Thanks - my prototype. Was it's first showing. The 16 year old who did the CAD design showed up at the meet, didn't realize at first that it was his design. His mom was absolutely beaming.
Thanks Serg - will be bringing some to the Oaks, PA show in late August and in Orange Hall at the Fall York meet in October. And probably a couple of new items.
Yes, a few of us still building brand new trains, myself, David Carse of Classic Model Trains and Train makers, a new father and son outfit, a few others making parts and accessories
Thanks for posting and I assume video recording as well. As a teen in the late 70's and 80's I learned about the standard gauge more directly but it was old and tin plate type things. Seeing this I see an opportunity for big train runners and more modern collectors to have other then tin plate. Also the hobby consist of tin plate that can be just highly polished or old and chipped to modern and in some way kind of kooky. The Union Pacific BigBoy looks good until you see it make the turns. The GG-1's look nice but the end wheel sets look wrong. The addition of electronic sounds and smoke is a nice feature to and some years back thought of a wrong thing to do in tin plate trains...
Thanks for the post. I actually build both of those locos, and because standard gauge is in the 'toy train' world, I try to keep realism and tinplate factors in balance. The Challenger was designed by John Harmon in the late 1970's and had to run on 42" diameter curves, on this layout it is only 87" diameter, very tight for so long of a loco, so those compromises have to be made. Tinplate flanges are much bigger than scale as well, if they are scale, the trains don't stay on the rounded rails, so we do what we can, but mostly it's about having fun
