autocoach

I have just edited my previous post to correct an miss understanding. To my knowledge there is no US Code 100 line with US geometry. The "universal" streamline code 100 has been sold widely in the US. Anything is better than the Atlas track whatever code rail it has. Does not look anything other than a plastic version of a tinplate toy train turnout. I will have to dig down into my old track bin to find the Finescale Code 75 Unifrog. Will post pic when I find it.

As the OP who models both UK and US prototypes let me make one comment about the Code 83 track geometry. It is not the same geometry as the Peco Streamline range geometry as it was developed for the North American market to NMRA standards. I have both as on hand as I used the code 100 Streamline range for many years on my now defunct UK layout. The frog geometry of the US Code 83 and 70 is based on an angle not a radius as in the UK as an angle number is the standard for North American prototype. The higher the number, the lower degree of the angle. Peco markets the Code 83 in North America using only the frog number such as #5, #6 and #8. They do not have a standardized geometry frog. The curved turnouts maybe a fudge but the straight turnouts appear to reflect the appropriate frog angles. The extremely sharp angle turnouts used on model railroads are rarely seem on modern real North American railroads these days. Longer and heavier freight cars, containerized and multi care specialize mineral and tank car traffic not needing sharp angled local industrial switching have changed the infrastructure needs. It really destroys any illusion of reality to see an 86 foot trailer or container flat car backed through a #4 turnout. I have not yet acquired any of the new #6 Code 83 or brand new Code 70 turnouts with machined blades as I do not need any new turnouts at the moment. However, I have two Peco Finescale Code 75 short radius Unifrog turnouts that I acquired when they first came out with stamped blades. Despite of the panic of some in the North American model railroad forums and press over the supposed shortcomings of the Unifrog, I have seen no catastrophic shorting across the frog problems with NMRA standard flange wheelsets on locomotives. But then I use Keep Alive capacitors in most of my locomotives rather than bother to wire the turnout frogs. All the locomotive chassis of steam or diesel outline I have Code 110 tread width wheelsets as the finer scale Code 88 wheels are just too much of a bother and are generally not available on any North American prototypes that I might want to acquire. I only have used a few Code 88 metal wheels on a few highly detailed freight car models and have had no problems with Peco Code 83 turnouts. Unifrog would be fine through the flangeways for Code 88 wheels. All of this will be resolved in the next 4-5 years when practical dead rail operation becomes available even for smaller tank engines.

I like the idea of downsizing the part of Little Muddle you model to a more appropriate size for the GWR branch line station. A tree line could work well for a tight corner. Unfortunately, I think you may soon find you need to downsize the rest of the flat backscene to the right of the new pub. Is Little Muddle a village or a small town or perhaps an outlying suburban area of Edgecombe? Perhaps you will have to develop a context story for the geography and then historical development of human habitation of the site from the 18th century on. See where great modeling will lead you....Personally, I gave up freelancing and have stuck to real places as much as possible so I don't answer such questions. It can keep you up all night debating ideas in your head.

Mention of Snoqualmie Pass Ski slope reminds me of my 1960's college days at UW Seattle and after class afternoon skiing with a T-bar tow. Out of preference for a dryer, warmer existence I have lived the last 54 years in California where snow is a 120 mile away drive option if you want to endure it. On the verge of the equinox this is the milder life of the vale of Walnut Creek California. Taken from the deck/veranda of my townhouse looking west to the Oakland hills. San Francisco is beyond those hills. Reachable by 3rd rail electric commuter EMU but built to Indian State Railways gauge of 5 foot 6 inches (BART). Note that in true California form the faux forested town and hills beyond are all 20th century plantings. I cannot discern a native coastal oak anywhere in the picture. The gum tree on the right comes from Australia. Others are eastern North American fire maples genetically engineered to turn vibrant colors in early October no matter what the 35-40 C weather tells a tree to do naturally.

I assume you don't mean General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army.......

Rapido also has significant 3.5 mm scale experience....in the US video/film speak having "form" would be having a "prior".... This whole subject is a wonderful delight. Rest assured that eventually the Rapido Titfield Thunderbolt will eventually rampage through the Southern Pacific trackage of my current (still in 2023?) layout set in Port Costa, California, 1950. Anachronisms be damned. It has always been one of my most beloved films. One of the delights that remind me of my original English heritage although

I'll gladly use my Hornby HAL and BIL chassis to have the 1940's-60's 4 subs for a Penge East diorama/module I have on a future plan. My grandparents lived down Mosslea Road from the station almost to the High Street after they were bombed out of another house in Penge. I remember it well from the late 1940's (1948-49) before my father and I emigrated to the US and later visits to family in the Penge and Beckenham area. My great grandfather was a signalman at Sydenham Hill. Will be following this topic.

Given the fluctuations in currency exchange rates and many uncertainties in world markets in the last 3 months any pricing that could be construed as a a firm offer might not be too wise. Pricing could be very uncertain until the actual landed cost in the UK is determined. Recent forward foreign exchange contracts have large uncertainty factors priced in for all currencies for both short and long term. The previous practice has been to price agreements for Chinese produced model trains for the UK markets in the US dollar has recently plummeted and the value of the USD has become an unstable benchmark since late last year.

Ah! The Vale of Muddle.....well muddle on....

I have a bit of interest in the Bluebell after I finally was able to visit in September 2018 and found it delightful. Closer to home I am a supporter of the Niles Canyon Railway (note UK style name), an 9 mile long piece of former Southern Pacific preserved railroad track dating from 1869. Niles Canyon has two rail lines with the NCR sharing the canyon on separate tracks with the former WP now UP line which has both freight and passenger traffic (the Altamont Commuter Express-ACE trains.) Unfortunately only a skeleton volunteer staff is able to perform minimal maintenance during our pandemic lockdown.

You mean I don't have to buy a full 3 set for my late summer 1947 ACE section that reached Padstow.

For what it's worth, USA (California) pronunciations when ordering in a local hobby shop/train store or narrating a YouTube video on track laying are "Pay Co" (as in PayPal) for Peco and "Pie Co" for Piko.

Like those Cambrian kits. The can be built into superb models. I still have a small box of UK plastic wagon kits including many Cambrian and some going back to the good old days of Coopercraft pre 2010. If I ever run into a younger early 20th century GWR 4mm modeler in the SF Bay area, the Coopercraft kit remains will be an encouragement gift.

I've ordered the post 1936 version for my SR Western Division collection. The recent fall/collapse of the US Dollar vs the UK Pound negated any VAT removal advantage. I have long dreamed of resurrecting my now gone Padstow layout and building a Boscarne Junction and a Wenford Bridge clay dries module. I keep collecting equipment for such a non-standard modular layout. I think I had cancelled my previous order several years ago when the prognosis for delivery this brake van looked very dim.

Well it was in California once...I actually visited the site and have a photo of it somewhere from the 1980's. Will have to see when it lands whether I still want it in SR green.

All black with silver front of cab oil burning version for Southern Pacific. Or go fancy with Daylight red, orange, black and silver. SP of course already had hundreds of massive cab forward freight locomotives so driving configuration not new or a labor problem. Would go in same collection with my electrified Donner Pass/Sierra line which was seriously considered. Santa Fe would need an oil burning version for running in California which outlawed coal burning steam locomotives in 1905.

You should all be safely tucked in bed by the time my New Year rolls around at GMT+8. Either that or getting up for your first breakfast of 2021. So I hope your New Years celebrations were all celebrated safely with just those in your personal bubble. Happy New Year 2021.

I think I would have preferered Montana the marketer....

Not up to Tangent or Exactrail standards so must be one of the other importers like Atlas, Athearn etc. Unlikely to be US Bachmann due to tighter control.

Batteries can add substantial weight for dead rail to get around the conundrum. Wi-Fi or Bluetooth communication for control means no rail connectivity required. The Wi-fi installation I recently did included speaker and onboard chip for software upgrades and alternate sounds. Still using track for power from existing DCC system at this stage but next year will add batteries to tender locomotives and multi-unit diesels with batteries in dummy units. I use an inexpensive Amazon Fire tablet for the throttle software connecting through my house Wi-Fi. I expect in about 2-3 years the dead rail option will gain sufficient technical support that it will be competitive with DCC. 10 years from now only troglodyte wiring masochists will use rail powered let alone rail signal or voltage controlled locomotives. The Dapol GWR mogul tender looks like it could house a small size battery system for 30-45 minutes of continuous running at the current level of battery technology (pun intended.) A plug charging system through the removable coal load and you would have to simulate real operating conditions where the locomotive is serviced every few hours for water and coal. Cable between tender and locomotive can be disguised as the tender water connection.

We see a lot of highly detailed laser cut wood kits these days in the US but to my knowledge but there are no major cardstock structure kit manufacturers like Superquick or Metcalf. I have a pair of wood laser structures on my "to be built" shelf. One is the Banta Models kit for the Port Costa SP "roundhouse" aka 2 stall engine shed and the other is also from Banta but a special kit for the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society Type 18 standard depot (station and freight house in one building.) If there were any card kit makers they would be in HO scale. As I know it will take some time and dedication to building these laser cut wood structures, I often build mock ups of the structures from artists illustration board so I have the visual representation on my layout. Note that the turntable is also in mockup stage with a detailed working version yet to be built. The Southern Pacific painted engine service structures in a barn red color. Windows are nothing more than photocopies of the windows in the kit pasted on the side. Other structures that I have no kit for are also mocked up from illustration board (a 1.4 mm thick material found at art supply and craft stores.) I sketch the structure from photos and then layout in scale dimensions and cut the illustration board components using an Ofa knife or scalpel. Some I will eventually turn into plastic or wood structures such as the freight shed in the lower left of the photo. That structure was an illustration board mockup until I got the right dimensions and then I used Evergreen and Plastruct plastic scribed sheet and strip to build the final structure.

I have one of the original resin Kernow Wadebridge Type 4 stone signal box which served on my Cornish Padstow layout for several years. When Bude boxes were on a deeply discounted sale, I obtained one as the stairs were on the correct side for the Padstow platform. The box was a bit too high. I painted it a grey stone color with thick paint to somewhat disguise the fact that it was brick not stone and used it as the Padstow box until the demise of that layout in a deluge from a roof leak. It is now stored along with all of my Padstow structures that could saved. I have returned to local California modeling with my 1950-54 Port Costa layout under slow development.

What are they selling in the US? I have not seen any recent mention of Hornby products in any of trade or US railroad forums. Nothing in railroad hobby stores. Could it be non-railroad such as Scalextric and Airfix?

Can we Modelu an Alan Peglar figure with that smile/smirk on his face?

Current progress on the Port Costa layout. The mockup of the roundhouse (engine shed) and a few more trees are the most visible changes. I have a very complex wood kit from Banta Models for the roundhouse that I will eventually build. For the time being an illustration board mockup will do. It was painted with Cracker Barrel acrylic craft Barn Red per SP practice for steam era engine maintenance buildings. Passenger and freight related buildings are a color called Colonial Yellow. The shade of SP Colonial Yellow varied widely with different lighting conditions and age in the bright harsh almost constant California sun. It ranged from Turner Yellow to a washed out buff color. I am surviving into my 8th month of voluntary confinement/shelter in place. The last three weeks have been mostly searing hot but with a yellow grey sky from wildfire smoke drifting into my area east of San Francisco. A few days the sky has been an apocalyptic orange with the acrid stench of burning brush and structures chocking the outdoors (Australia had it last year.) My home air conditioning with an electrostatic particle filtering system has worked well to keep my home habitable. Local Covid-19 restrictions here are gradually lifting. I finally have been shorn of my 7 month hair growth (that got in the way of my mask, hearing aid and glasses) when I was able to visit my barber. It is very understandable why the original native inhabitants prayed and danced for rain. The large tank on the mock up hill is a 161,000 US gallon water tank and the buildings to the right the pump house and water treatment plant. Underground pipes carried the water to water cranes (not yet built) along the engine service tracks to the left of the turntable. The large yellow building to its right is a section house where unmarried track maintenance workers were housed. Beyond the section house is the freight house (goods shed) and hidden behind the trees the Port Costa station building which was purely a local SP administrative building by 1950 as there was no passenger service stopping at Port Costa. The tall smokestack rising from the back of the roundhouse is for a boiler that supplied steam through overhead pipes (not yet built) to all the above buildings. The freight house is one of the few buildings that is almost complete. I am a little bit stumped trying to build a unique ornate 5 foot high finial at the right end of the building roof.