britishcolumbian

The windows of the E-Jets remind me of DC-8 windows.

I have a pre-SNCF steam locomotive (BR 38, in État livery) which was produced by Beckmann RTR some fair few years ago. Tillig and previously BTTB did an SNCF version of the V36, and I'm fairly sure Tillig has done some very recent/present day French motive power, too. Oh and there was a short-run production of a Michelin railcar by (IIRC) Union-TT, I think it was a resin body. And of course the various wagons you mention, BTTB also did some ex-Prussian passenger stock in post-war SNCF lettering, though I don't know about the accuracy of those. Here's a link to a post with a pic of the État locomotive:

I agree, mostly. That's why I keep thinking MTB might be first, as they regularly release toolings that are fairly unique to "small markets", such as Hungarian and Romanian locomotives... which is why I think they might go for one of the British types operated by private railway companies in Hungary/Poland/Romania. Primarily for those markets, with British livery sales as a bonus...

I have a small DR railbus from Kres (VT 135 IIRC), which I've measured up and will be ordering an AC Railbus body from Lincoln Loco once I get back to Canada, as the Kres railbus will fit.

Also, Piko - at least in HO - are willing to do models unique to small markets, like the Hungarian class V43 electric they just recently released in HO. There's some small hope they'll do one in TT eventually, too... so I'd agree Piko is a better candidate for entry into UK market TT than Tillig. Along with MTB, but I've said that one before.

I did briefly experiment with P87 wheels for TT, but ended up not going anywhere with it.

No. However, a friend of mine (the one mentioned who did fish and spoked speeder wheels in 1:160) did build som P:120 track and turned some wheels, as an experiment to see if it would work, before moving on to trying P:160. It works, and it is doable, but would require *extreme* precision in track laying, even more than P:87. There's absolutely no commercial support for P:120.

Yes, you're right about the proportion in terms of the numbers, barely 1:5 larger. But as the photo shows, it is still noticeably larger. The technical details of the 08s are a thing, yeah, but they're rather secondary to the point that I'm trying to make, which is specifically about the scale itself. Having also experience with Japanese N gauge, I can say that in my experience, shunting ops are definitely easier with TT than with N, and since Japanese N is 1:150, that will hold true for British N as well, since the difference between Japanese and British is negligible. The quality of trackage of course plays a role, but that's independent of scale, as is, to some extent, the choice of coupler: the Dapol Easi-Shunts are just as easy to use with TT equipment as with N, since they plug right into the NEM pockets; I concur that the Tillig couplers are less than optimal for shunting, but they're superb for passenger stock that's seldom uncoupled. I've experimented with the Dapol couplers for North American TT as they do have a passing resemblance to the AAR coupler, and though I decided I prefer the Micro-Trains N scale coupler for NA TT, I'm still seriously considering using the Dapols for my Hungarian freight equipment, as well as the British. So, there's no advantage to either scale on either of those fronts.

I suspect the Class 66 is showing the path that Hornby are likely to take, in that any such dual-use models, if in Continental livery, will be marketed under the Arnold branding.

Of course, anything that HO/OO is too big for, N will do better than TT by virtue of being smaller. And it's not a "bit" bigger, but significantly so (okay not quite halfway between 1:148 and 1:76, but it is bang-on halfway between 1:160 and 1:87)... I understand that you're arguing from a point of defending N scale, but no, I will argue that for actual operations, shunting etc, TT is a much better option than N, exactly because of its size. You *can* do it in N, but you can do it *better*, and more easily, in TT. IMO N is best suited for situations where you want to reproduce sweeping views with good depth of scene, such as the British Columbia Rockies. I suppose N would also size-wise be best for reproducing a vast industrial complex with dozens of miles of trackage inside, but operationally it'd be suboptimal...

This is also true. They successfully sent even Roco packing, the first time Roco tried getting into TT, and previous attempts at establishing anything more than a cottage-industry-level production were all gobbled up by Tillig (JATT etc). They tried it with Kuehn, too, but Herr Kuehn held out, and then Piko came in, who are bigger than Tillig and more committed to the scale than Roco seem to be, so now Roco's back in as well, and there's finally actual competition. If British outline TT is a success, well Tillig of course won't try buying Hornby, but they may step in to try to get a chunk of the market for themselves. Conversely if Hornby decides to cut TT:120 loose, an established Continental manufacturer might buy the tooling as a source of extra revenue, surely the British TT:120 market is already big enough to be the equal of say the Romanian or even Hungarian markets, for which models are produced...

Commission... possibly; they did produce a Nohab in New York Central livery (as an aside, this really irritated me), apparently by commission to someone. They also do exclusive runs for various large distributors sometimes... but the caveat here is that these were all livery variations. In the long past they did do a very small run of something that wanted to be an EMD FP9 based on an existing chassis, but I think the body was a resin casting provided by the commissioner. MTB are far more open to commissions.

British literature: I will die for the King French literature: I will die for love American literature: I will die for freedom Russian literature: I will die

The only Russian novel I could finish was Crime and Punishment. Tried W&P and Anna Karenina, but couldn't finish either of them.

I've seen Proto:160 done successfully, as an experiment; I've seen fish made in 1:160, and spoked wheels on a (non-powered) track speeder... yeah: extreme detail is doable in N. If you're as... committed, let's say, as the gentleman in question who did these things. Is that practical for most modellers? No. Have you ever seen those videos of this guy who has a miniature (dollhouse sized) fully working kitchen, and he makes real food in it, in dollhouse-sized portions? Yeah... that's doable too. But not practicable. TT's forte really is that it can do the things that N can do but HO/OO cannot because it's small enough, and it can do all the things OO/HO can do but N cannot, because it's big enough. *That* is the point.

No. It's out of the bag, it's here to stay as long as model railways are a thing. Why? If your assumption were true, North American outline TT would've died out in the 1960s... and yet it stuck around for decades as a very niche thing, and now it's having a resurgence. And NA TT survived without the benefit of 3D printing and such. UK TT:120 is here to stay... the only question is, will it become bigger and continue to enjoy RTR support, or will it become a niche thing like NA TT or TT3.

Those would all be very welcome in North American TT circles. SD7/SD9, SD35 in particular, as there are quite a few people interested in the Southern Pacific who are into TT.

I'd bet on MTB, too: they're also the only ones so far willing to jump in with models of relatively limited appeal, such as Romanian and Hungarian diesels that only operate(d) in Romania and Hungary (well, the Hungarian one was also exported to Greece, but)... and yeah they've just done a new run of the SW1200, so I think they might well be the next one - especially if someone in the UK approaches them (that's how the SW1200 came about, and I think that was also the way the Hungarian M41 emerged)

But, others have reported good interactions with him (Art+Detail), so I don't know. Your call... but I won't deal directly with him, which is unfortunate since he does have some interesting things from time to time and tends to focus on Canadian subjects.

I paid a 50% deposit (250 Euro) for an SD45 RTR (built and painted) from Art+Detail using the Norkin etch and then never heard back about it... still sour about that.

Okay so here are my experiences: I favour the MicroTrains N scale couplers on my North American equipment, as they are reasonably close to scale size in TT. But on some items I received them with Kadee HOn3 couplers fitted - which are oversize, but do couple up well with the MT couplers, so it was never a rush to replace them. No need to make any changes to the MT coupler, either, we've never really had any problem with those on the TT-Tracks displays at shows in Vancouver and environs (unlike the Tillig ones, which are sensitive to unevenness in the track unless very precisely aligned for height). I did experiment with the Dapol couplers when I made a North Korean M62. They easily went in to the NEM pocket of course, but as such were too low to couple up with NA stock with couplers at the correct height... which threw out the idea of easily doing something Cuban or South Korean out the window. But if mounted at the right height, they would (better: should) couple up with MT/Kadee couplers, too.

This is absolutely phenomenal work! And I love the choice of subject, as I'm a fan of modelling "off the beaten track"! I have to say that having read your concern about the brightness of colours of buildings clashing with the backdrop, I think this photo shows that it's perfect, artistically - the colourful buildings where the sun is coming through, and the dark clouds over the Green Line area, I think it perfect both visually and metaphorically.

Yeah I know of such companies in Japan, that I've used when buying Japanese trains from Japanese auction sites... I'll look around for something in the UK.

It's mindboggling that they can't use a shopping cart system to combine everything in to a single shipment... other online retailers will even hold a shipment until everything you've ordered can go in a single package, if you want. But imagine three tank cars, each in its own shipment, to Canada each one is going to cost more in shipping than the car itself...

Sounds like we need to rebuild the East of Suez empire so we can all get our trains on time!