times since the counter was installed.
NOTE: Page size is limited by HTML to some 30kB;
thus, I have been forced to add new pages just for Z-Scale, more Z-scale, and articles about Z-scale.
(09 Jan 07)
(23 Jan 07)
(23 Jan 07)
Berlinerwerke-Z Saga
Berlinerwerke Saga (HO, included with Horseshoe Curve info.)
Z-Scale model railroading, at an incredible 220 times smaller than life size, or slightly under half the size of the familiar HO scale, with rails only 6.5mm (~¼") apart, continued ...
Z scale is about 2½ times smaller than HO! In Z scale, a scale ¼-mile is exactly (and only) 6 feet; in other words, a mile is only 24 feet!
Because much information about Z scale is in German, you might find Chris Ozdoba's Eisenbahn- und Modellbahn-Wörterbuch - Deutsch-Englisch / Railroad and Model Railroading Dictionary - German-English of value.
So there'd be no mistaking what I wanted, I sent over my precious find, my pre-teen
model (ca. 1945) of a 1:48 VEE-tailed
StromBecKer Beech BonanZa; what I got back instead was a
ZEE-tailed Beech BonZana:
Ztrack Magazine
The Newsletter for Z Scale Model Railroading
Ztrack now has a separate page of its own - ztrack.html.
Z Beech BonZana
You'll have to read (or have read) the Berlinerwerke
Apocrypha, et seq., to follow all this; basically, the Berlinerwerke had a
rather-odd designer named Ira Ersatz, who came up with many strange and
wonderful locomotives and rolling stock. His ghost must be still prowling the
halls of the BW Engineering Department because, when I issued orders to restore an
ancient Beech BonanZa to serve as the BW corporate and executive aircraft,
things went a wee bit awry.
Well, I was so wild over the despoiling of a rare antique airplane that no one dared take time to photograph the foul-up, but the BW Art Department created the dummy picture from the model.
One wag at the BW-Z, risking my wrath, suggested calling the thing the "Zorro"! Oddly enough, though, she handled remarkably well in initial flight tests, although the FAA inspector flatly refused to even think about certifying her.
Happily, a hangar queen was located and the plane was quickly restored to its original configuration. No heads rolled at the BW-Z, but some VERY stern warningZ were issued.
(09 Jan 07)
(12 Jan 07)
Well, the hunt was endless; it seemed as if all Hallmark stores in the western Long
Island area were out of tenders until I found two at $6.50 each and grabbed them.
Then, I hot-footed it back to the store with all the locos and they were all gone!
(12 Jan 07)
So, there I was with only one loco and two tenders and (guess what?) the monster looks good with two, so I'm keeping them; here they are on a length of M-T flex track:
Doen't it figure? The lettering on one tender is higher than on the other! No matter; that actually happened surprisingly often in real life. It's O.K. on the other side, though, so I'll just have to run the string one way only - suuuure I will!
With all that truly-elegant die work on the turbine roof and frame and the tender bodies and on all the truck frames, and the fine details added on both the turbine and tender, especially on the latter, why did Lionel do such appallingly-poor work on the integrally-cast veranda railings?
(23 Jan 07)
The courtesy page for Ztrack Magazine is now on its own page, q.v.
To tour the Z-scale pages in sequence, the arrows take you from the Z-scale index page
to the main Z-Scale page, then to the Sub-Z-Scale page and continuation pages 1, 2, 3 and on,
the Z articles page, the 6 BW-Z saga pages, and, and finally to the current Ztrack page.
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