HonestTom

I started writing a post saying more-or-less exactly this. I think really the question would be, would it look obviously wrong not to include certain aspects of history in your layout? For instance, I've often thought I'd like to model East London during the Second World War. I don't have to include bombed-out houses and casualties, but it would look wrong if I had, for instance, no blackout precautions. Indeed, for some aspects of history, it could be seen as offensive not to include certain references - I'm thinking particularly of the example cited of Northern Ireland during the Troubles. If I had a layout set in the place/era mentioned, and I deliberately omitted any references to events (e.g. murals that were definitely there), people might well ask why not. As an Englishman, I'd want to tread very carefully. Obviously the poster did, but I'd be nervous myself. Re posters, I must admit that I have been tempted to include certain tobacco and alcohol adverts that wouldn't fly today because they are so blatantly wrong. I'm thinking of "Craven-A Will Not Affect Your Throat" and "Guinness is Good for You."

I guess they're relying on the fact that these days, a lot of people don't have a local model shop. I'm one of the lucky ones and I take the view that, like you, I'd rather support my local - ordering from Hornby offers all the downsides of mail order service with none of the advantages.

I did encounter an advert in a BR internal publication from I think the 70s on goods handling that depicted an entirely uncensored, entirely naked woman with the caption, "If [our boxes] looked like this, you'd handle them with more care." Don't remember the actual brand, so I guess the advert wasn't as effective as the client hoped, but good golly you could not get away with an advert like that today. To be fair, I don't think we've come across many instances of people actually being offended here. On the whole, I don't think people are as sensitive as certain sections of the media like to make out. It's more a question of what in theory could be offensive versus what's historically accurate.

I wonder if you might not also run into the question of copyright if you're using real brands. I know a lot of companies are fine with you putting adverts for their product on your model if you get permission (see also Hornby's many novelty-liveried wagons), but not always. I could see tobacco companies getting worried that putting their adverts on Scalextric edges perilously close to "advertising to children."

It's a shame the Peter Sam is such an inaccurate model - a Kerr Stuart Tattoo could have appeal far beyond Corris/Talyllyn layouts. That being said, maybe people would be fine accepting the compromises. Certainly I'm prepared to put up with compromises on my currently-being-converted Rheneas for the sake of an easy life. Actually, in some ways I'm quite glad of this. I was about to buy a Skarloey for conversion, but if I'm patient, Bachmann will do the work for me. Given how long it takes me to get projects completed, it probably wouldn't be any quicker for me to do it myself.

I think also that it’s a question of tastefulness. Is this likely to cause offence? Well, it’s not like it’s glorifying the war or the Nazis. The pilot is injured, but he’s not in gory bits all over the place. There are people who seemingly get offended for the sake of it, but those people aside, I don’t think anyone would get too upset about this.

If you want to portray an idealised version of history, then that's up to you, particularly on a home layout. It's really no one else's business. The temptation with history is to accentuate aspects of it that stand out as unusual or distinctive, but that might not be representative of the actual era. Would the negative aspects of the era actually be present in your setting? For instance, the British Union of Fascists had plenty of support in the 1930s, but only for a fairly brief period and only in some parts of the country. So they were definitely a thing that existed, you'll read about them in any history of Britain in the twentieth century, but would it be representative of the era to have blackshirts on, say, the Pendon Vale Scene? Probably not. The risk is that portraying the negative side of history can be as inaccurate as seeing it all through rose-tinted glasses.

Geoff Marshall does, I believe Jay Foreman and the Tim Traveller do. Not sure about the others. Of course, it depends on what you mean by making a living from YouTube. For instance, Chris Eden-Green's main thing is his Steam Locomotives in Profile series, but he has a big YouTube presence and some of his SLIPs videos are on there - so is that making a living from YouTube? It's hard to say.

If you like it, then go for it. It's not remotely prototypical, but remember Rule One.

There are a few professional train nerds on the social media landscape. Geoff Marshall on YouTube is probably the biggest in the UK, although there are plenty of other successful channels that deal to a greater or lesser extent with train stuff (Paul and Rebecca Whitewick, Jay Foreman, Chris Eden-Green, Ruairaidh McVeigh and The Tim Traveller are some I would recommend). Train videos can be quite popular, because they're what we might call "cosy content," i.e. non-controversial and relaxing. Plus I think these days, being into so-called "geeky" hobbies is no longer stigmatisin, so more people are willing to give these things a shot. IMO, the key to success is that you have to be able to consistently engage an audience and balance being informative with being entertaining. I think the kind of personality that people respond to best is what we might call "friendly nerd." Someone who knows their stuff, but comes across as the kind of person you could have a chat with. A sense of humour helps and, weirdly enough, not being too professional and slick. If you have a particular quirk, that helps - audiences love an in-joke. Train content tends to be what YouTube describes as "evergreen," i.e. it's not tied to a particular time. The people I mentioned above have been on the site for years, over a decade in some cases, and their audiences continue to grow. However, it's a slow burn. It can take years to get to the point where a channel becomes the primary source of income, and you have to have a lot of content produced on a regular basis. Francis Bourgeois is on Tiktok, which is great for short term meme fame, but it's not so good for long-term audience retention. You have to rely entirely on personality, which is fine, but eventually people will get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again. This is also the case with a lot of the biggest YouTube stars, they get rich and famous very quickly, but the kids move on.

Bit of a shot in the dark this, but I’ve somehow managed to lose the safety valves on my Prince - does anyone know if spares are available? Google has turned up nothing and I can’t find anything on Peco’s site. EDIT: Actually, I've changed my mind. Looking at photos of the engine in the era I want to portray (the 1890s), it appears to have had a different safety valve/whistle arrangement from the model. I think I'll see what the various bits suppliers can do for me.

My current layout project is designed to give no indicators as to location or era (I want to be able to run stock from the 1860s to potentially the preservation era), which is surprisingly difficult even for a sleepy, independent country railway. There are clothing styles, architecture, soil colour, even things like breeds of sheep to consider. On the subject of preservation, I've often thought you could do a good layout set in the 60s or 70s, dealing with a heritage railway in its early days. A couple of industrials running the trains, a mishmash of rolling stock, some scrapyard condition locos in the yard, maybe even fictional liveries on the rolling stock a la the Bluebell or KWVR.

I think that a lot of it is down to PR. I think in the hobby industry, and this is by no means limited to model railways, smaller is better when it comes to PR. In a hobby, people like the idea that the manufacturer is someone knowledgeable, relatable and friendly. It's that much easier to do that with a smaller, newer company where the higher-ups are more visible and engaged with the consumers. It creates a positive association. The manufacturer appears to be "one of us." Bigger manufacturers are in this position where on the one hand, they're a big company with a whole PR department, a vast advertising presence and no hope of engaging with the consumer on the same level, but they're trying to act like your mates. It comes across as kind of phony, even if at heart it's not much different from what the smaller manufacturers are doing. That all sounds terribly cynical, but I think this is a major reason why some people have a more favourable opinion of the new players. For me personally, I'm in the "if you make what I want, I'll buy it" camp.

That set was produced in cooperation with StudioCanal and included a DVD of the film. Which makes the current situation even more baffling. What would they have said had things gone further? "I can't believe we went to all that trouble to get the rights last time, when we could have just said 'inspired by' instead!" Totally bonkers. No doubt Hornby curates the replies on their social media carefully. They like to present themselves as this friendly, nostalgic, your-dad's-toy-trains company, so I doubt they'd discourage such misinterpretation. It's beneficial to their reputation in the wake of this to allow themselves to be presented as the David to StudioCanal's Goliath.

IMO, this is what they should have done from the start. That being said, I already have the coaches, so I'll probably just buy the Rapido engine.

I saw this acknowledgement pop up on my Facebook feed and it's only confirmed what I think we all suspected - that Hornby messed up. My guess would be that they were sent a C&D and one of the conditions was that they had to make a statement, but they put it off for as long as they could legally get away with it. Frankly, this implies serious management issues. It's not like this was some one-man cottage industry putting out bootlegs under the radar - this is a major company that is very familiar with how licensing works. They had even negotiated the rights to The Railway Children and Paddington, both of which are StudioCanal's. It's absurd to think that they were unaware of what they were doing, yet the fact that they so openly advertised what they were doing suggests otherwise. Either someone at the top somehow forgot, or they were arrogant enough to think that the third-largest film distribution company in the world would back down.

I suspect that for the manufacturers, it will be the big ticket items that are affected most, for psychological reasons. £100 or £200 just looks like a lot of money. If you added up all your unnecessary spending over a year, you'd probably get several times that, but £5 or £10 at a time doesn't feel the same. There are a lot of wargamers and crafters out there who make things on the cheap, with basic tools and materials - many of them take pride in how little they spend, or see it as a challenge in itself. With so many excellent tutorials available online and an increased emphasis on recycling, I could see this approach coming back into fashion among railway modellers. By the same token, I think we could see more people seeing what they could do with older, cheaper, less detailed models.

Jinties also worked branch lines, goods trains and even commuter trains now and again. As I say, I'm thinking primarily in terms of what would be useful for compact and micro layouts. Basically, I'm thinking of engines you don't need much of an excuse to own, regardless of the size of your layout. This is true, but I'm having a hard time thinking of an equivalent to the others that would have the same kind of appeal and usefulness as the other three in the same size range. Maybe the E1? Terriers are a popular class of locomotive with a lot of potential livery choices, and I think the fact that there have been four RTR versions in three scales backs that up. They can be used on a wide range of duties quite authentically, and if you're building a micro-layout, you're probably thinking more in terms of a branch line, shunting yard or light railway than something main line. But you could find an excuse to use one on a larger layout if you really wanted to.

I'd crib pretty heavily from Dapol's O gauge range. The market the manufacturers seem to be aiming at is people who want something true scale, so I think a good starting point would be stuff that's less glamorous. I would also edge towards small prototypes, suitable for micro and compact layouts, because I think that's how a lot of people would start out when experimenting in the scale. So, if I were starting such a range, my first four locos would be basic tank engines representing each of the Big Four. - GWR 57xx - LMS Jinty - LNER J50 - LBSC Terrier I might also give consideration to one of those Sentinel shunters that could be produced in LNER, LMS, GWR, BR, WD and private owner liveries.

This is why I'm slightly surprised that the first big locomotive announcement is a class 31. I would have thought the big attraction of a scale with international compatibility would be the fact that so many modern locomotives, wagons, multiple units and buildings can be used internationally. Obviously there's the suggested Gaugemaster Class 66, which is more what I was expecting. I would be interested to know Heljan's reasoning for this one. I don't mean that in a snarky, rhetorical way, I genuinely am curious. N is a well-established scale and a lot of the obvious models have already been covered. Here, we have a market where everything is new. The potential sales for basic, useful items such as 16t mineral wagons, vent vans or Mk 1 coaches are huge if the scale catches on.

I suspect it's because micro-layouts tend to place the emphasis on shunting, which is fiddly in N. Whether this will also be the case in the new TT remains to be seen.

Class 08? Called it! Austerity is also an excellent choice, given how widespread they were in industry. And it has the potential to sell in Europe thanks to their wartime escapades. I have no strong opinions on the Class 31, but I have no doubt that it's a good choice, given their popularity in other scales.

As I see it, this should be viewed as a new scale (for British modellers at least) rather than an attempt to dethrone anyone else. TT3 is in exactly the same position it was in before the announcement. I am a little surprised that Peco seem to be starting out with a steam age setting, given that modern image would make it far easier for modellers to take advantage of what's already available in Continental ranges. With so much rolling stock travelling via the Channel Tunnel, it would also enable them to develop models with Europe-wide appeal. I come at this from a position of complete neutrality, having no particular interest in switching scales from 00. With all that in mind, I'd suggest a likely candidate for a first loco would be a class 08. It can be used from the steam age through to the modern era, it could carry many liveries and it would be a good loco for micro-layouts (ideal for anyone thinking to dabble in the scale before committing). It could even be produced for the Dutch market, if the Dutch aren't too bothered about detail compromises.

Minerva do the Manning Wardle K class and Ixion do the Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0. I think either of these would be a good choice in 00, given the popularity of industrial subjects.

The old Playcraft Decauville is apparently to 1/72 scale, which means that the HO scale driver it comes with looks very peculiar indeed.