Photo by Fredrick Onyango via Wikimedia Commons
Another of those layout ideas I’m never likely to build, a freelance layout based in a ficticious African nation.
The above picture of a Rift Valley Railways passenger train in Nairobi, Kenya with its American diesel and vaguely European looking coaching stock is the sort of scene it might try to evoke. The RVR is metre-gauge (and most other lines in sub-Saharan Africa are 3’6″ Cape Gauge), but a model like the recently introduced Arnold U25C and Brawa DR “Reko” coaches could represent something similar. Some Kato Japanese-outline freight stock would not out of place either.
As for other motive power, there was an export model of the Brush 4 that ran in Zimbabwe, and might make an interesting conversion project from a Graham Farish 47. Kitbashing anything to represent the stylish English Electric export model 1-Co-Co-1s which also run in Kenya might be more of a challenge.
I seem to recall hearing that the Chinese provide a lot of the railway infrastructure in Africa these days. I wonder how popular model railways are in China?
(I nearly put “how big are model railways in China”, but I know some comedian would come back with something like “the same size as in Europe”! I know I would.
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Actually, most model railway equipment you buy in Britain is made in China, and as living standards there rise I’d expect a domestic market to grow, and with it a demand for models of Chinese trains rather than American and British ones.
Bachmann do may some Chinese models in HO, but I’m not aware of anything in N gauge yet.