Recent correspondance about small pipe organs has centred on the
Tomy range of toys.  These are great fun and are, in my opinion,
a legitimate part of mechanical music.  I will always recommend any
newcomer to the hobby, who may be short of funds, to start at the
novelty end of the market and work up as funds permit.  You can even
buy your first player piano for the cost of removal only if you don't
mind doing all the restoration yourself.

Coming back to Tuneyville, the Player Piano and Choo-Choo work on
different principles.  The Choo-Choo is a true eight-note player pipe
organ with eight individual pipes (whistles) controlled by a plastic
disc.  The music discs are double sided (two tunes per disc) and,
unusually, the music is arranged like some of the Symphonion music
boxes with half the notes on each side of the disc centre.

The wind is supplied by a centrifugal blower powered by a 3-volt motor
which also moves the locomotive along as it plays.  Actually, therefore,
it is the world's only self-playing, self-propelled player pipe organ.

The Tuneyville Player Piano is a very clever multiplexing instrument
-- orchestrion multiplexing arrangements live on in today's toys!  The
limitation here is that you cannot play more than two notes from the
keyboard at once, one in each half of the musical scale.  A previous
correspondant has already explained the inner details.

Contrary to Robbie's suggestion that this should be categorised as
a swannee whistle [slide whistle] rather than as an organ, I beg to
differ.  Large pipe organs have sometimes got two notes out of one bass
pipe to save space and money.  This is done by having a pneumatically
controlled flap valve a semitone's distance away from the open end,
operated simultaneously with the pallet whenever the higher note is
required (ref: Audsley).  This design assumes that you never want to
play both notes at the same time.  The Tuneyville Player Piano just
takes this principle to the next level.

Moving on to even smaller player pipe organs, may I suggest the
Blow-a-Tune, made in 1949 by Kenner of Cincinnati.  This is a 10-note
pipe organ with ten stopped pipes operated by a card disc.  Wind is
supplied by the operator.  It measures 105 mm x 170 mm x 36 mm,
excluding the mouthpiece.  The disc has a diameter of 200 mm.  An
unusual feature of this instrument is that the high notes are arranged
nearest to the centre of the disc, the reverse of convention.  There is
no logical reason for this as the disc musical scale is viewed as high
to the left when playing.  Details are shown in Kevin McElhone's
excellent Organette Book.

I'm sure there must be smaller pipe organs out there.

Best regards from GB.
Nicholas Simons