Wolf:
I don't know if this is true or not. I know it's the way Model Consumer presents the state of the hobby, when they say 'a good-enough model railroad [in 2006] is operated by wireless DCC with sound', but that magazine is nothing more than platitudes strung together with ads any more, and doesn't IMHO represent the hobby like they did in the N. 7th St. days. I venture that this Usenet group is a better sample of the model railroad world. The kind of questions we get here and the reports occasionally posted about current projects all line up very well with what I have seen around town.
I'd also like to withdraw one remark I made. I looked through the pictures I have of late 1890s Baldwin locomotives, and the location of the Horizon-Roundhouse (oh geez, you can get 'Horhouse' from that) 4-4-0 brake parts is actually quite typical. Whoops. But the brake cylinders are WAY too small. The sandpipes are kind of a glaring omission too, as somebody mentioned. But as I said I wouldn't care about any of this if Horhouse wasn't trying to make a $220 RTR engine from a $70 kit engine. Down the Mantua road they go. The only question now is who buys the 'unprofitable' line in 5 years: Model Power or English [Bowser] ?
Cordially yours: Gerard P.