doublecee

Like the night time picture of the blue 71 on the bridge. Very reminiscent of the photography in the 1978 and 79 catalogues. I have one of each on pre order

and bring back S.K

what they need is a forward thinker who won't shy away from certain issues such as selling the Corgi Brand first, then Pocher and Scalextric, whilst focusing on Hornby Railways, Airfix and Humbrol. Personally, I think Corgi, Pocher and Scalextric are dead weight and a distraction.

Of course, I am going to always remain biased when it comes to the class 71 (for obvious reasons). But the man in the photo is the real star of the 71. Hornby's Carl Hart is the chap that took our Laser scan and used it as build ref for all his incredible CAD work. His attention to detail and passion for exceptional product is 2nd to none. Dam nice chap too.

Saw the 71 which is based on our laser scan on Tuesday last week whilst down at the new Sandwhich office in other business. I have to say, despite always knowing she was going to be a great model, I was quite taken aback by just how impressive the running sample is. Also, her weight! If that weight is carried through to retail then I can see the 71 being run a lot on the garden railway followed by a full rake. She really does look amazing and May next year will hopefully see Hornby on the receiving end of some well deserved plaudits and praise.

interestingly, I have always preferred the clear window packaging... which is really the only way to see whats in the box.

I knew when we did the laser scan last year these were going to be special, and Hornby kept me in the loop throughout the cad work and with sneaky peaks of the early shots. So I always had a good feeling about these. Today I received a full set and they certainly do not disappoint! I like the lack of curtains, as I always found these to be the weakest link in the older models (which I have always loved). The roof detail is indeed superb, and I love the bogie and lower details. But what I really like on these versions are the use of the LED's for the lamps. The light output is uniform throughout and very nice indeed. An A/B comparrison between the old lighting and new lighting does indeed confirm that the LED's are a far superior solution. I will be doing a run with these in the garden tomorrow at dusk and will post the results shortly thereafter Although not a prototypical run, I cant wait to get these behind the Class 71 when released. Then that really will be "scantastic!"

From the latest Engine Shed... And if you look closely to the bottom right hand picture, you'll see one of my scanners doing its thing. What the engine shed post doesnt mention is the fact that we were unable to get the coach out of the shed on the day due to operations in the yard at BBRW. So I had to scan her where she was. On one side we had what I would describe as adequate clearence, but the other side was very tight indeed... and sadly no means of getting some height to get the roof. It was actually as a result of this that I decided to buy the big telecsoping surveyors tripod as seen in the Stirling Single images and videos from earlier in the year, that allows you to have the scanner set as high as 6 meters! Fortunatly, Hornby's designer knows his stuff and managed to use the info from what was captured and his photo ref to nail the roof. All I need to do now is decide if I need more pullmans for the Garden Railway... I do appear to have gone a little Pullman Crazy a few years back and already have about 30! But these ones are bloody nice.

I did indeed Shiny Shiny is always going to be a challenge, compared to say, any battle damaged scene of carnage in Avengers II (which I also scanned.... Go See it!)

I disagree entirely with that statement. What you are looking at is a SOLID obj model that is created from the Raw Point cloud. As a consequence, noise gets either deleted or heavily filtered as you work towards generating a polygonal model. Sometimes its best to keep that npoise rather than lose it as it will give the CAD engineer an idea of whats going on in that area, as oppossed to him having to guess due to omitted data. Further more, if the CAD engineer requires those handrails in the cleanest possible manner, then instead of using data that is a registration of some 70+ scans, we can just process the one scan position of interest, which obviously does not have any noise associated from the other 69 scans. How do I best explain this? Well, if you scan a chrome pole from face on, then you do get a good scan, but the data towards the edges as the angle between the scanner and pole become oblique, and you end up with a weird feathering or scatter Now, imagine in order to do a full 360 degrees around the pole you have to do 6 scans. No you have errors from that weird edging in every scan. Typically with dull surfaces or matte objects, this is easily remedied. But which anything super reflective, you can find useable data nested with the bad artifacts and its extremely time consuming to address. Now, multiply that one poles worth of issues with something very big, shiny and glossy with few dull parts. So, the basic model gives the Engineer a good profile to trace from, and then should he desire just the cab hand rails (for example, he wants a better idea of what the hand rails are doing by the cab), then we would go back to the RAW data for that particular scan (lets say that would be NRM_SS_SCAN_052), then I would just process that singular scan as oppossed to the sum of all the scans. So the model you see is a combination of 70 plus scans, warts and all. Patches under the cylinder are a typical example of us returning to the NRM just to get that area again, as it was totally blown out from the original scan, as was the area of the smoke box. The black paint literally ate all of the laser and three very little back, if anything. Unlike the recent scan of a famous and much talked about Electric loco that we scanned, whose bogies and Battery boxes were also black but gave us a good solve, our beloved Stirling Single really liked to absorb pretty much all of the laser. Anyone with a red laser pen can try this out for themselves on the Single if they wish. " if the interpolation during the clean-up is not done by someone with intimate knowledge of the original loco" When you spend that much time scanning a film set, vehicle, location or loco, (10 hours in the case of the stirling) you not only map it virtually but you also map it in your mind as well to a fantastic level. So when it comes to working with the point cloud, we always ensure that he who scanned it, processes it. Thats because the operator will have very intimate knowledge of the loco's form (if not the history). So, it only really puts paid to the idea if in fact you have enough understanding of the process to put the results into context. The Pre Cad model is the first stage. Should the CAD engineer have blocked out his outline and now really wants to get into detail like the Valve Gear, then a request will be submitted and ONLY the scans that pertain to that area are processed, resulting in less lumps or noise. Hope that makes sense

This image is a render. This image is a screen shot of the screen displaying a render, taken with a camera The lumpiness (exagerated by the high contrast of the screen photo above) is an artifact caused by the very reflective and glossy nature of the stirling, as well as the deep blacks on the smokebox and cylinders. The laser works by hitting a surface and reporting back a points distance. The minute you have to measure / scan anything that is super shiny, black or wet then the return on the laser is not as high a quality than say scanning a dirty old dusty diesel (which would result in a stellar return). Sadly, preservationists do like their polish and fresh paint jobs.

Can I just go on record and say that the APT-P does look very scannable. #justsaying ;-) Hopefully someone, somewhere will do one at some point. As good as the Hornby version was at the time, it hasnt aged that well.

There ya go! (thanks Igor)

This is indeed a strange hobby. When I was a kid, I just enjoyed running trains, and dreaming about future acquisitions. Then I took a 30 year hiatus. Jumping back into the hobby, I once again found myself innocently enjoying the same aspects I enjoyed as a youth. But then I jumped into the forums, and was surprised by the amount of negativity that would be randomly and undeservedly aimed at certain manufacturers. A certain mentality pervades all the forums, where not only is it ok to have an opinion, but its also acceptable to publically and shamelessly share those opinions, regardless of how little of their content is based on fact. And once you get one angry little trainspotter come out of the woodwork, a few more join the rabble. Its probably the same lot who like to bash Hornby and Bachmann with little regard for the actual facts, and their posts are peppered with little to no understanding as to the inner machinations of actual production. Having been on both sides of the fence, I have decided that the only way to enjoy the hobby is to not worry about the running of the businesses, and only concern myself with the running of the trains. The minute I start to read overly opinionated posts that veer towards the negative, I just remind myself that that life is too short and the world is too full of REAL problems that matter. And its the said running and collecting of these models that actually distracts from real world issues that there is no real escape from. My dealings with Rapido & Locomotion have been stellar, and you will not find a more dedicated and passionate partnership. They clearly have one goal, and thats to bring highly desirable models to market, and 2014-15 has seen this partnership announce some cracking releases. As best I understand the most recent pages to this thread, Locomotions website countdown for orders has expired, but the pages are still up and taking orders. So, whats the problem with that? Its down to one of two things... Their I.T chap has not revised the site (an oversight), or orders can still be taken. Either situation could be clarified by polite enquiry alone. Thats all it takes. And if it is the latter, then who cares.... really? I may just order a few more and hold a couple back and see if there is demand for them after the run has finished. Not as a profit making exercise, I hasten to add. A quick call, a polite question asked, and the answer shared here. But certain users seem to just want to sh*t their pants over the smallest of matters and blow something up to the point where it actually sours an otherwise really enjoyable thread. GET A GRIP GUYS PS: has anyone actually considered that the countdown clock was nothing more than a visual reminder for anyone visiting the site that the time to place orders was limited. The lack of whizz bang boom when the clock reached zero pretty much confirms this. This thread should be about the APT, its exceptional design, sandwiches holding open doors, interior detail and tilts on curves. Anything else should really be in a new thread, so as to not corrupt the enjoyable nature of this one.

Looking good. I wonder if Hornby will continue the trend of having stuff land early. This would be a great pre Christmas arrival...

Andy, you turned that edit around nice and quick. Certainly look into the Zoom H2H. I use it all the time (which explains my little hand clap at the start of our piece... a good way to sync sound and vision in post). Quality is top notch, and its build quality is fantastic, and yet it wont break the bank... especially if the Magazine pick up the bill ;-)

Ahhh, look at my two babies doing what they do best. For anyone interested, these two are named Lando and Greedo (all of my scanners are named after Star Wars Characters... Princess and Chewie were otherwise engaged on film stuff. Great day today! In fact, a top day. The Stirling Single has well and truly won me over, especially with her curves. She is going to look great chuffing around either the Garden Railway, the office or BOTH. But more importantly, Shildon has now become my favourite location to scan in. I dont think I have ever met such a helpful bunch of people. What a fantastic place. It was my first time there and I now find myself asking why I waited so long to visit. Brilliant!

I think two weeks turnaround is more than fair. Simon Kohlers SIMON SAYS is also offered up on a fortnightly basis. If The Engine shed posts are only half as interesting as Simons then they too should make for an enjoyable read. I suppose if they staggered the two, then we would in theory get a new scheduled posting every week. But I would also like to think the The Engine Shed posts could also include spontaneous posts as well, should they have something that they want to make a noise about.

Yep!

It's a really bad photo of an otherwise nice looking early prototype. Hopefully it will fair better in Andy Y's light box.

For purely obvious and selfish reasons, this makes me smile

From Hornby's twitter feed. Very nice, and reminds me of their marketing from the 70's and early 80's.

Just picked up the last one from Gaugemaster in Ford. It is what it is, and very no frills. Whilst in the shop, we opened it up inside to see how much of a faff it would be to install micro LED's front and rear. All looks very straightforward, as long as the TTS decoder will allow light functions. Failing that, I'll just throw in an old chip, match the address and use that for additional functions. She is exceptionally light with regards to her weight, so will certainly be adding some weight to her. Sound wise, considering the RRP, there really is no room for gripes. Im sure a better speaker with improved low end frequency response will improve matters no end. But out of the box, I think this one is a winner for the RailRoad brand. Fresh out of the box, it does have a very early 80's toy range feel to it. But Ive always considered the Railroad range to be a great canvas upon which to practice modelling and weathering skills. The TTS 37 is already earmarked for some aggressive weathering, and hoping that the initial passes using various wash tones will help bring out the detail that is there, but somewhat muted by the banana yellow and very plastic looking roof. As to wether its an accurate representation of the 37, I have no idea. My modelling criteria is that if it looks right, feels right and sounds right then Im happy. I wont obsess about the minutiae because thats not where my interest comes from. No, it wont win any awards for excellence, but it probably will win back a select group of modellers who's patience has been tested to the max over the last few years. So, bottom line, it represents great value for money, delivers as promised and arrived ahead of time (hopefully heralding the fact that the worst is over). Now, if anyone can point me in the right direction for some detail packs that can be used to pimp out the front and rear areas I would be most grateful.

We had one on the Hornby stand at Warley, as part of Simon's E-Link set-up. I was suitably impressed enough to add it to my list of wants for 2015. I'll probably partner it with the Dapol track cleaners i use in the garden (1 set to grind, the other set to vacuum), just to make that cleaning process at least a little bit more interesting than it currently is. Even at the RRP, it does present great value for money, and a gateway to more sound loco's. I have two TTS loco's now, the Blue Tornado an COTN. Whilst not as pleasing as a properly blown chip, there is no arguing the fact that it does what it says on the box. That and the fact that the stockk is in place (and not subject to countless threads about supply issues) adds further weight to the fact that the worst may now well be over. Its safe to say that if I can bare the thought of braving the elements today, I will be adding this to the collection. Should make for an interesting project should I decide to enhance it with weathering and basic lights.

As is the case with every year, a lot of work goes into it and it is a very professional publication, that is always looked forward to with anticipation. But I think the format has now run its course, and I would certainly like to see something different for 2016. I hope this is the end of the line for the side on, orthographic images. The do provide uniformity throughout the catalogues, but 3/4 perspective will always show the models (or CAD renders) in a much nicer way.