autocoach

No...just Much More Muddeling...

Ahhhh...the daily puddle of little muddle...

I can imagine the inhabitants of Little Muddle are quite split over which of the two pubs are their "local". Obviously LM is not inhabited with many "teetotalers".

Look out for the Misty in the mist...what, no warning lamps lit? Is there a small motor on this vessel or is it just adrift in the mist with no one at the wheel? Am I getting all wet here?

A little kink in the tunnel and not enough that matters to bend the light at the end to get around it...

I don't see how he is doing that. The recoil was nasty When I went through US Army Advanced Infantry training in 1967 and qualified on the M60 we were never issued two M60's at a time unless one broke which was not unheard of with the training weapons. Also it was a two person fireteam weapon with the rounds in an ammo box fed by the gunner's assistant. Nato 7.62 rounds are heavy. We were trained to use it in fixed position defense. Not John Wayne style warfare. FYI I was lucky and spent 19 months in Germany defending the Fulda Gap against a Russian/Est German invasion. I never saw the M60 machine gun again. I did manage 3 trips to London to visit my grandmother and other family.

Maybe someone else has asked this but I am too lazy to look through the whole thread? Does it come with the headlight, bell, cowcatcher pilot and auxiliary tender used on 4472 in the US so we can run it back and forth on a layout of the San Francisco Belt Railroad as in 1973 with HO pullman livery coaches and an HO scale version of the Southern Belle #14 observation? I actually remember that episode in SF 4472 history which lasted several months but have never been able to find my photos from 1973 and digitize them...

There are currently two direct to locomotive US wireless systems on the market that can be installed on any DC or DCC locomotive brand: Blunami from Soundtraxx built on bluetooth and LocoFi built on WiFi 2.4 MHz home wifi systems. Blunami is the Soundtraxx acquisition of the BlueRail system also licensed by Bachmann USA. Originally IOS only , now available on Android. https://soundtraxx.com/blunami LocoFi (https://www.wifimodelrailroad.com/) currently is Android only and has the unique feature of using microSD card reader in the locomotive mounted receiver/decoder for non-proprietary sounds so you can download and install your own sounds as WAV files. Controller app is free download from Google Play Store. Currently only a diesel sounds version (stopped idling engine, accelerating/running engine, horn and bell) for US type diesel sounds but more complex steam sounds control software is in works. Consisting with multiple diesel engines included in latest version. The speaker is included on the decoder/receiver board. Hornby appears on the surface to be more of a proprietary solution. It could, however, be just a repackaged and licensed version of the Blunami system or Blue Rail system.

I have used Peco code 75 and even one code 100 train set curved turnout in my fiddle yard for a small US railroad layout. I modify the rail joiners with a bit of solder if the Peco transition tracks won't fit. Peco US Code 70 and Code 75 rail doesn't take much fiddling. I think there are also Peco Code 75 to code 100 transition rail joiners. A light coat of solder inside the smaller rail side of a joiner will also handle 70 or 75 to 83 and maintain electrical connectivity. True code 70 and 83 are HO scale and not much like older English model non-chaired prototype track (but then Code 75 streamline isn't really UK prototype anyway) but the usual "bury it deep in a bit of ballast" approach will solve most appearance problems. There are more problems if you mix with other US track brands, particularly Atlas and the new Walthers line of track that has a very non-prototypical rail profile.

He could turn to modeling the Chicago Great Western Railway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Great_Western_Railway) which was still extent in his 1938 time frame. Note use of 4-6-0 locomotive on passenger service. Signals are however upper quadrant.

On this the annual winter solstice day, the start of the new solar year, I wish you the best through until the next winter solstice day... From my sunny but chilly location in the former Spanish Colony of California...

Back from a visit to the former British Colony of East Florida (1763-1783)....

Welcome back...I have actually missed the absence of this annual poll. I wish we had a similar poll here in North America but there is no magazine or website with the authority to administer it. Maybe Rapido North America product development would undertake it as they seem to be the RTR focus in NA that covers the most of aspects of the N and HO markets. Unfortunately for me the regional concentrations of vocal modelers maps to the prevalence of basements in homes (the great swath of the midwest from theUS and Canadian Rockies to Ohio in the US and the northern Atlantic coast from Maryland to Nova Scotia.) In the Southern and Southwestern areas only pre WW2 housing normally have a basement. The traditional place for our medium to large layouts. Florida homes are anchored on concrete slabs (to keep them from floating away in nasty weather events.) Likewise in the Southwest from Texas to California where unless you are a USD multi-millionaire a basement is usually beyond your reach. Modelers also tend to follow the prototypes that exist or existed at one time of the regions they live in or at one time lived in. Of course there are exceptions and as the population moves around a lot. Oh well....I have a better chance of getting an new RTR version of a Southern Air Streamlined WC/BOB for my Padstow 1947 collection than I do of someone making a new accurate RTR replica of a Southern Pacific Mogul or Consolidation to populate the steaming ready track on my Port Costa 1950-54 tiny layout (Little Muddle is bigger.)

Orlando Florida forecast: Partly cloudy in the evening. Increasing clouds with periods of showers after midnight. Low around 55F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Sorry Old Dudders, Bruce Chubb's Sunset valley was based on the Southern Pacific line from Dunsmuir in far Northern California to Portland Oregon. Bruce did not model Walnut Creek. This is the Chubb Sunset Valley...gigantic and just plain enormous for a home layout by comparison to Little Muddle and my Port Costa (11x2.5 ft with a 3x1.5 fiddle yard extension.) Note the size of the people and number of operators. I've only seen it through the US model railroad magazines and most of the recent articles have focused on the electronics and control systems. This is the Model Railroader Magazine plan. You may need to magnify the image offline.

Wrong....

Just reminding myself that I have this topic still active on RMWEB. Lots of interesting new Southern (1947 era) coaches showing up for next year. Bachmann Bulleids and the EFE "cross country" sets to tempt me. But for now all my focus is on my HO Southern Pacific Port Costa 1950-54 layout, the Plastic Freight Car Builders group on groups.io and the efforts to modify a RTR Bachmann Baldwin 2-8-0 to serve as reasonable stand-ins for Southern Pacific consolidations on the ready track at Port Costa for helper service on eastbound freights up to the height of the Martinez bridge across the Carquinez strait. Small (only by US standards) 2-8-0's were used for helper service as they fit the Port Costa 70 foot turntable. Westbound the grade on the SP mainline to Sacramento was not steep enough to require helpers. They just ran in reverse back to Port Costa after dropping off the end of the train. The 2-8-0's and 2-6-0's were also used for local switching from the giant sugar refinery in Crockett 4 miles west of Port Costa as far east as the Port Chicago Military Terminal, Antioch (about 20 miles east on the San Joaquin valley line) and up and down the long gone San Ramon Valley branch line (including Walnut Creek where I live.) This is Port Costa in 1956, the last year of SP steam. The waters of the Carquinez Strait between the Sacramento River delta and San Francisco Bay in the background. This is my version looking east (the above photo looks west) that is very much a work in very slow progress. All structures are scratch built although many are still just mockups from cardboard with pasted on windows. By 1954 as shown on my layout, diesel switchers were beginning to appear. The big black object at lower left is a water tank (165,000 US gallons). The cluster of SP company buildings in the foreground are a telegraph and signal maintenance shop, water treatment plant, a section house which is lodging for single local railroad employees. Behind those are a rail speeder car shed for maintenance of wires and signals and maintenance of way speeders, the station, offices, and telegraph office, and Freight house. I'll describe the stand in for the turntable, yard tracks, and the round house along with its outbuildings in another post.

Try a diluted India Ink or dark wash on the white lamps...I've used Vallejo 74.517 Dark Grey Wash for some white window sashes lately to tone down the white to more weathered look with dirt in the nooks and crannies.

This topic is for the birds...

If only nature worked that fast...

Free Association on a Saturday morning... "We are poor little lambs who have gone astray...baa...baa...baa" (traditional Harvard Whiffenpoofs song)

Drums along the Danube in 1938...

Very nice colour for the interior floor planking. I always enjoyed building Cambrian kits when I was modeling Padstow and before that Brixham. I still have a few sitting in my English (SR and GWR) prototype to be built if ever I get in an English mood. I also have some early 2000's era Coopercraft and Parkside kits.

Oxford Miniatures has some rather neat looking motorcycles with sidecars...inexpensive too. https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/products/bsa-motorcycle-sidecar-aa-76bsa001

The GWR might be missing a lantern....