What Sort Of Model Railrway Do You Like?

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The world steam record was 134mph in a steam car. (I do not know if it has been broken since).

Britain had the world record which steadily increased during the years. Contrary to popular belief, the Flying Scotsman held no records. It was all a publicity stunt by the LNER in its day.
The world steam speed record on the railways steadily increased but the locos used were never designed with speed records in mind. They were always express passenger locomotives that happened to achieve it.
At one time the LMS streamlined coronation Scot locomotives had it on a few occasions. They looked great in their 2 and a quarter tons of streamlining. They were known as the "Duchess" class without the streamlining, which was rwmoved during the war due to the shortages of metal. Some of this class never had streamlining and the difference between the two could be seen as the ex. streamlined locos had a cut out at the top of their smokeboxes and they had two pieces of metal missing at the front of their footplates near the buffer beams. Even if they had new boilers, this other detail stood out. The thing about these locos is they were never able to find its top speed, as they once teied and even with four firemen shoveling coal the loco was burning the coal faster then they could feed the thing, so if was theoretically possible to have more then the 118 mph record it once set.
Adolf Hitler had a steam locomotive built in Germany specifically to break the speed record in order to put gernamy in the record books. The streamlined loco certainly won the record with quite a leap to take the record to 125 mph. It was then that the British primeminister decided to have a chat with the LNER who had recently developed their express passenger loco in order to gain the record back, which it did at 126.6 mph, which just over 1 mph may not seem a lot, but try as they did, Germany could not get any more out of their loco (This was before the war). It goes to show how difficult it is to get just that little bit extra when it comes to speed records.
The class A4 called Mallard which was one of a whole class of express passenger locos (Mallard was chosen as it had had a year and a half of use so it was "Run in") and what not a lot of people know is that after that run the loco had to be rebuilt as parts of it to do with its cylinders had melted. (I recall my Dad telling me about this. It was either the valve gear or the cylinders that had melted).
Many locos during this time could top good speeds. The GWR King class was said to touch 113 and all of the class could touch 109 mph flat out. The GWR Castles were also said to touch 109 mph if one has a "Good 'un". The SR streamlined Bullied pacifics could touch 110 on a good day, and here is an unusual one for the books. The class 9F heavy freight locos were sometimes used to haul passenger trains in the last days of steam where they would touch 92 to 93 mph flat out. Can you imagine how fast those wheels were going as they had smaller wheels with a 2-10-0 wheel arrangement.

Think a Stanley steamer motored car held a steam powered world record back in the hay day of antique automobiles
At Daytona Beach Florida .

I like Continuous be it oval or loop-around at both ends (where a train goes one direction but then the other on the very same track!)

I also like modern era (1970s-now) with grade crossings (level crossings) with red and white gates/barriers and signals that actually flash, not so much non operating signals (boring!,) and some crossings with lighted signals but no gates. Prefer red and white gates but black and white is fine.

I also mostly prefer HO scale to all else (that's what I have.)

Can a moderator correct the spelling mistake in the title of this thread please. I was not wearing my reading glasses when I wrote it!

It is possible to it all by one man as everything is in the cab and the boiler, being a vertical boiler is more efficient so needs less coal, but it is a whole lot easier if one has someone to help. Usually the businesses would need a second person to help with loading and unloading anyway so it was not an issue. They only main consideration is that every 30 miles or so they would need to take on water. Taking on water from a nearby river or any other water source was easy as they had a steam pump so all they did was to get the hose out which had its own filter to prevent dirt and other things being sucked up.

Loved seeing the steam lorries posted above- I will have to do a bit of research. A steam lorry featured prominantly in the Disney movie "One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing" Don't think we'll being seeing much of that film any more - it's rather racist...

I would absolutely love a model railway. I've always wanted one and it is my number one fantasy purchase if I won the lottery.

I think a continuous run layout would be more fun.

The problem is space. I'm only in a small flat and that's not likely to change.

I do have some locos and rolling stock (oo gauge) and some rails and a power supply which I can put down on the floor and run "train set" style. It's not ideal but it's better than nothing and I can enjoy watching videos of other peoples' layouts online.

I used to want 009 before it became commercially available in RTR form, but the European H0e was, so I had that to go with my 00 for a while. They were expensive but nice. I did find though that they had the same issues that N gauge suffers from and that is that despite excellent mechanisms from the likes of Roco and Liliput, they still needed clean track and wheels. 00 ans H0 do need clean track, but one can get away with a little diet. One can't with N or 009 etc. Still, they are nice. Another issue was loco maintenence because those mechanisms are tiny! I took one apart to see if there was room for a DCC decoder as the other two Roco locos did have room, but once I took the body off, it was all I could do to get it back together with all its intricate parts. I found that ideally H0e needed 2ft turning width, though one can reduce this further by keeping to short wheelbase locos. I think it was the 4 wheel coachss that had a large wheelbase that needed the 2ft board width though the 0-6-2T Liliput loco may not go down to really sharp curves. I gave them all to a friend.
I have found that the larger 7mm narrow gauge is easier with 0-4-0 locos and short wheelbase 0-6-0's because they seem to enjoy tight curves. Mind you, the little Roco 6 wheel diesels in H0e (009) can turn very tight curves of around a foot, but one is limited to what else can go round there with them as factory made stock was not designed to go round such tight curves.

Two considerations when it comes to sharp curves. The first is that the locos and stock can get round them. The second is if the couplings themselves allow for the more extreme angles. As in 7mm narrow gauge there is no standard coupling, so each modeller makes ones own choice where most use tension lock or kadees, I found that even tension lock couplings were starting to get costly, so scratchbiluding a waggon using them today and oneis into £4 before one knows it, as one has to buy wheels as well. So the answer was for me to design and build my own, which ended up being made from drawing pins (Thumb tacks) and paper clips for a cheap source of stiff metal wire, so I can build little waggons for half the price or even less if I use secondhand or free wheels. (Many 00 and H0 modellers change to metal wheels, and so plastic wheels are sometimes given away or purchased cheaply and while I prefer metal wheels, I don't mind plastic if they run well.