T-railblazers.

Just an excuse for another play on words.

But in a way we T gaugers are trailblazers.

T gauge at the moment is defintely seen as somewhat of a novelty.

What with there only being one type of Japanese EMU available that has two speeds - fast and faster, and that have couplers that can make the stock derail. No points and only a limited range of set track. You can understand other peoples point of view.

It would be nice to think that at some point it could be taken seriously but until the range increases and the running quality improves that won't happen.

This looks like I'm terribly down on T. I'm not. Far from it.

There are positives to be taken from T. Take a look at the body mouldings and lettering detail on the class 103 (OK so you have to take a magnifier to do so). Detail is there and its legible. Probably understandable too, if you can read Japanese. Likewise the trackwork with its integral ballast base is another masterpiece.

That leads us smoothly on to what is really exciting about T - The adapting and scratchbuilding. David K Smith has shown in his blog, that the T track can be turned into something quite realistic. I'm looking forward to doing that for the permanent way on Hitsu. Michael Denny has produced the first scratchbuilt American outline locomotive and Robert Ray has produced some lovely Northern Pacific Railway Coaches and if I make so bold as to include myself with these skilled gentlemen, your humble scribe is getting pretty handy on the T gauge tree front.

For me there's something very exciting about taking T and and going beyond the train set, to hopefully produce something that can be seen as a proper model railway layout. That way I can do my bit to help T gauge be taken seriously.