What did you order or the post deliver? (Worldwide Models)

[cteno4]

1 hour ago, gavino200 said:

Yes, congratulations on the new little bundle. Remember it's never too early to start surrounding a baby with train related items!!!!

 

yes and a good excuse when you get caught ordering a train! That nice clickety clack sound will put the baby right to sleep!

 

jeff

[Cat]

Thanks to @hide7072001 for pointing out this book which I missed when it was released in 1981.  Scored a good quality used copy on EBay for $35, which is a lot less money than $24 in 1981 dollars when I was on a student budget!
 

[cteno4]

My copy is lost somewhere (maybe in one of the boxes of books in the basement). It was the last model rr book I got at the beginning of grad school when I started about a 10 year break from model trains. Still about $35 for a used copy. Maybe this will get me to sort thru the last dozen boxes of books in the basement and see if it’s there and thin out the books some more. 5 years at Berkeley in grad school wit a number of fantastic new/used bookstores with outrageously low prices at times had be buying way to many books and this was one of them. It’s a nice book from memory but free time and funding was at a premium in grad school and just after.

 

jeff

[Cat]

My primary hobbies in '81 were tabletop gaming and learning how to forge armour and train for SCA medieval combat.  No train stores to be found in Vermont.

[cteno4]

Luckily for me berkeley had a fantastic, huge hobby shop in the basement of the old ace hardware store (complete with a huge O scale train layout suspended from the ceiling), so I could at least drop by every week or so (dangerously only like 7 blocks from my apartment and on the path to the lab) to at leas look and at times buy a small plastic model or rocket to build when waiting for stuff in the lab to finish...

 

jeff

[BlaxlandAlex3]

Shame Mr. Allen's railroad burned down. Good thing, however, some of his locomotives were preserved. I know a few have been completely restored from the melted mess they had become. I know G+D #8 Is in Japan...

[cteno4]

I met him once when I was a lad at a small gathering of some model railroader folks in Monterey shortly after we moved there in 71 and not long before his death. I did not really know who he was (I was just getting started in model railroading and the friend of my parents who got me some used n gauges stuff from a yard sale took me a long to the gathering — not at allans house) until after his death and getting in deeper to modeling later. It wasn’t until maybe 10 or 15 years ago I found out he lived within blocks of my parents house! It was near my good friend’s house at the time and I have a vague memory of a small house fire on the block.

 

jeff

[BlaxlandAlex3]

Wow!! That's awesome!

[cteno4]

I was like 10 or so at the time and had no idea of who he was, it was later my parents friend told me about mainly his photography as he was famous for shooting layouts and models, l learned of his famous layout and the book later. Later still did I put it together he lived nearby and it was the layout photographer I had met once.
 

His old portrait studio was around quite a while in the old downtown (probably different owners by then) and was one of the places many in my high school got their senior portraits taken. It was across the street from the great little hobby shop that had been there for ever with plastic models, model trains, stamps and coins! All the counter tops were those rolling conveyor belt tray displays with either stamps, coins or n scale cars and engines in them and I think my friend and I wore them out spinning them with our noses pressed against the glass. All the HO was on high shelves so you had to use a small ladder to get at the stacks of car and track boxes up there. Classic old hobby shop run by an ancient guy that gruffly (but endearingly) put up with us as he had better stuff than the toy store train shop that was closer to out houses but we would walk the extra distance to downtown to paw around in the dim and musty old shop with the few bucks we just earned doing yard work or scraping and varnishing my dad’s boat. I also collected stamps and coins (grandma got me into coins and grandpa into stamps at a young age) and they old guy would light up when I would show interest in a stamps or coins, buy a few fill-ins or supplies — he absolutely glowed when a young person showed interest in them as those where his big joy in life. a few times flip me a coin and say what’s special about this one and if I could answer close he would give me the coin, it got me into really reading thru my us coin catalog, smart dude!

 

i was very lucky that a fairly small touristy area like Monterey we had a couple of great shops for my hobbies and operators that put up with kids that showed interest in hobbies and helped it along. It would have really been grand if I could have seen mr Allen’s layout and trains and gotten to know him, was weird to many years later realize he only lived a few blocks away!
 

jeff

[GCS]

I’ve been out of touch with my model rail obsession for far too long, and the Kato TGV Reseau finally brought me back.

 

BNIB and got her on a cracking deal, £205 when converted from Euros including shipping to the UK.
 

You’ve got to give it to Kato, they really know how to make a beautiful train! 
 

Guy

[GCS]

My 12 car Kato ICE 4 arrived this afternoon and I must say I’m incredibly impressed.

 

I thought the TGV’s were impressive but the ICE 4 is that little bit extra special, it might even be one of Kato’s best models yet...and the bookcases are massive! 🤣

 

Guy

[gavino200]

The rest of my COVID purchases arrived. My first TGV. I'm thrilled with it. I'm hoping they'll release it's orange buddy next year like many are predicting/hoping.

 

[GCS]

On 8/24/2020 at 1:14 AM, gavino200 said:

The rest of my COVID purchases arrived. My first TGV. I'm thrilled with it. I'm hoping they'll release it's orange buddy next year like many are predicting/hoping.

 

Love the TGV, had to give that one a miss as my budget just got blown on the ICE 4 and Thalys PBA 😭 you should get some lights fitted in the coaches as well, they look so impressive on the Duplex TGV’s!

 

Guy

[AhmadKane]

I have a custom built Series 103 by TOMIX. This is in PERUMKA livery, which was the old Indonesian Commuter livery before the standardized Yellow Red one in the PT KAI year. 

 

When I looked at it, I knew I had to get it. 90 USD for a custom shell Indonesian commuter train. It's a decent paintjob, I'll be fitting interior lighting and passengers inside. So excited!

 

 

 

This is the original one from Wikipedia Commons. It's the PERUMKA from Gambir (The Capital Trainstation) to Depok (Universitas Indonesia) Area. Before PT.KAI, there were so many liveries of these commuter locomotives not many people know what they signify, and if you think it's route designation, then you're a bit off there. At that time, there were no standard trains. So you might see these Series 103 handling the commuter, the next train would be a Diesel with no seat passcars and people dangling outside

 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Depok_Express.JPG

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by AhmadKane

[Claude_Dreyfus]

That Indonesian 103 conversation certainly looks the business.

[Tuga]

Just received my HST-P, beautiful model with lots of detail. 😊

A very limited edition, from Dapol. This is the only run of the model so if anyone is interested, now is the time to get it.

There are two versions of it, but only slightly livery changes.

I did choose the very first livery of the prototype.

 

 

The HST-Prototype (left) and the HST final version (right)

Edited August 28, 2020 by tavora

[Tuga]

Found this viedo of the HST-P alternative livery.

 

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by tavora

[Claude_Dreyfus]

That HST set looks lovely. I keep thinking about getting a production series, but a full set is not a cheap do when it is very much a 'nice to have' model. The prototype set was withdrawn long ago, but remember seeing the remaining power car at the museum in York.

[Tuga]

True, not cheap. I order mine 1 year or maybe 2 years ago, can't remember exactly.

This week, when I received the email invoice without any previous warning, it was quite a "shock". 

However when I order stuff I tend to put that money away, whenever they came to realisation or not , so no damage done here.

 

[AhmadKane]

Is there an N Scale ATP tho? That HST looks sublime but Im an ATP man myself

[railsquid]

6 hours ago, AhmadKane said:

Is there an N Scale ATP tho? That HST looks sublime but Im an ATP man myself

 

You mean APT? Not at the moment, there is a Revolution Trains project at the expression of interest stage to shrink the Rapido version, but not sure how far along it is.

[Tuga]

18 hours ago, AhmadKane said:

Is there an N Scale ATP tho? That HST looks sublime but Im an ATP man myself

 

Yes I agree. I also would love to have the APT-E. 

http://www.revolutiontrains.com/time-get-shrink-ray-apt-e/

 

11 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

You mean APT? Not at the moment, there is a Revolution Trains project at the expression of interest stage to shrink the Rapido version, but not sure how far along it is.

 

There was the APT-P from DJModels but they went into liquidation. 🙁

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_11_2017/post-7653-0-13700800-1511820033.jpg

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by tavora

[Welshbloke]

DJM is a complicated and cautionary tale. I understand the business literally had 10p in the accounts and at least £175k of claims from creditors when the administrators were finally called in. People who'd paid what they thought was a deposit for a model had to resort to chasing their credit card lender for a refund, using the insurance which comes with spending on one. Not all were successful.

[AhmadKane]

22 hours ago, tavora said:

There was the APT-P from DJModels but they went into liquidation. 🙁

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/uploads/monthly_11_2017/post-7653-0-13700800-1511820033.jpg

 

 

Cancelled? Well I don't blame em, 550 pounds for a set is simply outrageous. 

 

I don't suppose we could try to scratch build the model?

[Claude_Dreyfus]

16 minutes ago, AhmadKane said:

 

Cancelled? Well I don't blame em, 550 pounds for a set is simply outrageous. 

 

And that was for the short version. Full set was about £900. By this point the reputation of the 'manufacturer' (really a go-between who did some designing) was so seriously undermined most people couldn't have trusted him to run a bath. The project floundered (the trust issue being probably the main reason) as with several others and ultimately DJM went under.

 

27 minutes ago, AhmadKane said:

I don't suppose we could try to scratch build the model?

 

It has been done at least once. There is a popular layout in the exhibition circuit in the UK called 'Kings Park' which runs one. I believe the same model is seen on the layout 'Hatch End' in the YouTube clip below.

 

 

The issue with the APT is that it only ran for a very short period of time, pretty much on a single route, was electric and a multiple unit...all counting against it being a popular ready to run model in the UK, especially as it would not be cheap...I could not see any other manufacturers producing it for much less than the DJM prices. That said, they looked great and there does seem to be a market for 'iconic' trains such as this; Pendolino, class 800. And if you are going to produce one now, N gauge is probably the best scale to do it in given its length. That said, Hornby produced one in 00 in the 80s when the APT was introduced, not too bad a model either.