britishcolumbian

I can't remember the name of the manufacturer off hand, but a small-series producer did a batch of those Interfrigo refrigerators in the late 90s or early 2000s... best of luck finding one now, though. A new version would be welcome though, for sure.

I absolutely love these competitions, I hope the Club World Cup will one day really get properly noticed around the world!

No, I mean like, nanometre precision. You'll definitely want one of these height gauges: https://www.modellbahn-hobbyshop.de/en/Hoehenlehre-fuer-Kurzkupplungseinbau--TT https://www.sd-modell.com/product/hoehenlehre/

This happens often enough with Tillig-style couplings. The key thing is that you have to make sure they are precisely aligned for height. Once that's done, they're good.

Look forward to seeing your works! And thanks for sharing that link, definitely a good number of items there for a mid/late 60s scene!

I still have a feeling we may see something from MTB - something that could suit both the Continental and British market. Since it won't be a Class 66, maybe it'll be the first British electric in 1:120...

There is also the 36' Dominion boxcars and stock cars, too, and a 36' reefer. My only issue with the Canadian covered hopper that's available is that it's a rarer type, there are other prototypes that would've been better to model first. Anyways to get back to my main point, though, is that if one does some research for specific locations, something fairly accurate to *somewhere* in North America can be done in TT relatively easily.

Also I do believe Possum Valley did a 50' car, possibly two, but I don't recall - at the time they were still available, I was more interested in the late 1940s/early 1950s.

50' PS-1 is forthcoming... not sure when, but it's coming, from Zeuke. However, that said... there were still *lots* of 40' cars still around in regular service in the late 60s/early 70s, it all very much depends on the region. Of course a lot of mainline service will be 50 footers, say on the SP Coast Line with auto parts cars. But Canada for example was lousy with 40 footers well into the 80s, I even remember seeing them in the 90s (Canada still had a lot of 36' Dominion boxcars in use to the late 70s and even into the early 80s). Repaint some SW1200s into CN green and keep one fresh in the Lazy 3 livery and you're good to go with what we've got available now... One could argue that NorAm TT is better for modelling Canadian subjects, than American... which is helped by the fact that several of the small-series producers in Germany are modelling the Canadian scene themselves...

I wouldn't say that. You could fairly comfortably do a small layout set in the late 1960s or early 1970s set in an industrial/warehouse area without much problem. The only real difficulty is the caboose, since those were fairly railway-specific... but there are some available, for example Southern Pacific, Canadian National, and Pennsy outline. The offerings *are* limited, but the situation isn't nearly as bleak as you're presenting it to be. It has grown a lot since I first got into NorAm outline TT in the noughties.

After Achimota, the train passes through halts at Abelemkpe (1.3 miles from Achimota) and Airport Halt (about 3.5 miles from Achimota), then crossing Liberation Road, passing Kotoka International Airport and its high-end residential neighbourhood, and arriving at Batchona Station at 18:27 (three minutes early) - by which time it is pitch black: the sun rises here aaround 5 am, and at 6 pm it's dark, every day; the difference between the longest and shortest days is half an hour. Next stop, Addogonna Halt, about 9.5 miles east of Achimota; the halt is situated such that the stopped train blocks the level crossing. There are no platforms at these halts; rather, there are permanently-positioned metal staircases, each about 5 feet wide, which provide a means of getting up to the high doors on the coaches. After passing through Nungua Barrier Halt (about 10.6 miles from Achimota) we reach Asoprochona Station at 18:47, still three minutes early, about 12.1 miles east of Achimota. Like Batchona, Asoprochona is a simple passing loop. East of here the line runs along the seaside, passing beside Sakumono Beach on its way to Tema. After passing by the large and modern-looking Tema port facilities, we passed by the engine shops at Tema Harbour Station, still a few minutes early; you can see another GT18 inside the shed, and at the other side I noted the parked DMU, but couldn't get a shot at speed. According to the timetable the train should continue on to a halt at Tema Fishing Harbour and the terminus station in Community 1 (18.6 miles from Achimota, 23 route-miles from Accra), but the train terminated here at Tema. I noted with interest that this area looks quite modern, the tracks here are all looking quite fresh and relaid with concrete sleepers. I didn't get any pictures because it was too dark, but I'm hoping to go back next Friday early enough to catch the 0630 departure from Tema to Accra, to get a few pics around Tema and see the line in its entirety in daylight.

I think so, I think they were kinda like Yugoslavia and got stuff from wherever they could, saying the right things to each side to get stuff, but not actually committing to either side.

Here's a short video of the train as it's running towards the station exit: As you can see, most of the station area has been taken over by city sprawl - mostly entrepreneurs running street stalls: this is where they come to wash second-hand clothing before reselling them, laying them out to dry on the tracks. A view up the train as it departs Odaw Station, the only station between Accra and Achimota (the station building and platform is on the other side of the train), about 1.6 miles from Accra Station. Much of the way up to Achimota looks like this along the tracks - a plethora of small shops and shantytowns. Just to the east across the overpass is Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Achimota Station is about 4.5 miles north of Accra Station, and is the junction between the mainline that runs north to Kumasi and the branch west to the port of Tema. The train stops here, then the locomotive, which runs long hood forwards out of Accra to here, runs around the train and connects to the other end, to run cab-end forwards the rest of the way to Tema. Leaving Achimota, the train backs up a ways northwards, to move onto the line to Tema; here we're at the north end of the yard and moving to the westmost track, which is the line to Tema.

The train's consist was made up of four bogie coaches, three second-class and one first class. All of the coaching stock was built in East Germany between 1985 and 1990. The three second-class coaches are from a batch of 63 built at Bautzen (1985-86) and Görlitz (1990) and numbered 801-863. They have six-abreast seating and 93 seats. I didn't get an outside shot of the first-class coach, but it was number 1111, one of twelve 56-seat coaches built at Bautzen in 1987. The faux-leather chairs are actually quite comfortable, and fitted with airliner-style folding tables on each seat back. Parked adjacent was still the same coach seen in the first post in this thread - one of thirty second class brake/luggage combines numbered 901-930 built at Bautzen in 1987.

Finally made a trip happen yesterday on the Accra-Tema line. There are two trains in the day, the morning run from Tema to Accra leaving at 0630, and the evening run departing Accra at 1740. I took the evening train, arriving at the station well ahead of time. I had been expecting the train to be running the DMU that Ghana Railways bought about a decade ago, but I was told by a railwayman that it proved unreliable and is now parked at the shed in Tema out of service, so they're using loco-hauled coaching stock. Hauling our train today was engine 1679, one of fourteen EMD GT18-LC2 C-C diesel-electrics built for GR by GMD in London, Ontario in 1996. (tbc)

I saw someone do it with a workaround in which the speaker was in a covered van coupled behind the engine, but IMO that's hardly ideal for a dedicated shunting machine.

TTj (1:120 on 9mm track) is also a thing, although very niche and very expensive - Tenshodo did a D51 in the late 1990s and were asking around C$3000 for it back then. Currently I only know of a small number of kits.

Well, the vast majority is German... there *is* a decent supply of Czech/Slovak offerings, but not close to the variety of German outline stuff available (which, largely, I find boring). Hungarian and Polish subjects are pretty much an afterthought

This has caused me any amount of grief in trying to plan trackage for module sections...

I found this on the German TT forum: ...with part numbers for the track with concrete sleepers. I agree, though, that this is a strange system - I can't make its logic fit into my brain.

If that's most important for you, go for Z... but anything smaller than TT is just too small IMO: the focus is no longer the trains, but the scenery; the trains are just a part of the scenery.

Well I'll be here for the better part of a year so hopefully I'll have more pics in the fullness of time. Parts of Accra are modern and very nice, other parts not so much. Per my understanding there's little rail traffic in the Accra area, but more in the west along the line from Takoradi, where there is also some freight work still happening, but most of the network is out of use. According to Ghana Railways they have plans to refurbish the line all the way Accra - Kumasi - Takoradi and perhaps convert it to standard gauge, but if that happens it'll probably be long after I've left.

So, now I'm in Accra for (almost) a year... there isn't much railway activity, as most of the network is out of service. There are only three passenger services operational right now, two out west centred on Takoradi, and one that runs between Accra and Tema, twentyish miles apart, leaving Tema at 06.30, taking about an hour to get to Accra, and returning at 17:30, Monday to Friday. I didn't know about the weekday-only thing until I went by Accra Station today, so haven't yet had the chance to ride the train, but did grab two pictures. Mostly it's been taken over by markets/sellers, and the old coach in the picture is now a residence...

Probably not Roco, but MTB or maybe Piko...

From a Continental manufacturer, if we see something UK outline, I'd expect it to be more likely to be something that also runs on the Continent, so it would be just a matter of paint variations, rather than new tooling specific to the UK. At least, I'd expect the first UK outline release from over there to be something like that, and if it sells well in the UK, perhaps they'd then go for something UK-only.