robmcg
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Posts posted by robmcg
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Here is a better angle on the valve gear of 63952. As with many 00 gauge steam models the eccentric crank (is that the right term?) on the driven wheel is splayed out further than on the prototype to give clearances for rods and wheels on such as 18" radius set-track curves.
To a lesser degree I presume this is true for kit-built/scratch-built engines?
Either way I respectfully suggest that this is a very fine model for the low price Hattons offered it a couple of years ago and I look forward to weathering this on or one of the others I have. Needless to say the three link coupling is now hanging dutifully downwards.
It is an interesting thing, the compromises made in modeling rods and valve gear.
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5 minutes ago, polybear said:
I'll add teacher and CRUK fundraiser.....
Of course! Why didn't I add that? There would be little room left for the actual caption, but it's all well deserved.
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A question if I may, having just bought a second-hand Heljan O2 and photographed it, I was mildly perturbed to see that I had neglected to set the rather beautifully-made three-link coupling on the front dangling downwards as it would normally have been. A result of a 12,000 mile journey and my clumsy box-opening.
Were these couplings ever arranged upwards and backwards over the centre lamp stand, or do I need to re-photograph it? I know that in the real word in days gone by some odd things happened....
For what it's worth it cost 80 Pounds and runs like a swiss watch.
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Tony, I did just two hours ago put your photo of V2 60847 on my Facebook page with this description of you in the caption;
Tony Wright, the accomplished writer, editor, historian, photographer, commentator and brilliant model maker, was kind enough allow me to add smoke to his photo of his Gresley V2 60847 'St Peter's School'
But I had missed out the 'husband, father, cricketer, and philosopher', and am worried I might have neglected important qualities... readers may wish to add some?
The picture has 82 'likes' after 2 hours, so my readers are I suspect well impressed
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On a tentative note, given my expressed opinion that one can overdo things, I couldn't resist a picture of a V2 bringing goods by fast freight to London, 1958 style.... especially since I have recently bought an RTR Bachmann TMC-weathered V2 60845...
All done on the principle 'less is more'. Perhaps no smoke at all on a warm day, but the usual excuses apply, making up time, keen driver, strong engine, a V2 at speed really was a beautiful machine, especially with a substantial load.
Thankyou Tony for the opportunity to mess around with your photo.
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1 hour ago, Tony Wright said:
Thanks Rob,
Very effective!
KITTIWAKE is actually on an Up express - that is going 'downhill'. It would seem to have been checked between Creeton and Bytham and is now accelerating again.
The radius rod is fixed, in (not quite) full forward gear, so your smoke/steam effect is very apt.
The model itself is a tribute to the late Geoff Brewin (one time proprietor of Comet Models). He'd started it (built from a Pro-Scale kit) and I bought it off his widow. He'd virtually completed the chassis, so I finished it, completed the body then painted it (my usual sables). Tom Foster then weathered it. It's one of the most-natural locos I've got.
The 'very faint dust' effect in the picture you cite is actually a fluke. I foolishly left my camera in Bytham's room overnight over last Christmas period (the room is not centrally-heated), resulting in some condensation getting between the lens' elements. Under most conditions now, it's not a problem, but, occasionally one gets a central 'bloom'; as was the case in the 'going away shot'. It'll have to be professionally-dismantled and made good.
Regards,
Tony.
Good evening Tony,
It is indeed an impressive model and yes it must have been checked by an errant slow goods or poorly-steaming preceding semi-fast, now diverted to the slow, and Kittiwake has nine minutes to recover before KX arrival 'on the dot'.
Very nice to know the provenance of the model, and sorry to read about your lens.
I might do a very similar pic of the other A1 going hard on the down express soon, but one wouldn't want to over-do these things, and the A4s are I think rather different in the subtleties of the exhaust shape and signature, quite a challenge.
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10 hours ago, Tony Wright said:Good morning Rob,
Would you like to try 'smoking' these? It's up to you...........
I'm just intrigued to see the results.
As stated, I'll not be trying smoke effects any more.
Regards,
Tony.
Well I certainly could.
I imagine that one in direction down trains would be 'having a go' at Stoke Bank? That up trains would either be going fast with light exhaust, or in either case, rarely, accelerating from such as signal checks.
So my preference would be a down train, forgive my ignorance of Little Bytham but is that left to right or right to left in these pictures...? I like 60120.... and will have a go at that regardless, and justify the effect afterwards..
edit; by the way I was greatly impressed by the photo yesterday of the non-RTR A3 'going away' with you on the platform of LB, very faint dust raised by the train at speed, very hard to render!
Here below is a very quick 'effect' with 60120 clearly going hard on a cold day... it needs tidying but was quick to do. Is that radius rod at the right angle, well 'nicked-up' but regulator well open, as per efficient A1 power?
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3 hours ago, APOLLO said:
Perhaps Rob who posts on here could "have a go" ?
Brit15
Probably wiser to use my own originals, and even then only sparingly. While I love photography and panned images of steam at speed, I am no fan of much of the smoke added to magazine pictures at times, prefering to add it to my own clearly manipulated 'pictures'.
I think I tried a few panned pics of LB some time ago but I don't think the magnificent layout needs smoke effects at all.The line between modelling and image-making is a curious thing, with suspension of reality being rather a odd thing, no doubt there are some who can explain it.
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As one who was in the 1960s adept at building smooth-running Kitmaster models but for whom circumstances have left less-than-capable of building kits I can say that I am unashamedly full of admiration for those can. And those who attempy it.
I used to be able to build or modify very good heads for BMC A-series engines, having a lovely natually-lit clean workshop for this 'art', and building the odd Jaguar motor, and I imagine that accomplished railway modellers would have their own particular work-space made just the way they like it.
There is a sort of calming pleasure in a well-designed work space, a place to relax and create.
Just my thoughts, have offered to buy the DJH B16/1 from Tony I'm very concious of the value of something built perhaps 40 years ago and still giving pleasure. Here is my adaptation of Tony's excellent photo, for which to my shame I have not sought permission, but do hope it is granted retrospectively.
I have added the odd bit and disguised others with computer tools. Isn't the B16 the last 'large' engine to have ecaped the attention of major RTR manufacturers? Certainly very handsome in its NER 'let's get the work done' sort of way.
Thankyou Tony.
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On 12/03/2022 at 22:32, great northern said:
,,,,,,
Our next visitor was the borrowed 04/8, with the Little Barford empties. Unfortunately photoshopping round the signals in the far distance was far beyond my abilities, so I was going to bin this. However, I know some of you are rather partial to the 04, so I'll put it up untouched. If anyone feels they have the time, inclination and ability to shop it properly, they are welcome to do so.
....
On 12/03/2022 at 22:32, great northern said:In a spirit of apology and reconciliation over my earlier insensitive actions, here below is a very quick 'photoshopping' of our O4/8.
I hadn't realised the pleasures of watching trains coming and going could be so beautifully presented as in this thread, Gilbert, thankyou.
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23 hours ago, Tony Wright said:
.....
Ah, I've got it! I can 'improve' my models by buying a really cheap camera!
Regards,
Tony.
Did someone mention my name ?
Never fear, instead of 'improving' models with a cheap camera I have progressed to doing it with an expensive one. Currently enjoying Heljan's O2s and must thank you Tony for your contribution of many prototype photos you showed back in 2018 in I think the Heljan product thread with regard to the many and various variations in these imposing 3-cylinder machines.
(I do admire the various examples or craftmanship and art shown here lately).
edit; correction. The O2 photos you showed Tony were from this very thread on page 7 in 2013. Thanks again.
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Glass half full or glass half empty...?
I think it looks superb, straight out of the box, smooth runner.
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8 hours ago, cypherman said:
Hi all,
....
My humble opinion is that they have forgotten their original base market. All those kids who in their catalogue pictures were loving playing trains. The ones that grew up and continued the hobby. So the ground base for future model railway builder dropped rapidly. That is not to say that there are no younger modellers. Just not as many. So they set their sites on the older modellers. Those from the 1950-80 time period and said "I know what we will start making much more detailed but increasingly flimsy models for them. And we will charge them a small fortune for these engines to make up for the money we have lost selling as the younger generation have stopped buying. They have grown up and can now afford the extortionate price we will sell them at". Then after a bit they think perhaps we have missed a trick here. Maybe we can still sell some engines to those less well off and the youngsters. We will call it the Railroad range. We will take some of our older models to drop some extra detail and the things that are fine and flimsy. Make the painting slightly less ornate and sell it cheaper. Let the punters think they are getting a bargain. But still charge them more than they cost or are worth.........
Point made but I respectfully disagree that the standard Hornby range is over-priced.
It certainly hasn't been over-priced, Hornby have until recently, for several years I think, run at a loss. Chinese labour costs and transport and distribution costs are very much on the increase.
Models of the standard of the recent A2s and any number of others couldn't even be assembled by UK workers for less than the total retail, let alone design, tooling, marketing.
The whole world is far different for kids now than it was in 1949-70, and while toy trains are still very popular for younger children I don't see an obvious niche for Hornby other than what they do now , in my opinion very well.
The highly detailed models they and others make with Chinese production and assembly is astonishingly good for such short-run production.It makes sense to me to produce lower priced less-detailed models for the kids of 10-14 who are inclined to build a model railway. Or those who may want to detail things themselves.
The thread title assumes Hornby have gone wrong. But have they? They are still here and better than any other producer at times.
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12 minutes ago, Edna Clouds said:
It was from Leigh Collett and it's not to do with him, his packing was exemplary - it's the clamshell that pushes the smoke deflector inwards with nothing behind it. Perhaps my bucket list should include acquiring one in one piece!
I think later production versions may have padding on the outside of the deflectors to more accurately locate the front of the model in the clamshell. I recall seeing a photo of that, possibly from Hornby or a dealer, when the first R3840/1 damaged models first appeared and were discussed here many pages back. I bought two R3840s and one was broken and I repaired it reasonably well, the other had intact deflectors but a couple of other issues. Also bought a R3841 and it was fine.
Good lick.
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6 hours ago, coronach said:
I have applied some Railmatch acrylics to mine, which gives a pleasing result
I finally bit the bullet and have bought a Rails 60964 late crest green BR version, and having seen what Tim has done for Gilbert Barnatt and his Peterborough North I can see the early crest BR black version being very tempting.
The dilemma is that while weathering done well, as above, enhances the models, the factory livery is so good to begin with, the obvious answer being, buy two.
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R3195 was one of the last models sold by Hornby before the first of the most recent tooling R3555 Sir William Stanier, as I recall. I have one and it's an impressive lovely model.
Being of the sloping smokebox early crest it might be quite rare now,
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4 hours ago, David jennings said:
I think Hornby’s problem is some modellers who seem to have wholly unrealistic expectations of them. As has been pointed out there’s a confusion between toys for children, with the crudity and strength that requires, and the very finescale models Hornby and others produce for adults now. No you can’t chuck them in a toybox but for heavens sake compare like with like ?!!! Hornby are to be thanked by modellers like me for producing models of prototypes I want, to a standard of detail, finish and engineering I would struggle to produce from a kit (if one existed) or scratch build if it doesn’t : and both would probably be even less robust than a ready to run modern offering ? And for a price I can afford.
it seems to me we have to be careful not to whinge too much - or modern producers will stop, or become more risk averse, or produce things that bring less hassle from customers.
Please, if don’t like them don’t buy them. Don’t whinge and potentially muck it up for those of us that are very grateful for the likes of Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol, Heljan etc…..
Rant over………
I wholehearedly agree that we are in fact lucky to have companies like Hornby who are producing phenomenal scale models in a market which is quite small.
While I wait for Hornby's new 9F tooling to come to fruition, and having derived much pleasure from many recent 00 steam-age models, I am filled with admiration for the designers, toolmakers and not least the Chinese factories which assemble modern models.
The Bachmann 9F is a work of genius, the new Hornby version will I suspect be even better in detail. And who would have thought we would have Heljan LMS Garratts?
I suspect there is a lot of enthusiasm and love of modelling and of railways behind a lot of these commercial operations. From my very occasional contact with Simon Kohler I know he is proud of such as the 4MT 4-6-0, and how he tolerates the regular brickbats and armchair managers I do not know.
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23 hours ago, davidw said:
They'd make a crisper model. If they got the livery right it would be a great model. Though personally I doubt it would happen.
Not too much to worry about on a BR 9F livery, unless you are weathering one, where the colours are indeed subtle! As in my attempt to mess around with a Bachmann 9F image.... and replacing a lot of it with prototype dimensions and colours. and with the projected Hornby number...
Give a rough idea in my opinion of what the Hornby model might look like. I hope.
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While waiting for the 9F I thought of the quality of such as the Britannia of 2006 and rather hope we can see quality RTR like this, or better.
As I understand it the Brit was was relatively labour-intensive model to manufacture, and I cannot help but wonder if and how the new 9F will differ. Hornby resurrected the Clans of 2010-11 with reasonable success, so one hopes that the standard of assembly of the 9F will be good. It certainly was back in the 2000s.
To me, the subtle detail dimensions of Hornby models might just suddenly make the Bachmann 9F look slightly crude, brilliant though they are.
Wouldn't it be amusing if Hornby announce a V2?
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15 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:
It's right there on the cover, too. It should either be "from the Paul Leaven collection" or "from Paul Leaven's collection", assuming the surname to be Leaven. If the surname is Leavens, it should be "from the Paul Leavens collection" or "from Paul Leavens' collection".
A clear instance of the Gricer's Apostrophe.
The previous book listed is described on the cover as being from the 'the David Dalton collection', which is tidier, but for me the lovely photo of Britannia 70011 with the fireman looking back from the cab for a 'right o' way' or some flag from the gaurd is more interesting.
I never knew and still don't know whether the fireman might have shouted across the cab 'right o' way' or 'right away' when trains departed.
The picture on the cover from the David Dalton collection is superb, and allows great comparison to be made with the Hornby RTR model. which I think is aside from chimney one the best ever done in 00.
which allows a photo of the lovely Hornby version albeit 70015 'Aplollo' in WR guise. Bought second hand as most versions now are.
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5 hours ago, PupCam said:
That's very clever!
Is it your photograph of the model and how many attempts at getting the right angle and focal length to get the loco to match the scene?
Must be very tricky!
By the way, is the W1 a P4 conversion? It's sitting on rails 4' 8.5" rails ......
Alan
Thanks. Yes it's my photo of an 00 W1 adapted from a photo of Mallard with what is an incorrect tender for the W1 in 1938, the wheels and track are from the original 1938 photo, coloured by me, the techniques used are copy-re-size-paste with any number of adjustments and often a bit of painting with edges and effects.
But as promised I won't do too much of this on WW because it's Tony's celebration of modelling which is at the core of the thread.
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6 hours ago, Tony Wright said:
Good evening Rob,
It's fascinating how you get such striking imagery. I'm sure you get great pleasure from creating such pictures (and others derive pleasure from it, too).
However (always one of those from me!), your W1 has got the wrong tender (a streamlined non-corridor type). For this pre-War period, it should be a 1928 corridor type.
A pedant's observation!
Regards,
Tony.
Thanks for your tolerance Tony, I shall mostly keep contributions to my own talbletop locomotive portraits in future.
The tender was from a photo by me of a Hornby Mallard in a similar setting, I thought at the time it was probably wrong for the W1, and it was.
Nice to see the recent photos of various layouts of ECML locations and stations, there is so much history and romance in its 396 miles. .
Thanks again for your forebearance, I know there are so many ways to appreciate modelling, the nature of suspension of disbelief, and certainly modified photos are dangerous ground. I'll be more restrained, I have qute a few followers on a couple of Facebook pages which display my pictures and I have no desire to cause offence here. Many are actually ex-railwaymen from steam days and some leave very nice comments with interesting anecdotes. Having been a keen kit-builder years ago and always having had a love of railways I can understand and will try to respect the accent here being on craftsmanship and modelling rather than my own personal interpretation of British steam with a camera, RTR models, and software..
May Wright Writes continue unabated.
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With recent ECML settings we need a photo from KX and what better than a Hornby W1 set into a photo by Paul Sankey's father and coloured by me...
Note from Paul Sankey;
A image that l had from my Dad which was a copy neg, the caption was Kings Cross 15-09-38 neg no: 111/007 was no note of the original photographer. Nice colourising!
And what a fine Hornby model!
Cheers
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13 hours ago, 30368 said:
What a brilliant image David. 60509 and train looks so prototypical, in particular the light on the side of the loco. It's one of the best "realistic" images that I have seen on this site. Bravo!
Kind regards,
Richard B
I agree, and have been photographing steam trains real and model since about 1962, my father was an writer, editor and publisher as well as being publicity manager for New Zealand Railways and grew up with a lot of photos about!
That colouring and composition really is top notch.
My first reaction was, maybe I'll add some steam or smoke, but in reality many trains ran without visible exhaust especially downhill on a hot day, so thought maybe not.
Now to think of some way of approahing that lighting on my own plank!
Cheers, Robbie.
Wright writes.....
in Modelling musings & miscellany
Posted · Edited by robmcg
addition, typos
For all its faults I have photographed Heljan O2 63952 again and darkened the axle ends , but done precious little else to the appearance of the model. I have added a foreground from a public domain photo of a Gresley A1 at Top Shed of all places, highly improper that an O2 venture there!
We all have different criteria by which we judge models, I very much like these Heljan O2s (and 47XXs for that matter), and look forward to the GN versions of the O2. My criteria are much related to compromised modelling ability, primarily old injuries .
Photo taken with full-frame Canon RP with 35mm macro lens. Post-exposure editing with Paintshop Pro 6 software, about 18 yrs old I think.
Here below is the other side of 63952, same camera and lens, but different lighting, predominantly the adjacent window. In some ways a more 'honest' illustration of a model than those with my added bits.
p.s. I very much look forward to photographing the DJH B16/1 which I bought from Tony a few days ago and which is now winging its way to me. While I can easily do unaltered studio-style photos I suspect 61436 will also receive some virtual detail and be set into a suitable NER background.