Ravenser

That is quite a formidable tangle of tracks and installations . I counted at least 5 major goods stations at two levels, plus Holbeck MPD with several roundhouses. 2.8m equates to just over 9' - that's starting to look manageable So - I'd lose the two bottom bays at Central , taking it down to 4 main platforms + a bay. I would want to compress the whole thing, so that the longest platform would take a Pacific+ 4 x 61'6 Gresleys + 4 x 64' Mk1s . If an 8 coach formation of Mk1s hung out onto the platform ramp, that's ok. I would retain the loco facilty with turntable shown on the OS 25" plan . Something like this is essential - Pacifics will need to be turned for their next duty I'm not sure how long a train Leeds Central would actually take - I'm guessing at least 10 coaches. But the habit of splitting off Bradford portions at Wakefield Westgate hints that it probably didn't see extremely long trains... In TT:120 you can run a Pacific round R2 = 310mm (a fraction over 12") . At 15" radius , you have something that equates to the 2' minimum radius accepted for decent OO. So I allow 21" width to swing a double track mainline on viaduct round a U curve at the end on about 18"-16" radius , with a single freight line on the inside of the curve at 15" radius, falling so that it goes under the throat of Central on a skew. This then leaves 10'3" for a compressed Central and approaches . I would put it on a slight diagonal across a 2' wide board, replicating the situation at Leeds in reality . The freight line goes into a goods terminal at low level behind the throat of Central - a representational impression of the actual low level freight stations. Scope for J50s as both yard shunter and working trip goods into and out of the goods station up the bank. To get sufficient headroom for the bridge carrying this over the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the bridges over the Aire and the canal would have to be moved round onto the curve . So you'd be getting to something not too far off scale distance from the concourse to the River Aire (around 12' run) The freight line joins the mainline through a ladder junction /crossover just before you enter the fiddle yard . That need only be about 5' long , so this side of the layout need be no longer than 7'6" to 8'. Plenty of space to take a door opening into the room For the hell of it (and to avoid the U curve swinging round at just 4' width) you add a short straight bit, and I'd have a double track junction in the far corner, to pull off a second double track mainline turning through 90 degrees (representing the LMS/LYR) and heading into a back section of the fiddle yard Split highlevel/lowlevel layouts are a bit of a fashion these days. Operationally Central functions as a very grand Minories with Pacifics and 8 coach trains: the Pacifics go to the loco yard to turn for their next duty, and there is also the possibility of splitting off a 3/4 coach "Bradford portion" (I know this actually happened at Wakefield - but it might be a Harrogate portion or something) . I think the Queen of Scots Pullman reversed at Leeds - so a Pullman comes in by one route, a new engine backs on and takes it out down the other route... The LMS presence means that the imminent Stanier Period3 stock is totally in place. A Black 5 would be ideal, we don't have one - Stanier Pacifics never reached Leeds Central but a Duchess on 7 bogies (57') and a 50' BG would look quite sensible in this setting. Parcells trains casn be accomodated. You'd need to do some cut and shut work to get other types of Mk1 in the short term (I think 2 x BSK to 1 x SK + 1 x BG was a recognised cut and shut exercise on Triang Mk1s?) The low level freight depot gives you a shunting /ftreight operation for J50 and in future J94, and unlike mode split level layouts it's actually connected tro the main layout. So - Leeds Central in a 12' x 6' shed?? With mainline trains haul;ed by Pacifics displayed on a viaduct for train watching?

I quite like the idea of double track on the side coming down to a single line on the left. I would see the justification for this as the station being the junction of two minor lines - the siding bottom left is the stump of a former goods only line, now abandoned. The single line heads off into a tunnel - scenicly I'd develop this with a rock face runnung from the left side of the portal along the left edge of the board, and the stub siding ending in front of a bricked up tunnel mouth in it . This would work quite nicely Operationally I would see this siding as a place where the bulk of a through freight could be dumped, along with the brake van , out fo the way of through traffic, while the J50 shunted the yard I would also "go with the flow" and set this as somewhere on an imaginary portion of the ex GN lines in West Yorkshire - classic territory for a J50. These were straggling steeply graded lines through the hills that formed the second or third string route to various towns in the West Riding, and were getting run down and marginal by the 50s. (which is why Leeds- Bradford Interchange is the only bit of this network that survives..). Queensbury lines These included several routes from Wakefield to Bradford Exchange - and the interesting point is that commonly ECML trains to the West Riding divided at Wakefield Westgate, with a 3-4 coach portion going along these lines to Bradford Exchange. Post war a B1 or 2-6-4T seems to have been the usual motive power, but a Bradford portion is probably the most plausible excuse for a Gresley Pacific and 3-4 coaches, which could be Pullmans. Diversion of the expresses by a back route could explain a few things away... I also think the bay platform could actually be used.. The idea of a shuttle service over the double track section which terminates in the bay would allow some local services. True there are no DMUs or branch passenger stock available RTR in TT120 but the world of 3D printing may help you: LNER Sentinel railcars (most of his stuff is not available for 1/120 scale , but these are). I'm not swure how smooth the finish will be and Shapeways have their detractors, but it could well be worth a punt. It ought to be possible to source a 12mm gauge motor bogie from Halling to power it. When no-one much is looking a timeslip could see the Bradford Executive diverted this way formed of an HST... and the Waterloo -Exeter routre was/is a mix of single and double so maybe a 50 might appear too... Best of luck!

Leeds Central was a notoriously cramped major terminus - no doubt one reason why Beeching closed it. It would be quite interesting to see how big a mildly compressed version designed to take an A3/A4 plus 8 Mk1s would be in TT:120 - a J50 would be perfectly reasonable as station pilot. Once the 37 is released it should not be beyond a moderately ingenious modeller to stretch the chassis and fit it under a Deltic body from Lincoln Locos. This is one prototype location that might well be do-able as early as the start of next year. Certainly if you wanted to tackle an ECML location in TT:120 it looks like one of the best candidates

Apologies for a delayed reply , but some of the issues are worth teasing out Being in 4mm/OO for many years, I'm well aware of a large group of people who are "in 4mm" but do not have a layout, have never had a model railway of their own since the trainset stage, and have no obvious prospect of building a model railway of their own in the foreseeable future because they don't have space to do so in 4mm at home The classic solution to this conundrum is to get involved with an exhibition layout group - often a club group - as an operator/stock provider. The exhibition layout provides an opportunity to run your stock. This is a major motivation for people joining model railway clubs. Otherwise you end up buying stock, or less commonly making it, for a "oneday, maybe" layout dream, going to shows and accumulating a pile of boxes at home , in hope. I suspect quite a few of the posters in RTR threads, including some of the heavy posters , fall into this category. It might be very salutary to check "where's the layout?" At a personal level 15-20 years ago I spent some time heavily involved with an abortive club layout project, and nearly everyone involved seemed to fit the profile I've described. Indeed in the last analysis the reason the project failed was there was almost no practical layout building experience in the group. 15 years down the line a number of the individuals concerned , to the best of my knowledge, have still not built a layout of their own It's this sort of situation that is leading some people in N to argue that N is a scale for modellers , but 4mm is a scale of collectors, not modellers. These people are involuntary collectors . There are a lot of them about - it could easily amount to a fifth or sixth of all those nominally in 4mm. You see quite a few layout idea posts from people like this, seeking an idea that might actually fit in the space they actually have. Since I've been dabbling in N , I've noticed that the "where I am and how I got here " bit at the start normally includes a reference to having tried N, concluded it was not for them , anjd having gone back to 4mm. It's logical they would try N, but the existance of this relatively large number of people "blocked in 4mm" signals that for a lot of people N gauge really isn't the solution to their problem. If it was , these folk wouldn't be stuck in 4mm going nowhere. They'd be modelling in N. But they aren't... This is what I'm describing as people who "bounced off N" I see this group as the big target market for TT:120 among those already in the hobby. Committed N gauge modellers are people for whom N gauge works, and I don't see them switching. We all tend to filter out what doesn't relate to our own interests - being in N you wouldn't necessarily register this group within 4mm very clearly. The other group are those outside the hobby because they don't have room for OO. Again N gauge already exists , but that has not brought them in. Simon Kohler said that perople kept telling him they didn't have space for a layout - as the Hornby stand is only at large shows, N gauge would certainly be on display in the hall - but these -people hadn't bitten. A competent salesman with no smasll scale product to offer would certainly probe whether an N gauge range might tempt them - afterall Hornby International is heavily . Bachmann may well have found something similar , given their venture into OO9. If youre a Bachmann salesman , yur immediate counter to "I haven't got room for OO" is to sell Farish. The OO9 range suggests that for many that wasn't the soluition. "The scale you like - in a version with tight curves that fir your spasce" seems to be thew OO9 pitch This is why "the space saving is bigger with N" isn't a real argument. What these people want is a larger scale, but just small enough to make it fit in the space they have ... Whether 1/120 is big enough to make the difference is another matter. The models have approximately twice the volume of N and I think it does make a significant diiference The elephant in the room is that N gauge has been around for over half a century, and its stretching things a bit to say that it still has a lot of unexplored potential . If people aren't in N now - then , allowing for a little slippage at the margin, they won't switch to N. TT:120's pitch is to those who don't have space for OO but have already rejected N , both those already inb the hobby and blocked, and those not in the hobby. If N was the answer for them, they'd already be in N. They are not Andy York's survey last year produced some interesting figures. Estimating the total share of 4mm is difficult since you could vote for mulitple options, and there is obviously overlap within the 4mm categories.But a figure of 75-80% of the hobby in 4mm at some level could be defended. If 1 in 5 of them are "blocked in 4mm" , you'd be talking about 15% of the hobby. That doesn't feel incredible to me. Persuade 1/3 of them that they can have a model railway if they move to TT:120 and you immediately have 5% of the hobby. A lot less than in N, but surely a significant number (I think Andy's survey found over 20% would consider TT:120?) As a practical issue - when Cyrl Freezer drew 60 Plans for Small Locations he used 15" radius in OO pretty freely . That's no longer acceptable . Most OO RTR now requires R2 (just under 18") and 2' is the accepted norm in OO . TT:120 works with a minimum radius of 310mm - a shade over 12" , but equating to 20" in 4mm. At R3 and R4 in TT you have something as generous as the "scale" minimum of 2' in OO , but in the same real-world footprint as CJF's compressed postwar plans I also think some of those citing the limited availability of RTR in TT:120 are not in fact interested in adopting TT:120 . I could come up with a list of reasons why I wouldn't model in P4 or 7mm. But that's irrelevant: as a committed OO modeller who might consider EM at a push I'm never going to model in P4 (and 7mm doesn't suit) . Both are niche scales - they don't actually need my buy-i9n. Similarly TT:120 is a niche scale. If it achieves 10% market share I'll be astonished -and it doesn't need to to survive. It's entirely possible to have 60% of the hobby fiercely rejecting the whole idea, and 10% actively working in it , and that may be where we are heading My minimum position is that the "reasonable worst case scenario" (as in hire JCBs to dig mass graves) for TT:120 would have Hornby cease production in early 2026 having released all of Phase 2 , the J50, 37, J94, 57xx Castle and some other bits. There is too much momentum for it to stop short of that, even under the blackest scenarios. And track and a 66 would remain available There would then be 3.5 years of volume production of a sizeable range of models. That's just too much stuff out there, and too many people drawn in, for this to vanish without trace . Its inevitable such a supply will mean people modelling British outline in 1/120 scale for the foreseeable future. As 3mm reminds us - this doesn't have to be exclusively RTR That's the worst case scenario, not the most likely one. I think personally that this has done well enough commercially that some kind of TT:120 RTR will stay in production as long as Hornby Hobbies are around to make it - the "Hornby's Z gauge" scenario if you like The nature of TT:120s future is very much up for grabs. That it could simply vanish completely as a modelling scale is no longer possible, thouigh it is still possible it could be only marginally a commercial scale

The sounds are no doubt proprietary in the sense that Hornby own them. But any DCC decoder - sound or otherwise - has to comply with the DCC standards for protocols. So all Hornby decoders - like all Lenz or Zimo decoders work with all DCC controllers. They'd be radically restricting their market if you could only run their DCC Sound locos using a Hornby DCC system

This should have been a posting about ballasting, that being the next logical step with Mercia Wagon Repair. Ballasting began last autumn and quite a bit of work was done, even though it has proved a slow and painful process. There was also the little matter of swapping out four solenoid point motors and replacing them with MTB motor drives after I was warned that continued use of solenoids would ultimately lead to the breakup of the Peco switch blades. Given all the trouble caused by having to dig out one failed point from within the formation even at the unballasted stage, further failures would probably have doomed the layout, so the solenoids had to come out . Unfortunately life and other things then got in the way. I had an operation on my right eye just before Christmas, they put an air bubble in the eye, and dire warnings were given about the implications of getting dust in the eye during recovery. Did that include plastic dust from model making, I asked? They thought it probably did, so anything involving shaping plastic was out. (The operation was pretty successful – the sight in that eye has got rather better, not worse. It was this eye condition that panicked me into starting Mercia Wagon Repair since the initial mis-diagnosis by Vision Express was pretty bleak and not properly handled; I thought I'd better do something with the N gauge bits while I still could since the eye might be gone in 5 years. Happily that is absolutely not a possible scenario.... I just need my new spectacles to arrive now) The result was that the only modelling done during a little over two weeks off work was this: Two huts and a weighbridge hut built from freebee card kits given away with magazines over the years. Two of them are courtesy of BRM some years ago and one came with RM a couple of months before Christmas. I’ve accumulated a good few kits from magazine giveaways over the years but nearly all of them are 4mm scale. These three huts represent everything I could find in N from my stash that was usable. And you could fit the lot on the palm of my hand. It feels like quite a lot of effort for a very small reward. The BRM models were printed on glossy card and the sheen was unacceptable. I have a big bottle of Winsor & Newton artists matt medium bought years ago because someone claimed that it could be used for ballasting in place of dilute pva and the ballast wouldn’t turn purple. It proved unsuitable for ballasting as the stuff is too viscous, but it’s useful for killing the sheen on art paper and card. The printed card roofs on the BRM kits were way too light to be acceptable as slate and since I’m new to N I’ve got virtually no brickpapers in stock. What I did have was a small pile of Model Rail giveaway booklets from about twenty years ago containing various brickpapers. These included a set of printed slate strips in a decent dark grey. Now I’m pretty sceptical about relief on slate roofs even in 4mm and building up a slate roof strip by strip is pretty laborious, but needs must. I’m sure the rows should have been a little more even, but critically the colour is good. The printed sheet was brushed over with matt medium to kill the glossy paper sheen : it swells a little but relaxes back into shape as it dries. The white edges were dealt using a green charcoal pastel pencil, with another coat of matt medium to seal it and stop it rubbing off. Similarly cut edges of the card elsewhere were treated with red/brown pastel pencils to remove any white line. Chimney pots were improvised from bits of kit sprue painted, then I remembered I have some whitemetal castings in stock… It’s been some years since I’ve had the opportunity to do this kind of modelling, so it was a matter of easing myself back in and I’m reasonably pleased with the results. It’s just that a week’s worth of work sits in the palm of my hand. I feel like I‘ve achieved almost nothing. It’s been way too long since I did any 4mm modelling in a scale I’m comfortable with and know what I’m doing. This is the bits of an NNK courier van conversion from a Triang Mk1 BSK. The bits had been sitting on the bookshelf almost finished for nearly a year. This one needs its own workbench post, but I finally fitted the vertical door handrails and blackened them, rubbed down and repainted the ends through several coats of black to erase the vestiges of removed detail and assembled the bits. I’ve even started adding the cantrail lining from Fox transfers. I’ve also been trying to finish off a clutch of N gauge wagon kits which have also been sitting on the bookshelf gathering dust. These too deserve a post of their own in ORBC, but there’s a Chivers SSA, painted with transfers applied, an NGS chemical tanker ex caustic soda in china clay traffic, and a BH Enterprises resin PNA body. These now at least now are painted, have transfers and are weathered to my reasonable satisfaction. They just need couplings to go into traffic. But applying 11 tiny scraps of transfer to each side of a chemical tanker was a painful reminder of why N gauge and I don’t necessarily see eyer to eye (I left off a couple of the solebar markings, too). While I was at it, I had a go at weathering a few of the RTR bogie wagons, since with N gauge you are always going to mix up way too much of a weathering mix for the job in hand. A useful technique has proved to be a tinted varnish – in other words the weathering wash mixed about 50:50 with matt varnish. This allows a much thinner weathering coat to be applied evenly to the model, since the varnish acts as a filler meaning you are applying rather more volume in a more viscous form. A china clay hopper, a Cargowaggon van, and a Tiphook hood acquired at Warley have all been treated and now look reasonable. And at Ally Pally I finally succumbed to the Model Rail/Rapido J70 I’ve been resisting for some years. The unskirted versions with waggly bits were marked down to £99.99 on the Kernow and as this was the version that tempted me, I bit – having first put the model up against a SR diesel shunter on the stand to check it was a lot smaller. (I know an 08 is too big to look right on the Boxfile, and I wasn’t spending a tidy sum on a loco only to find it wasn’t suitable). The skirted BR versions have sold out – soon after release I think - but all the unskirted versions were still available and discounted . Given that 500 each of 10 versions were originally ordered, it’s fairly clear that people want Toby in his classic skirted form and pre-nationalisation liveries are something of a drug in the market. It’s now nearing 4 years since this model was released - how long it will take finally to shift the LNER unskirted models is an interesting question. Rapido I’m well aware of the reasons why the cost of new RTR has increased well above the rate of inflation and real wages in the last decade – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It costs what it costs, there is not much to be done about it and nobody is making a packet in RTR. At the same time I notice that at a personal level I will buy a loco I don’t strictly need but like when it‘s priced in double figures. Once it’s into 3 figures I won’t. I have a Hornby Peckett and DS48 for the Boxfile – both were bought at shows for about £75 a time after I’d been resisting a while because I didn’t strictly need them – they run beautifully and are now front-line motive power. My last few loco purchases have been an N gauge Class 33 for £80 off the Dapol stand (I needed something earlier than a 66, shorter, and I wasn’t up for splashing the cash), an NGS Hunslet shunter (£81) a Hattons Barclay (I finally succumbed when the 14” version was discounted to £84 in a decent livery) and Hardwicke (she’s do on railtour duty with 2 x blue/grey Mk1s). There’s a pattern here. I most emphatically do not expect manufacturers to aim at this price point, but I have more stuff than I actually need and at some point I’ll be out of the game – though hardly out of the hobby – at least as far as unnecessary impulse purchases are concerned. Someone’s 31 at 170 quid – er, maybe not. I’ve already got two 31s , and a pile of bodies, and a 37 as backup that sees little service, and a Rat project to do… I had the J70 up on the rolling road for almost an hour each way to run her in the following weekend, and here she is. I‘m delighted to report it’s a diminutive loco, pukka Great Eastern, and runs beautifully. Ideal for the Boxfile . I also took the chance to commission the Barclay – that this has been sat in its box unused for 18 months was another reason to hold back on the J70. It now has buffer wires glued in place to take Sprat & Winkle couplings and I had an operating session for the first time in months to give it a run. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem quite as smooth or sweet as the two Hornby locos or indeed the new J70. Good but needs a prod too often. And then a feed wire to one of the points broke, and the session was truncated. (The wire has been soldered back: all’s well again) How many locos does a boxfile need? I’ve got eight… Meanwhile ballasting of Mercia Wagon Repair hasn’t made a scrap of progress in 4 months.

This raises some interesting issues - particularly that "presence" or "heft" does matter, and that it's one of the things that make a significant difference to people. There is no doubt that 4mm/HO have traditionally represented a sweet spot, where presence , detail and ease of construction are good, but space demands are a lot more modest than 7mm. However it is increasingly becoming the case that things have shifted and 4mm is no longer such a convenient size. There are two issues - the chronic housing shortage which is squeezing the space available at home (amongst other issues you won't be building a permanent layout if youre on a shorthold tenancy), and the fact that railway vehicles have steadily grown over the last 75 years. 23m vehicles are much longer than 57' ones, 66s are much longer than 20s and 25s or an 0-6-0 goods , and not merely have wagons grown well beyond the classic 17'6" underframe we've reached a point where almost all wagons on the network are bogie vehicles, taking 8" to 12" length in 4mm. It's good to see that the emergence of TT:120 is producing a small but significant flow of new members for the 3mm Society. I know the Society has identified that it has a demographic issue, and this should help to address it. But it is easy not to see the wood for the trees here. The simple fact is that 60 years after Triang pulled the plug on TT3 in the face of a devastating collapse in the modest sales of the range, 3mm scale is very much still with us. That's why I'm very much one of those saying that TT:120 is here to stay. And I think the hobby should come to terms with that fact, and try and make the most of it. There have been concerns expressed recently about negativity in the hobby, and it's deeply depressing that within 72 hours of a significant new product announcement , discussion is back to scenarios for the collapse of the initiative and whether the scale will disappear completely. It won't. This has gone far too far, far too fast, to disappear completely now. I enter one big caveat - what kind of future British outline modelling in TT:120 has is very much up for grabs. But a future it will have. By early next year there will be 8 British prototype locos available in TT:120. There will be at least 5 different suites of coaches , and a decent range of wagons. This is more than TT3 managed. The Phase 2 items have been open for pre-orders for 18 months, so presumably the first production runs \are largely sold already and further runs will certainly follow. Behind that Hornby are already heavily committed to Castle, 37, J94, 57xx, 31, 47, and probably a 9F and more rolling stock. TT:120 has been selling as fast as they make it - when people stopped counting batch sizes last year production of Gresley Pacifics was apparently heading towards 10,000 and presumably it's comfortably into 5 figures now. It's full steam ahead for the next 12-18 months at least, even on the most pessimistic scenarios Even if you believe that TT:120 will follow TT3 with a parabolic sales curve falling away steeply 3-4 years in, there is going to be just too much stuff out there , and too many people actively involved, for this scale to disappear from British modelling. Even the scraps of British outline HO from the 1970s (which were total commercial failures) have provoked a Society, and a bunch of folk doggedly convinced this is the answer. The long term prospects for TT:120 are much better than for 3mm after 1964. Triang removed the only source of readymade 12mm mechanisms and 12mm gauge track. That garotted the scale - those are the two things that are most difficult to make. In contrast, this time 12mm track will always remain available because of the Continental market, 12mm mechanisms will be available, there will be an ecosystem of 1/120 items,and once a model 66 exists in TT, then someone will keep making one Anyone who thinks that TT:120 can be headed off at the pass, that it can be clubbed out of existance by posting online, or that if we all stick together and refuse to recognise it, TT:120 will go away and we can all go back to the happy land of 2022, is deluding themselves. (I have in mind the notorious Chadwick video with its chanted refrain "it's a trainset!" : surely an attempt to suggest that TT:120 has no place in railway modelling and should be opposed) . The only sane response is to say "Well, it's here . I don't know whether I'd have done it, or how far it will be a commercial success for Hornby. But it exists, and Hornby's money isn't my problem, so let's see what we can make of it" If you haven't got room to do it in 4mm - and a lot of people haven't, what do you do? It is not obvious that N gauge is the only possible modelling scale smaller than 4mm. It is very noticeable that for a lot of people who don't really have space for 4mm, N gauge is not a workable solution. There are a lot of people in the hobby who have "bounced off" N. Over the years I've seen a lot of comments of the form " Haven't got a lot of space or a layout, started off in OO, tried N but it wasn't for me/found it too fiddly/couldn't get on with it so here I am, back in OO . Now how do I do something in the limited space I've got?" There could be an opening for a scale larger than N but smaller than OO. If you are in N long term then clearly N works for you and you don't see the issue. There are those who like the presence and detail and ease of construction in 4mm - but haven't got the space. 3mm is bedeviled by scale gauge issues: do you go 14.2mm then have to handbuild all the track and chassis to exacting standards? Or do you go 12mm and have a seriously underscale track gauge? Hornby have said, in effect, the gauge has to be 12mm , since that is already a commercial gauge, and there's a Continental market for the track. Then it makes sense to go to 1/120 scale , because that is the scale used commercially on the Continent for 12mm gauge RTR . Those then are the intermediate options : 3mm scale /14.2mm gauge, 3mm/12mm gauge, TT:120 . Take your pick. Different people will make different choices in differing circumstances The argument that there is more RTR available in N is simply not the knockdown argument that some folk think, if your starting point is "N gauge is too small a scale to satisfy me". Put another way 7mm modelling has flourished and grown in the last 35 years, even though no conventional RTR was available until about 10 years ago. If someone likes the heft of 7mm, it's not an effective argument to say that there is more RTR in OO and you can build a layout in less space, so you should stick to 4mm. OO9 has only had RTR support quite recently . But for half a century it got by ok without it, based on kits and the availability of 9mm track and mechanisms. The lack of RTR was not a knockdown argument against OO9. Some of the hobby actually like making things. Even this is to concede too much to the naysayers. It's entirely possible given what we've seen so far, that demand for TT:120 will be fully sufficient to sustain production of commercial RTR indefinitely. S gauge is a commercial scale in the US. The range of RTR is much smaller than for HO, of course, but folk who like the scale or perhaps want to be different, work in it. Marklin's Z gauge is never going to displace N , but it's been around since 1972 and there are no threads with eager posters speculating about how soon Marklin will drop it All of those scenarios are on the table for TT:120 in Britain. What is not possible is a scenario where 1:120 is not an available option for British outline modelling, (even if the cynic in me mutters that MRJ will only publish its first article on "P120" about 9 months after Hornby announce a suspension of production...) "As I was going down the stair I met a man who wasn't there. I saw him there again today - I wish, I wish he'd go away" (AA Milne, I think - someone may be able to confirm)

Aftewr this week's announcements , I think we can have a stab at explaining what might be driving this. The fact that a J50 can leap-frog both the J94 and 57xx which were listed in the initial programme, and which Simon Kohler signalled were going out for tooling quotes last Jan-Feb, to the extent that you can pre-order the J50 but the J94 and 57xx aren't even with TT-numbers and liveries yet , show just how drastically existing CAD and having done all the research and development work in OO shortens the process. Apply that insight and a number of choices start to make sense. I think the 66 will be the first model released for which Hornby didn't have existing CAD in OO. It will also, clearly, be the last of the Phase 1/2 models to come to market. (The KFA and 21Tonners may be partial exceptions - but possibly the KFA is as much an Arnold project and may have started earlier. The 21 tonners seem also to be at the end of Phase 2 , and I can;t help wondering if there was an aborted project to replace Hornby;s aging 4mm tooling for 21T minerals) The choice of the 50 over the 47 or 37 for Phase 2 then becomes obvious: they had the CAD, so it could be brought to market much faster. TT:120 is clearly a big commitment for the development team at Hornby, and there;s only so much work they can do at once. With developing 66, J94,57xx, 37, and 47 from scratch they may well be heavily committed. But they have CAD for the 31. It would make sense to do only one out of 37 and 47 now, and move the other back behind the 31. And then a Brush 2 plugs the gap between J50 and A3. Introduced 1957, mixed traffic, definitely an ER secondary route loco - and also used on the WR in the 70s and 80s . It helps build a more coherent range Dropping the VEA makes sense if developing models from a clean sheet of paper is causing a development bottleneck. In their rebuilt form they weren't that long-lived (15 years or so?) and there weren;t that many of them , compared to the basic Vanwides or the great fleet of BR Vanfits /VVVs. And Hornby don't have CAD for it. When invest the effort in this if you are struggling to find development capacity for a 47? This also hints why we've not heard more about Collett coaches and Gresley teaks. Hornby have no CAD for Collett corridor stock. And they can't simply shrink the 4mm Gresleys. They've announced a BTK and CK. They did a BCK in OO , and I don't think they did a CK. They may also want to change the tumblehome profile, which was criticised in OO. (Although Dapol's N gauge Gresley coaches look rather slab-sided to me) . A Mk1 SK or TSO would be a much quicker easier win - they've done one in OO , so they have the CAD already. They know what their design choices will be And similarly - they have CAD for a Castle and a 9Fi n OO , so those can be brought to market faster . The research has all been done, the design choices have already been made and the issues behind them understood .... ~(It's not just "having the files" . Its all the work that was needed to get you to the point where you could develop them) This implies we might see Black 5s in TT:120 faster than we think. They have almost finished developing a new Black 5 in OO - a TT120 version could well follow not far behind

Not quite so limited - they were the Group Standard shunting engine and trip loco. The LNER Encyclopedia states: They will certainly do for an inglenook or any kind of shunting /freight yard layout I believe the LNER represented about 1/3rd of the network, although I'm finding it very difficult to find route mileage figures~* . As the J50s were reasonably spread around the LNER they ought to have some potential * (The Oxford Companion to British Railway history quotes peak route mileage for the network at 20,267 route miles in 1926. Somewhere in my head I recall seeing figures of approx 8000 route miles for the LMS, approx 6,500 route miles for the LNER , 3,500 for the GWR , and 2,000 for the Southern. Someone may be able to validate or correct those figures; but the point is that the LNER's route mileage was approximately as great as that of the GW and Southern combined if not greater, and given that it served a lot of heavily industrialised areas and major conurbations , its total traffic is unlikely to have been less than the combined total of the two southern companies)

I think the first - maybe the main - item of business will be the announcement of liveries, reference numbers and prices for the Phase 3/4 stuff that's already been anounced - 37, 47, Castle, 57xx , and J94. The phase 1/2 models went up on the website for order very quickly, but nothing outside those models has been added to the shop since, so far as I'm aware (The green 08 which I think was a later addition is an additional livery on a phase 1 model). Therefore this should be the point at which the next tranche of models become available to pre-order. The 31 is further off - it might or might not feature here Presumably there will also be new liveries announced for existing models - with the HST out and Class 50 imminent (not to mention 37 and 47 to follow), blue/grey Mk1 CK/BSK seem logical. If you're selling a Castle, you need coaches to support it. That might point to chocolate/cream Mk1s A Mk1 SK/TSO was promised in the initial brochure. This might be the point where it is confirmed as heading for tooling. With a Stanier 50' BG due for release very soon , a Mk1 BG is not urgent - they could easily announce a run of the Stanier BG in rail blue. If the Castle is to be available to order, then will they press the button on the Collett CK/BSK they promised in the original launch? (Did Hornby's Collett coaches sell that well in OO? , although those were not corridor stock) On the wagon front, there will presumably be new liveries for the early oil tanker and the TTA, and the wooden open/mineral ,and it seems a good moment for the van - which is a GW van - to get a release in correct liveries /numbers. The container flat already released on the Continent (KFA I think?) would logically get a British version. They might announce 2-4 more of the wagons trailed in the original announcement are now going forward for tooling (Pick your likely candidates). And to add a bit of splash, I assume one new locomotive will be confirmed as going forward for tooling. If you believe in the Secret Jinty/Terrier then this would be the moment to spring the surprise. Personally I would expect the new loco to be confirmation that the 9F is going forward into tooling So there will be quite a lot to announce, but most of it is likely to be things we already know about from Phases 3/4 being turned into actual products in the shop that you can order

Bearing reamers for 9mm and 16.5mm gauge are available from DCC Concepts . Does anyone know of a source for an equivalent 12mm gauge device? Something might be available in germany

The base can be greately improved if the visible edge is pared away with a craft knife to thin it down

Some very nice work there Some of my own efforts in that line are here: From memory, I drilled out the V hanger for the brake lever, cut away some small surplus bits , and thinned down the bits that are below the hazchem marking . I think there is a drawing somewhere in Tourett's book that might shed light on the underframes They were also fitted with brass Oleo buffers

The 3mm Society has recently distributed to its members a heavily illustrated 24 page booklet on building an 0-6-0 chassis to 12mm. This has been puit together by John Sutton, the long-standing editor of the Society's magazine - and also a very accomplished modeller of many years experience , working in 12mm gauge , who has built a lot of locos. Although the step by step guide assumes the use of etched sideframes which are not yet available for TT120, scratchbuilding your own sideframes is a well known process and only adds one step, and a number of the photos in fact show scratchbuilt chassis. Otherwise a 12mm gauge chassis is a 12mm gauge chassis.... If you can fit the mechanism in a small 3mm scale tank engine , you can fit it in a medium-sized TT120 tank engine. Therefore this booklet is a valuable resource for anyone interested in TT120 who is bold enough to consider building their own chassis, perhaps to fit under a Lincoln Locos body. Building a 12mm gauge chassis is not a wild leap into the dark - it can be done, it has been done regularly for many years and there is a substantial body of knowledge, components, techniques and support for doing it. It is worth mentioning that wheels for the 3mm Society's 12mm Intermediate standard appear to be fully compatible with NEM TT standards , albeit with a somewhat shallower flange than Hornby are using I suspect that the booklet will be made available to anyone joining the 3mm Society

Nothing is currently showing on the Dapol shop under OO coaches Dapol OO coaches which is why I made the comment. They have the tooling, but apparently no current stock (And again, the Toplights are hardly a "budget" product. One suite of tooling doesn't really allow you to make a budget play in OO coaches)

The Hornby OO 66 - with all its limitations - is currently £96. It hardly compares with a full fat model like the Hattons/Accurascale 66 and I wouldn't buy one, but for those whose main focus is low price , it shows an edge. I was responding to a post which argued that Hornby has nothing much for the budget modeller and which was touting forty year old secondhand locos off ebay at an alleged £30 a pop as blow away competition . Accurascale are most certainly not competing with that

The bulk of Dapol's range is in either N gauge or O . I'm not questioning the quality of Dapol's OO models, merely pointing out that 4mm isn#'t their major focus. They currently have no OO coaches at all (it has been suggested that the ex Mainline/Airfix moulds may be life expired) and a large part of their OO wagon offering is ex Hornby Dublo/Wrenn mouldings. Their OO loco range is modest, and it certainly isn't aimed at the budget market. The 68 and 21 are not competing with 40 year old second hand off ebay If Dapol had a "budget/entry" range in 4mm, it lay in the old Airfix/Mainline coaches, and the ex Wrenn wagons. The first seem to be no more, the second are being knocked out at £12.45. That they seem to have let the OO coaches go completely suggests they may not be so interested in 4mm or budget 4mm On the other hand they are most emphatically targeting the "affordable" sector in N . N gauge 66s at a hundred quid and Class 33s for £80m have been a staple of the Dapol stand at large shows over the last few years, (Farish locos seem around £150) and they've been selling bogie wagons in bundles or singly at prices equating to £17-£20 a vehicle off the stand - bogie Farish wagons seem to go for about £40-£45 Dapol are a very different animal in the N gauge market from the 4mm market. In 4mm they are a niche or bit player brand. There does seem to be an "affordable" market, and what Dapol have done in N with relatively modern tooling (10-20 year old) suggests an alternative strategy to chasing the top end in spec and pricing. But its not really their game in 4mm

Nobody other than Hornby caters for that sector. The fact that Railroad keeps running and running , the fact that all those Lima models that "everyone" groaned loadly when they brought back 20 years ago - "why do they bother??🙄" - keep selling and have done for 20 years tells a story. And the whole TT120 venture is aimed squarely at that market. £130 gets you a DCC ready Class 66. £250 gets you the Scotsman set with a loco, 3 coaches, track and a controller Scotsman set Bachmann seem to be maximising revenue in the face of restricted capacity at Kadar factories (whether because they can't pay the going rate for more production slots given that British RTR prices are below the world norm, or because capacity is tight anyway, we don't know ) . Rapido and Accurascale are certainly not targetting the budget sector . Dapol are not very interested in 4mm (they certainly target the budget sector in N) Hornby are the only serious player in this sector. Buying bits of second hand stuff off ebay is an option, but you are buying a series of pigs in a poke : some of the stuff might not work or be a bit battered round the edges...

At one level, the commercial success or otherwise of this model is not really our problem as modellers. (At another level, it is not in our interests to see manufacturers weakened/fail, and the commercial success of all significant RTR manufacturers is a positive for the hobby) So one way to view this is "what new resources do we have, what new opportunities does this open up for us?" . What have we as modellers got this Saturday that we didn't have last Saturday? Since last Saturday we already had a state of the art Brush 2 in OO imminently available for those who don't want to buy the current Hornby model, or require varients not done by Hornby , I'm struggling to see anything. Which of these two new models will "win out" is a different question. It will probably take a couple of years after release before we can say that a model has or hasn't been commercially successful , and even then it's not clear cut. I'm sure there will be people still ready to argue that Hattons' 66 was a commercial success as a project Someone said that Accurascale announced their model just on 2 years ago. In which case they've had 2 years to mop up demand for a new Brush 2 and lock it in by means of pre-orders. Why people would cancel those pre-orders in order to buy this instead isn't obvious. I'm not clear why it is preferable for Brush 2s to get the Bachmann Treatment as opposed to the Accurascale Treatment (or vice versa, though AS have been out in the market with this for a long time now) The only thing that has been mentioned so far is DCC auto-uncoupling. Yes I could find a use for that - but I'm a Kadee user, and I presume this is a mechanised tensionlock. Otherwise - I was already struggling to find a reason to spend £170 on an AS Brush 2 , even though the layout uses two Class 31s (which I already have...). I find it an even bigger struggle to find a reason to buy this instead. I'm open to more Type 2s, but that involves making use of the moderate pile of stuff/bits/old locos I've already got We can come back in summer 2026 to discuss whether this was the right commercial decision for Bachmann. In the meantime the questions seem to be what extra does this bring to the table for modellers, and is this model noticably better than the Accurascale one?

Dapol LMS CK rework My own rework of the Dapol CK. Sadly all the pictures have been lost , so here are some from file

Since it's an imperial scale 1/10" to the foot, this should be 2.15" long over headstocks

Has anyone noticed that the bauxite wagon has top doors , like an MEO, 24.5T - but the other two do not? So two bodies have been tooled up The PO version really ought to be pre-nationalisation and therefore a GW dia N32 "Felix Pole" mineral , built for hire-purchase to persuade S Wales colliery owners to modernise. It does not carry a P -series number. Dia N32 is the basis for the old OO 21T minerals from Hornby and Airfix in the 1970ps The grey version carries a number BR do not seem to have used, according to Rowland's appendices: no numbers between B314999 and B 333000 were issued . It could be an N32 numbered as P200781, or it could be a welded wagon from the 1951 build to dia 1/107, B201000-B202499 The bauxite wagon should by the number be to dia 1/119 , with top flaps , lot 3439, Derby 1962

With a significant number of new modellers coming into the hobby, you would want them to benefit from being able to go to decen t sized shows , see insipirational layouts, come across interesting and specialist traders , and so on and so forth. It would be nice to think they would have some kind of exhibition circuit to enjoy , as people did before the pandemic. The "circuit" has seen a sharp contraction. The hobby - in terms of modellers - hasn't . We hear that clubs are no longer so interested in putting on large shows or even that it isn'r really reasonable to expect them to do in the way they did 10 years ago. If clubs are stepping back from organisating this kind of event , then we aren't really in a position to be too picky about who we want to organise large shows, and the fine detail of rules of engagement. Assuming the hobby still wants this kind of event, then to a degree we have to accept what is workable for the people still willing to organise them.

A very fine piece of modelling with a finesse and realistic muted pallette not always associated with this scale. Inspirational

As someone currently building a layout based on a wagon works, this thread is very useful Some notes on the subject I had as a draft blog popst that never gotr finished : This post is mainly by way of a clipboard for various links to material on prototype wagon repair facilities in Britain on the post-steam railway. That falls into two distinct periods - the modern image BR era (c1965-c1995), and the post-privatisation era (c1995 to present). Trying to cover nearly 60 years during which a lot has changed on the railways may be a mug's game, but I'm suddenly very aware just how large and how obscure this subject actually is. How can an entire sector of the railway industry - and one that is very much still with us - have gone largely under the radar for over half a century?? Some links to websites of current players: WH Davis "Britain's last remaining independent wagon builder" . Workshops at Langwith Jnc, Shirebrook on the Robin Hood line. Some site photos Davis Wagon Services wagon repair division of WH Davis. Head office at Immingham just outside the Dock area and just down the road from the head office of my late employer... I am not clear if they have any actual rail connected facility in Immingham, or whether the boasted 9 outstation hubs nationwide amount to anything more than lockup compounds with a stores warehouse/office and a couple of vans to attend rail vehicles on site. Possibly any heavy repairs would be carried out at the parent company's Shirebrook works. Harry Needle Railroad Co recently opened wagon repair/stock storage facility at Worksop, redevelopment of former EWS/DB Schenker wagon repair depot (closed 2015). Photos on website. Paul Barlett's wagon site - central page for industrial locations Covers: BR workshops: Burton wagon works, Carlisle Currock wagon works EG Steele : Hamilton wagon works (still in Baker 10th ed 2004) Marcrofts : Stoke (still open 2018), Swansea, Radstock (closed 1988), Burry Port, Healey Mills (still in Baker 10th ed), March. Powell Duffryn : Cardiff Maindy (still open 1992) Procor : Chas Roberts Horbury (still in Baker 10th ed as Bombadier Procor) , Gloucester South Staffs Wagon Works: Tipton (closed 1984) Standard Wagon: Heywood (still open 1989) ; Reddish (still open 1984) Marcrofts: Acquisition by EWS 2006 - Competition Commission report no longer available and OFT document Radstock works site - link has disappeared Warrington - wagon repair sidings (Baker 10th ed) Crewe Gresty Rd (BR) Operator at Ashford Wagon repair 80s - 90s highlights that tanks needed specialist attention at a works Other known closed wagon sites: BR : Ipswich wagon works (closed mid 1980s) ; Peterborough Crescent Wharf (in Baker 10th ed, to EWS - now closed?); York (to Thrall, closed by 2004) Wagon Repair Ltd : Chesterfield works (closed 1988?)