What Sort Of Model Railrway Do You Like?

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This is a very enjoyable thread .......

I can tell you like trains.

I logged onto WP today with the intention of asking about model trains and lo and behold this thread was right on the front page. Yay!

Thank you all for the wonderful train history and model train videos and cats running after mice - what an enjoyable thread.

I must find that model train I have in storage somewhere.

Go for it! Juliette has made a lovely model railway that comes down from the ceiling.

On a past model railway, my cat (Since passed away) used to have great fun chasing my trains into the tunnels and putting her paws in to feel where the trains went etc. The other cat we once has seemed to prefurr to lie on the track and stop all train movements.

"Prefurr"
Ya know, that cat brings to mind,

Anything that's pea green.

Somewhere in here is at least one big Penn Central fan, http://www.tycoforums.com/tyco/forum/default.asp
I don't know offhand what non-US railways might have employed that hue other than some 1950s and 60s French electrics being about that color.

I found my nameplate making machine. Yay!

Sweet Peas!

I was a very lucky kid. My Dad (a professional railwayman) and lots of his work colleagues built a big 'OO' gauge model railway in the master bedroom of our family home. Apparently this was quite small compared to the previous effort which occupied the third storey of the previous house!

It had an end-to-end double track mainline with three stations. There were also two smaller branch stations and a couple of freight-only branches in the room, too.

The whole thing was operated in a fairly prototypical manner with each station or yard having its own operator, and with communication between them done largely by bells and block instruments. The mid-way station on the mainline was a significant junction and ended up with four sets of instruments and associated bells (all with different rings).

The fourth set related to an extension into my bedroom, facilitated by removing half a brick from the wall. That was particularly good fun as one had no idea what train was coming next, except for what the bell code revealed. 3-1 for a passenger train, 3-2 for goods, 4-2-2 for parcels, 4-1 for a light engine...

Ooh. Signalling bell codes! I had different codes to remember because I worked for a while on the trains themselves.

That sounds really cool!

We haven't had the bell codes here in the US but I've read about them in UK published model railway books since the 1970s. Somebody's layout named "Sherwood Section" used bells an article about it is in a book in the other room here at home.

And that's all that's in my brain about it, other than probably half-correct memory of what the bell boxes and indicators look like.

I'm going to go find the book, will return.

The bell codes are still in use here in the UK.

Nope, wrong layout! But Sherwood Section was really cool in that it was O gauge with clockwork power!
Found a website about it, http://www.binnsroad.co.uk/railways/sherwood/index.html

Lutton Branch was the bell signaled layout in the book.

I think I have that book if I still have it in my collection.