Model Railroad Hobbyist - August 2022 MRH website this month: Repurposed passenger stations,... What's Neat: Trevor Jones' layout interview,... Electrical Impulses: The diode matrix revisited The tale of two locomotives Lilacs, crepe myrtles, and roses First Look: Spring Mills Depot DODX flat car https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/mrh-202208-aug-2022-12424313

Kadee - September 2022 car PS-2 2-Bay Covered Hopper - Minneapolis & St Louis (1956 as built) https://www.kadee.com/shop-by-category/freight-cars/ho-scale-rtr-cars/8343-ho-scale-minneapolis-st-louis-70351-rtr-ps-2-two-bay-hopper

Small branchline or switching layouts are far more popular than media like Model Railroader would make one believe. A comment on a statement from your blog regarding only NYCRR rolling stock. While NYCRR stock would likely dominate even a branchline would get rolling stock from other railroads as the freight cars were interchanged widely even back then. So feel free to add other equipment if it catches your interest.

That can be part of it, though geography also plays a part. The CP Historical Society has a number of track layouts from the Canadian Prairies and they are all very similar - straight piece of mainline with one or 2 often long sidings serving 1 or more grain elevators plus the freight house and team track. It's obvious in many cases that the grain elevators were the first substantial buildings in the area and thus a town grew up around that. But the geography for laying a railroad was also on the easy side so long straight sections of track were both possible and preferable. In the east (or parts of the west coast) where the populations already existed the railroads would attempt to service the towns along the route. But they were frequently constrained by the geography of elevation, rivers, etc which meant the tracks often weren't in a straight line and often thus meant that a town's station was located outside of the town - sometimes maybe a km away.

F-UnitMad pretty much covered it - space limitations. We don't have the depth to our layouts to allow for sidings that meander around the local geography nor the length to allow those sidings to get where they want to go. So out of necessity we do things roughly parallel with the main line with as short of a siding as we can get away with. That said the railroads also would have preferred things closer to what we model as every extra length of a siding was an additional cost to install and then maintain - which in places like upper New York State will potentially include snow removal for part of the year. This actually would have generally been the case - the only businesses that would get dedicated sidings would be those which generated a lot of carloads that would in turn justify the cost of the siding - and of course to generate that much traffic means a much more substantial business with a larger building that often really doesn't fit along the railroad's right of way. Also, in some cases the industry would either pre-date the railroad or have another need that dictated location - like be next to a river with sufficient vertical drop to allow a waterwheel to power machinery. So in addition to your team track there would be the freight house where shipments were concentrated/dispersed from/to local businesses. There would potentially be the shared livestock pens. etc. These all would generally be parallel sidings. Many intermediate stations on a line, lacking significant industry, would just be 1 siding where the freight house's boxcar and any other freight cars for loading/unloading out in the open would be left - and this generally would parallel the main.

No NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigation - https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/Investigations.aspx In most cases the biggest impediment to the restoration of service will be an official government investigation into the cause of the incident - no official investigation means the work can start immediately on cleaning up the mess and restoring the track. As for the railroad doing an investigation - maybe? But when the industry averages 4.6 derailments a day that is a pretty good indicator that they simply view it as part of the cost of doing business.

Would it? It took them about 4 days to replace a short section of track and put in place a new small bridge - not to knock the effort that it took but that isn't the same as replacing a section of track that has been washed out or seen it's entire sub-base compromised let alone something like Dawlish. But the key point is no investigation into the cause of the derailment so no delays from getting investigators to the site followed by their need to document everything. That apparently is an acceptable trade-off in the US where 1,700 derailments a year (and about 4 deaths per year) is viewed as acceptable. https://thehill.com/homenews/3539221-how-often-do-trains-derail-more-than-you-think/

Aurora Miniatures has announced 2 new freight cars on Facebook (not yet on their webpage). NEW - NSC 3650 66' railgon - GNTX, data-only - eta Summer 2013 NEW - Gunderson 6276 cf 50' High-Cube Boxcar (2004+) - AOK, BKTY (UP), COER, FBOX (TTX Company), IC (Canadian National), UCRY - eta Summer 2013

Otter Valley Railroad (Ontario based retailer) has announced 3 freight car models on Facebook. NEW - FCA 100 ton 52' Bulkhead flatcar with stanchions - DWC/CN and CWLX (used for pipeload service 2013+) NEW - NSC 6400 cuft scrap & trash gondola - IWXX, OAKX, WINX, OFOX, AIMX, CDEX NEW - NSC 6000 cuft scrap gondola - AIMX, NMPX, IMRX, TLPX http://www.ovrtrains.com/OVRTRAINS-Private-Label/

Tangent Scale Models NEW - PRR Samuel Rea Shops G41A Coil Steel Gondola - PRR "G41A Delivery 1966", PC "G41A Repaint 1973", CR "G41A Repaint 1976", CR "G41A Repaint 1997", NS "GP67 Repaint 2005+" Also alternate hoods and new coil loads (5 different sizes) are available https://www.tangentscalemodels.com/prr-samuel-rea-shops-g41a-coil-steel-gondola/

Flanker Press Trains of Newfoundland - available in either softcover or hardcover Softcover: https://www.flankerpress.com/product/trains-of-newfoundland-softcover Hardcover: https://www.flankerpress.com/product/trains-of-newfoundland-hardcover Description from publisher:

Called a "wye" in North American railroading in case that helps anyone attempting a online search. North American railroads didn't go for tank engines in the steam era for the most part and thus it was very common for any end of line location to either have a wye or a turntable to rotate the engine if it was any distance away from a junction. While these aren't NYC (they are Canadian Pacific in southern Ontario) they may help. All 3 started out with turntables - though Walkerton's was located across the river. http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR_Bruce/map_Elora_1949.jpg http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR_Bruce/map_Teeswater.jpg http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR_Bruce/walkerton_plan.jpg And a blog post where someone has done layout plans based on 2 of the above.

They are, though Rapido will be doing them to run on standard HO track. Also note that it is a conditional announcement and the decision to proceed or cancel will be made after the order deadline of January 16th 2023 - anyone ordering before that date gets a 5% discount.

Rapido Trains NEW - Conditional - BART (Bay Area Rapido Transit) legacy fleet (February 9th - Rapido announced project going ahead) https://files.constantcontact.com/b02e8bb6001/ff4e83b9-a9f8-4a1f-9793-c401cbb7ebd1.pdf https://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale/complete-train/bay-area-rapid-transit.html Upgraded - Budd Coaches - order deadline January 16th 2023 - CP Rail (2), VIA Rail (several), painted undecorated https://files.constantcontact.com/b02e8bb6001/4edb784b-c1ce-4e6c-a203-97fcb2bf09ed.pdf https://rapidotrains.com/ho-scale/passenger-car/budd-coach.html

The ultimate goal of any hobby is to have fun, something that many of us in model railroading with the trend to absolute accuracy seem to have forgotten. It is good to see examples like this thread of people who haven't forgotten that and appear to be having fun by recreating a representation of what interests them using what is readily available.

As a kid my brother and I visited relatives in Fort Lauderdale around 1980-ish, at that time the public were offered tours of some of the Navy ships and so that is one of the activities we did. Interestingly they appear to still offer tours though you now need to schedule things in advance. See https://www.airlant.usff.navy.mil/Tour-Requests/ as one example.

Walthers - September 2022 Proto - EMD SW9/SW900/SW1200 - Expected Spring 2023 - C&O, GTW, LV, SOO, MKT, Milwaukee, SP, TH&B Proto - 40' Ortner 100-ton Open Aggregate Hopper - expected Fall 2022 - Algoma Central, Blue Circle Cement, CSX, FEC, NS, SP Mainline - 85' General American G85 Flatcar - expected Winter 2023 - SF, PC, GTTX, TTX 53' Reefer Container - expected Winter 2023 - Axsun, CN, CP, Cool Train, Hub Group, JB Hunt, Marten, Tiger Cool SceneMaster - Stop Signs - expected Winter 2023 - 10 per set, available Yellow/Black (1924-1954) or Red/White (1954+) Cornerstone - NEW - expected Winter 2023 - Colonial House Kit - Executive House Kit trains.walthers.com/hubfs/Videos/New%20Product%20Express/SEPTEMBER%202022%20Walthers%20New%20Product%20Announcement.pdf