What Sort Of Model Railrway Do You Like?

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What sort of model railway do you prefer?
Continuous run. 43%  43%  [ 10 ]
End to end. 4%  4%  [ 1 ]
Either. 4%  4%  [ 1 ]
Both. 17%  17%  [ 4 ]
I don't like trains (Is this possible?) 13%  13%  [ 3 ]
I like trains. Don't have a model railway (Help!) 17%  17%  [ 4 ]
Total votes : 23

Jakki
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14 Apr 2025, 1:33 am

That guy is good , a Brewery RailRoad..lolzzz.. loved his internal details ..and of course narrow guage !
Gotta wonder if he can fabricate a drunken engineer,hanging out the side of the Loco... :mrgreen:


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old_comedywriter
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14 Apr 2025, 1:36 am

Continuous run. City layout with trains, a switching yard, and a trolley loop.


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Carbonhalo
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14 Apr 2025, 5:57 am

Mag-lev hypersonic sounds fun.
A looped track seems impractical....let's just call it a rail gun.



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14 Apr 2025, 7:33 am

Carbonhalo wrote:
Mag-lev hypersonic sounds fun.
A looped track seems impractical....let's just call it a rail gun.


Imagine the speed you would get if one had a large circle of banked track with a maglev.

My Grandad was a designer so we got to hear about all sorts of things. The inventor of the Maglev was a British man, who ried to sell his invention to the British government who in those days owned British Railways. They rejected it saying it would cost too much (Fair enough as they had to be practical), so he sold his idea to the Japanese who then built it and put it to use. He had built models to demonstrate the idea, but it was the Japanese who were the first to build a scalled up version of it for practical high speed use, and good they are too, but they obviously have their limits.



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14 Apr 2025, 7:42 am

I like the Lionel sets from the 1950s.


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14 Apr 2025, 10:34 am

CockneyRebel wrote:
I like the Lionel sets from the 1950s.


We didn't have them in the UK but they look very good. We had Hornby 0 gauge and then Hornby Dublo 00 gauge (3-rail) here in the UK, and then came 2 rail Hornby Dublo and Triang. Some did have Trix Twin 3-rail being again close to 00 gauge though toy-like compared to Hornby Dublo 3-rail but Trix was technically 2 rail in the way it operated as it has a shared common rail where the one other rail controlled one loco and the other controlled another loco which allowed independent control of two locos though the controller was said to be temperamental in its operation whatever that means? Hornby Dublo used the centre rail as one pick up and the two outer rails as the other. They used this to amplify current collecting ability and simplify the electrical pointwork. They soon solved these issues when they made 2 rail instead. Origionally 3-rail was used with Hornby 0 gauge where 0 gauge was offered in either clockwork or electric form. Electric was more expensive. H0 was origionally "Half 0" in scale, but the reason why they adopted 00 which used H0 track but the bodies were scaled up a little here in the UK was to enable the motors to fit inside the bodies as in those days they had not really perfected smaller motors, not to say that they could not do that. It was just easier at the time.
00 is 4mm to a foot scale (H0 is 3.5mm to a foot scale) where the correct track gauge width for standard gauge in 00 should be 18.83mm BUT it was easier to use a narrower track gauge of 16.5mm, as it allowed for movement of valve gear etc on the earlier models, and helped them turn sharper corners as the whole point in Hornby Dublo 3-rail was that it was supposed to be a table top railway. Back in the earlier days the old Victorian houses were much larger and had nice large tables in their living rooms and dining rooms, so the older 0 gauge which was designed for the older houses was not always suitable for the newer slightly smaller homes, which is why they wanted to use a smaller scale. Now years ago, in America, Americans once enjoyed what is now known as "American 00 gauge" which is 4mm finescale in that it runs on a 19mm track gauge which is extremely close to the true scaled down size of 18.83mm. American locos by nature are massive compared to the UK's locos as the UK had to run railway systems to fit under old canal bridges and other older horse drawn tramway bridges, as well as trying to fit their railways through older towns and villages which were not designed to have railways. So the sizes they could use in the UK were limited. USA had the advantage in that their towns and cities were often built around the railways so from the outset, the people having origionally comes from Britain and other places in Europe started making their new towns and cities with wider streets and with railways in mind (Using the origional UK term "Railroad" where the UK later adopted the term railway instead after an early news article that used this term instead and it sort of caught on... )
But going back to USA models, and they found that the "American 00" was a little too large for spare rooms like basements, so they decided to use the incorrect UK track system of 16.5mm and correct the scale to fit with that (Hence 3.5mm to the foot scale as well know it here with our mixture of imperial and metric measurements) and one has a smaller scale which fits better. Europe also decided to head in this direction with their model railways. Attempts for Britain to adopt H0 were made, but so many modellers already had gathered collections of 00, they generally refused to make the change and lived with the inaccuracies. But what became slightly more popular than the British H0, was to instead correct the gauge, and to allow a little room for slightly overscale valve gear and con-rods etc, they adopted 18mm at first which became known as EM gauge. Then certain enthusiasts tried for more accuracy and used 18.82, and called it P4 and then 18.83 and called it S4 (I think I have those the right way round!. P means "Prototype" while S stands for "Scale" with 4 being a reference to the 4mm to a foot scale they were modelling in, but most modellers who did prefer a more accurate scale found EM to be easier so out of them, EM became more popular, though no where near as popular as 00 which is why even today it is rare to find a factory made loco or stock in EM, P4 or S4, while in 00 they are common. It is actually easier to find a factory made British H0 model than it is to find one of the other three fine scales! But the inaccurate 00 lives on, and while the detail has become more accurate and the use of a slightly narrower "Tension lock" coupling which became popular here has universally been adopted in 00 scale, the massive gaps between coupled vehicles and the inaccurate track gauge remains! I half chuckle when modellers in 00 brag about them using larger radius curves that (To them) look more accurate with their highly detailed 00 models, as the glaring inaccuracies remain! Few bother to correct the gauge. The few that do are in a different league!

What I model in and my take on the hobby is more toy-like, as my take is they are toys anyway. They are not real railways. I want to capture the atmosphere of what the real railways are like to operate, but I want to bring in the innocent cuteness of what my eye likes that I, myself can achieve. Why model in fine scale if one fines ones scratchbuilding abilities would struggle to build to finescale standards? Why not just enjoy a fun make believe world with elements of real railway atmosphere without spending a fortune out on very expensive ready made models when one can do it cheaper and still enjoy with a different approach?
So I sought the cheapest and easiest ways I can find to model in, and I have found that 00 (And H0 as is the same width) track gauge to be ideal for using budget loco mechanisms and obtaining wheels etc. However, 7mm scale which is usually used for 0 gauge, is a far easier scale to build in. By combining a narrow gauge form of 0 gauge using 00 (H0) track, I can model my own way and enjoy!