Brian Austin

4x5" B&W negative, 1990s

Very rare and fascinating....

I was about to suggest kitbashing the Krauss-Maffei loco into SP's camera car, but there's not much of the loco left that's recognizable. https://sp9010.ncry.org/sp8799.htm

A year or two ago I got 5 assembled O scale boxcar kits, each a little rough around the edges. One was a wooden automobile boxcar. It looks nice after a touch up.

I grew up devouring books and magazines of British railways, along with the usual US railroads. I wish I could have seen Flying Scotsman pass through my area in the late 1960s.

Editorial from the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers. The first page made me laugh...

Live version: I should point out that this song was a fairly big hit for the band.

I've seen Jethro Tull in concert in the late 1980s, and I've also seen Ian Anderson's solo-with-band shows in the 1990s and again in 2010 or so. For a fair spell in the 2000s, the guitarist was Florian Opahle, originally from Germany. I must admit I am not familiar with his work. I saw him in concert once. I recall at the circa 2010 concert in Lowell, MA Florian played a shredding interpretation of a classical theme. What I found odd was while I appreciated his technical skill, I felt something was missing. The beauty of the classical melody had been reduced to an aggressively fast flurry. Kinda sorta like this example: A fun counterpoint is this arrangement of the same piece by the band Sky from 1980. They can play fast too. ? The two guitarists in this particular lineup were John Williams (classical) and Kevin Peek (electric). Both were from Australia. The other members of Sky at the time were from England, Herbie Flowers (bass), Tristan Fry (percussion) and Francis Monkman (keyboard). I've always been fond of the band, having seen two concert programs on cable TV in the 1980s.

I've liked his discussions on how songs work and on theory and such, but I get tired of his complaining about "music these days". Sure commercial pop isn't great nowadays, but according to grownups it's always been that way since at least the days of Rock and Roll. In fact musicians like the famed Wrecking Crew didn't think much of Rock and Roll. They found it simplistic and repetitive compared to jazz. They did appreciate having the gigs though, backing the pop artists. Rick mentioned drum machines. I generally don't care for those myself in current pop music, but I made the realization that they were used to good effect in some of my favorite recordings from the '70s, such as those by The Alan Parsons Project and Jean-Michel Jarre. It seems to me pop music artists have always explored emerging technologies.

I recently got another old O Scale "doorstop". This is a kit build, but I'm not sure of the manufacturer. Lobaugh and All Nation offered similar ones, but both seem to be different from mine in various aspects. It has a big honkin' Pittman open frame motor that does work. It took a week or two of sorting out the various problems but the loco is running now. One mildly amusing problem is that the tender is crooked in various aspects. It definitely looks hand made. I should paint it black but the whole thing has an interesting patina. Judging by the spoiler on the cab roof, this loco must have the Sports Package. ?

Some really creative builds here...

Lots going on in this one from 1970.

Really pretty engineering and finish.

This song still kills me after all these years. (Solo by Guthrie Govan at around the 5:00 mark).

I think the term is over well 10 years old at this point, and probably started off as literal. Here's a blog post from 2014. https://petrolicious.com/articles/the-problem-with-barn-finds It's fun to see some articles from prior to 2010 as well. Makes me wonder when exactly the term was coined.

That UFO picture has been making the rounds on FB over and over recently. I get the wry humor in the concept, but in the end I'm rather tired of the same old AI images getting posted over and over there. I've presumed that one to depict a boneyard rather than a parking lot, but whichever...

I thought of this thread when I randomly found this one... https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/19878-it-started-with-a-my-new-exhibition-project-in-o-gauge/

Some info https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2014-43/del78-no-166-solved-fruehauf-fev2000/ http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/f/fruehauf/fruehauf.htm

"Moving the driver’s seat to the center position made it possible for the truck maker to incorporate a parabolic windshield that pushes air around the side of the vehicle, said Joe Adams, Kenworth’s chief engineer. The design also encloses the front and drive axles and covers the steps with its door." https://www.ttnews.com/articles/kenworth-supertruck-2-act

Trucks built in Argentina and Brazil are different from each other and from those built in Mexico. There were numerous coachbuilders that made generally similar but again different conversions. The Mexican SUVs may well have been built by a coachbuilder a well. Note that the Argentina built "bumpside" Fords generally mirrored US model changes, while the Brazilian ones differed quite a bit from US models. Those could be a generation or so behind the US models, while the styling included more and more local content. The Brazilian "bumpsides" were mentioned earlier. Argentina built their own as well. Some good pictures of a Mexican Ford. https://www.ebay.com/motors/blog/cool-mexican-b-100-suv-based-on-f-series-pickup/

FWIW, here are the wheels. Tires are marked 11.00-20. One set of wheels is mismatched.

Around 1999-2000 I built a replica of its 1950s appearance in 1:50 scale. I had intended to display my Corgi PCC trolley, but that model is too heavy for it.

In the 1950s the Seashore Trolley Museum built a large trailer to cross the country to rescue surplus trolley cars for its collection. They called it the "Highway Monster". It was made of structural steel around a salvaged bogie and frame. I have been wondering for decades the source for the bogie. I'm presuming it dated to the 1940s, but I could never get an answer. This thing was difficult to photograph well, but I did manage to take measurements. Can you identify the make of the bogie? (Photos from 1992).

Follow up video of the one I posted at the start of this thread.