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Minority Report: The Wish-List Poll & the Pre-Grouper


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By marketing experts professionals?

 

Edited after I was reminded that everyone on the internet is an expert at everything :)

 

Ah, who can say? Though it would seem a statistical improbability that they all are. 

 

The Memsahib, however, is.

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History is full of "essential" products we never knew we needed. Someone comes up with an idea for a new product, and convinces the world they "need" it, even though everyone survived quite adequately without it for millennia. Who would have thought the world was desperate for a wireless communication device that could also be used to type short messages? Everyone managed quite well with a red box at the end of the street before that. Take that device away from most of the population now, especially as they now have even more built in gadgets, that humans have evolved from not needing to unable to survive without within a few years, and the world would end.

 

Surely some clever marketing would have modellers who have never experienced steam operated railways, drooling over a period and company from long before they were born, if the products were available. Browsing through modelling pages on Facebook shows that there are a lot of non railway modellers out there who make military, ship, aircraft and other models from all sorts of periods in history.

John,

 

you last sentence contains the sting in the tail with the use of the word "make".

 

I think that the effort needed to change peoples RTR modelling preferences would be beyond most manufacturers marketing budget.

 

Those pre-group models already available or announced have probably done little to further encourage the spread of pre-group modelling. They may have increased awareness that railways did exist in Victorian and Edwardian times, as have TV programmes,  magazines and preserved railways but has their been an observable increase in pre-group modelling?

 

Whilst there may be some increase in wish list activity and frothing over new releases, has it translated into any actual modelling of the pre-1923 scene? Whilst building from kits is an anathema to many, simple plastic wagon or coach kits don't present too much of  a challenge so providing some stock to match a couple of locos for a small layout shouldn't be too taxing.

 

But is that what people want? This is a very loco centred hobby and unless a fairly large selection of pre-group locos for a particular railway become available, then it is unlikely that many modellers will be swayed to change from their current area on activity with the products already on the market. RTR is about having it easy - buy the model, open the box and away you go - so it needs to be as easy to model RTR as BR steam or the green diesel era for it to become anywhere near as popular.

 

Jol

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John,

 

you last sentence contains the sting in the tail with the use of the word "make".

 

I think that the effort needed to change peoples RTR modelling preferences would be beyond most manufacturers marketing budget.

 

Those pre-group models already available or announced have probably done little to further encourage the spread of pre-group modelling. They may have increased awareness that railways did exist in Victorian and Edwardian times, as have TV programmes,  magazines and preserved railways but has their been an observable increase in pre-group modelling?

 

Whilst there may be some increase in wish list activity and frothing over new releases, has it translated into any actual modelling of the pre-1923 scene? Whilst building from kits is an anathema to many, simple plastic wagon or coach kits don't present too much of  a challenge so providing some stock to match a couple of locos for a small layout shouldn't be too taxing.

 

But is that what people want? This is a very loco centred hobby and unless a fairly large selection of pre-group locos for a particular railway become available, then it is unlikely that many modellers will be swayed to change from their current area on activity with the products already on the market. RTR is about having it easy - buy the model, open the box and away you go - so it needs to be as easy to model RTR as BR steam or the green diesel era for it to become anywhere near as popular.

 

Jol

 

Good questions, but, you see, we simply do not know the answers.

 

This thread started because the Wish List poll is not the route to such knowledge.

 

The odd, random, candyfloss (and there have been very few genuine, as opposed to preserved) pre-Grouping release does not currently allow any RTR-based modeller, established or newcomer, to embark upon earlier period layouts.   I do not believe that you can divine the level of support from such a limited number of isolated models.

 

Hence the eternal chicken and egg.  

 

I once sketched out the basics of a number of reasonably popular companies as a basis for joined-up releases, i.e. just enough to start an average layout. Someone pointed out that, on current release levels, it might take 20 years to get there.  I don't see that is a problem!  If someone start doing this now, in 20 years time we would have a much more varied scene, plus, every year between now and then would be a material improvement. 

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Gentlemen,

 

We are going round in circles, and not ones made of (model) railway track, either.

 

Indeed, although I am loathe to restrict debate, because someone out there may well have more to say.

 

We can pack up on the basis that the topic has run its course, which it probably has.

 

Or, we could indulge in the exercise of cataloguing what, in our collective view, might be released in support of earlier periods, but which, without a willing manufacturer, would seem pie in the sky. 

 

The advantage of a manufacturer is that a top-down decision does avoid the otherwise near impossible task of building consensus in favour of a particular class or variant, i.e. This is the Dean Goods variant we are making for the Edwardian period and that is the GNR six-coupled goods class that we will manufacture!

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Hornby produce some models that, it has been said, would be hard to back-date.  I understand that the ex-LSWR rebuilds with higher pitched boilers may not favour alternative bodies to the original profiles. If so, Hornby would have to start from scratch if it wanted to produce a pre-WW1 T9 or Class 700.  The same issues seem to face anyone who wants a GE version of the brand new Claud Hamilton.  So, Hornby's BR-only tooling/short term approach does not appear to have changed.  For me, this seems like something close to built-in obsolescence.  

 

 

 

Just for the record, the T9 superheated boiler initially re-used the Drummond boiler, and the pitch and, presumably diameter, didn't change.  So, to a certain extent, it only needs a new, shorter, smokebox to be back-dated.  However, there are restrictions, in that the superheated locos all, eventually, lost their sandboxes above the running plate, although not all of them had that feature to begin with. So Hornby would need to select only those that had their sandboxes below the footplate, or else produce new body mouldings with the enlarged splashers.  

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I think we are going round in circles, but if the alternative is to say nothing, at least we're making our presence felt just a little bit. Anyway, it's nothing like the tail chasing that goes on in topics on more modern stuff!

 

I'm getting to the point where I won't be able to buy many, if any, RTR products, even if they do become available, so maybe I should just ignore all the RTR topics on RMweb. I'm more interested in what may be available secondhand in the future, at prices well below the price of new ones. If delicate bits have dropped off, or mechanical parts failed, and replacements are no longer available, all the better if that's reflected in the price, as it makes it more affordable to do some serious backdating.

 

Should we be looking for practical alternatives? Commissioning suitable RTR products is almost certainly a non starter, so maybe we can get creative with ideas that make pre-group modelling easier than it is at the moment. In the long term, technologies like 3D printing may solve the problem, if/when it can be used to create ready coloured bodies and chassis at a reasonable price. An assembly service could be offered for those who want it. Then we can stick two fingers up at the mainstream manufacturers, if they haven't been driven out of business by then! Until then, can we move some way towards producing the things that people need to make it easier? In another topic I suggested setting up an Open Source Project where people could share their information, plans and designs. This would at least spread the workload, and when anyone shares artwork of whatever sort for their latest model, anyone else can build a model without having to redo the work (unless they can improve on it). It could also allow small businesses to add value by making and selling parts or ready assembled models. A long way off RTR, but a significant first step.

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Although not directly relevant to this case, Minerva are leading the way in 7mm scale by producing a 57xx tank with all the many variations; so you can have pretty much any condition from very early to very late. Of course, all have the same basic body, but the detail variations are legion.

 

If Minerva can do it - and produce a 7mm scale tank engine for circa £230 - so can the bigger players. It just needs a bit more investment of thought.

 

My only criticism of Minerva is that they are doing it with a 57xx instead of something useful like a LDEC 0-6-4 tank. But it's a step in the right direction and shows what can be done with a bit of imagination and enterprise.

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I always thought part of the attraction of pre-group modelling, apart from the obvious delights, was the fact that the mainstream manufacturers were not, and likely never would be, interested.

When I discovered the pre-grouping period when I was around 12 or 13, there wasn't a huge amount available for any period in comparison with today! It wasn't really about wanting to be different, but more about wanting to model what interested me.

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Just for the record, the T9 superheated boiler initially re-used the Drummond boiler, and the pitch and, presumably diameter, didn't change.  So, to a certain extent, it only needs a new, shorter, smokebox to be back-dated.  However, there are restrictions, in that the superheated locos all, eventually, lost their sandboxes above the running plate, although not all of them had that feature to begin with. So Hornby would need to select only those that had their sandboxes below the footplate, or else produce new body mouldings with the enlarged splashers.  

 

I am grateful for that.  As folk may have gathered, I am in the process of eating up information on the LSWR, but I have yet to give detailed consideration to the Greyhounds, so your post is, indeed, good news, as I can now contemplate taking a saw to a Hornby model!

 

 

 

Should we be looking for practical alternatives? Commissioning suitable RTR products is almost certainly a non starter, so maybe we can get creative with ideas that make pre-group modelling easier than it is at the moment. In the long term, technologies like 3D printing may solve the problem, if/when it can be used to create ready coloured bodies and chassis at a reasonable price. An assembly service could be offered for those who want it. Then we can stick two fingers up at the mainstream manufacturers, if they haven't been driven out of business by then! Until then, can we move some way towards producing the things that people need to make it easier? In another topic I suggested setting up an Open Source Project where people could share their information, plans and designs. This would at least spread the workload, and when anyone shares artwork of whatever sort for their latest model, anyone else can build a model without having to redo the work (unless they can improve on it). It could also allow small businesses to add value by making and selling parts or ready assembled models. A long way off RTR, but a significant first step.

 

It is a good suggestion, and one that deserves some serious thought.

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It depends on the prototype, the nature of the changes and the cost for producing the changes in the mould, and other design features.

 

For example, many engines when upgraded did not simply receive, say, a Belpaire firebox: the boiler may have been renewed, and could be of a different diameter and/or at a different pitch. This would necessitate a new cab front, which may also mean a revised cab side as well. So you are left with the footplate and not a lot else: even the chassis might not be re-usable, unless it has been designed with a vertically mounted motor, and the earlier version might prove too restrictive even there.

 

If you look at the rebuilds to the Furness Railway Sharp, Stewart 0-6-0s, you will see what I mean.

 

Rebuilt FR Sharpies, tell me about 'em !

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Do you not think that the mainstream manufacturers have already thought about this?

 

There will, eventually, be a day when everything you want can be printed, surfaced, painted, etc, at home. The manufacturers will lease their designs for home creation, and there will be a thriving business producing alternative bodies, details etc.

 

But before then, there is a market for someone who wishes to use 3-D printing to produce patterns, which can then be finished by hand, and used as masters for moulds in runs of up to 50, all to sit on RTR chassis. These could be offered as basic bodies,bodies ITN details fitted and primer applied,or even fully finished for a price. It proves to be popular, another batch could be run.

 

No one is being prevented from doing this. Personally, I am supremely disinterested in the opportunity: for a start, I would not be prepared to make all the adjustments required to accommodate 00 wheelsets, and I also don't think I would be interested in having to deal with all the questions/grumbles/complaints/requests about mine details which would come my way were I daft enough to venture out there.

 

I'll pick an example out of thin air. The NER C class, LNER J21, represented 10% of the North Eastern's stud at Grouping. With a little modification, it could be adapted to become a J25, and maybe many others. The design saw use into the 1960s, and whilst most remained in the NER area, some ran in East Anglia. The driving wheels are the same size as those on a Midland 0-6-0 and the Wainwright C. Not sure if either of these has a matching wheelbase.

 

Something like this suggests itself as an ideal starting point for a limited batch run of resin bodies or fitting onto a suitable chassis, and there is a suitable tender available in that paired up with the recently released 0-8-0.

 

So, for all those who think there is sufficient demand, find a suitable candidate, and get on and prove it.

Everything you want for home printing? Surely the manufacturers will tie their products up with some form of DRM (Digital Rights Management), so only their exact designs can be printed, only the number of copies you've paid for, and it won't be possible to adapt their design. So you can print their OO gauge late grouping and BR versions, but if they don't do the version you want it's tough. So no different to now. Or maybe worse than now, when you sit watching your LNER body print, then have to get your tools out to hack it into what you want, and repaint it!

 

We've just lost a small manufacturer of resin loco bodies (Dean Sidings), not produced from 3D printed masters, but an older method, although the end result was the same. But are the RTR chassis available? I get the impression that they're not as readily available as they used to be, and the old favourites are nowhere near the standards of current chassis, that are only produced in limited runs complete with body. The big manufacturers would have to be willing to make and sell chassis separately.

 

I agree about the OO problem, as I'm only interested in P4 and EM. At least I can build my own chassis if the bodies are available, but many can't, or won't want to.

 

I doubt there is currently sufficient demand for a business to do it, which is why I suggested trying an Open Source approach, where modellers with the necessary skills collaborate to create the designs, and freely share them. If businesses see an opportunity to make enough money from adding value, that's even better. Eventually it may create enough demand that the big manufacturers jump on the bandwagon, but that may be years off, and we need stuff now.

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John identifies a potentially great problem.

 

Let us suppose I had a big expensive machine for injection moulding or 3D printing.

 

Would I have access to any surviving prototype to measure, photograph or scan?

 

If so, at what cost?

 

Owners are getting very savvy about the value of intellectual property in their locomotives.

 

Perhaps they would think "I don't want to give permission for you to make your limited run, I'd rather wait to see if Red or Blue Box come calling, or to commission my own 'as preserved' model"

 

Perhaps Red or Blue Box have taken out an option.

 

Of course many prototypes that would interest us no longer exist.  In many ways that could prove an advantage!

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The general consensus of the opinions expressed in this thread are, we want to model pre group railways and want the job made easier.

I have to admit, my own modelling philosophy is that I don't want things made easy. If modelling pre group Midland was dead easy I don't think I would have stuck to it all these years. The fact that my interest in early 20th century MR began in the 1950s when there was very little variety in railway models to buy was an advantage. I had to knuckle down and learn how to do things like building loco bodies. First it was out of card and bits of wood, but then slowly graduating to tinplate from old tins. Finally came the discovery of sheets of nickel silver. No one is born with the ability to scratch build model railway locomotives, it has to be learned.

I built a model of a Johnson class 3, 4-4-0 during the wonderful summer of 1959, using my parents concrete coal bunker as a bench, large sticks of solder, killed spirits (bakers fluid) as flux and my dads soldering iron with blow lamp to provide heat. The vice was in the shed.

I took the loco with me when I started a new job and showed it to one of my colleagues. He expressed a wish that he could do something like that. I offered to show him and used to go to his house one or two evenings a week to build a loco each. It just so happened that a drawing of a Midland 2F appeared in the Railway Modeller and we used that..

The first job was to teach him how to solder, which took a couple of evenings.

Frames were 1/16 inch nickel, drilled using an electric drill by hand, and so on.

After some time we both had a loco and tender and he got the bug for scratch building.

When I left to take up another job, he was scratch building a LNW G2 0-8-0.

So there is no magic property in a persons make up to be able to scratch build. I have said before, it is 10 parts skill and 90 parts determination to build something that looks a bit like the prototype, and the pride that comes with it is immeasurable. Greater skill comes in with highly detailed models that cannot be distinguished from the thing being modelled. We all aspire to this state, but it takes time, and we have to be willing to carry on after we make false starts.

I have to admit my early models were best kept under wraps, but this is part of the proverbial learning process.

My Johnson 4-4-0, now sporting a bogie tender, and my 2F are still running on my present layout, although the former is a bit too big and won't fit on the turntable.

Derek

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Of course: they are businesses, and wish to remain trading.

Maybe, but maybe not.

With new technologies come new ideas, new business models.

If there is a limited market for pre-group versions, too small for the big manufacturers to want to serve, then why could they not enter into a working relationship with smaller, bespoke designers, allowing them to take these designs and produce backdated versions under licence.

Everyone wins: the manufacturer gets extra income from the licensing deal, a new job is created, modellers get more variety.

This is not a lot different, when you think about, to limited run special commissions sold via a single outlet.

True. But a licensed approach would solve that.

Which sort of undermines this whole thread, doesn't it, and answers the point about why there isn't more pre-grouping RTR.

A perfectly valid approach: where - and who - are these modellers?

  

"need"?

This is a hobby. There is no "need".

There is want. There is desire, there is liking for.

But need?

And now?

How long do you think it takes to design a new model?

If you want it now, save up your beer tokens, and pay for someone to build and paint a kit for you. The cost is likely to be about £1 per day for between one and two years.

Twenty-five years ago, a photocopier was an enormous lumbering machine which cost an awful lot of money and frequently was of poor quality and only monochrome.

Now I can walk into a high street store and buy not just a copier, not just a colour copier, but one which will scan images, print out documents and even act as a fax machine for less than 50 quid. And I can carry it in one hand.

There are do it yourself kits and instructions for making our own 3D printer for what is, when you think about it, very little money.

Who knows what we can achieve in 25 years?

With a 3D printer in every home, there will be a lot less transportation, a lot less pollution, and a completely new model for non-food small goods.

Funny. Even if unintentionally so.

How do you think all those people who won gold medals at the Model Engineering exhibition made their models? They started with drawings andpotographs.

 

Why rely on technology for everything?

Maybe. But maybe someone uses drawings and photos of something preserved. They may simply produce it with a different number to avoid these issues, although I am not sure that there is anything to stop someone selling a model of engine 54321 as 54321.

Which means that drawings and photos, and some interpretation, would be required anyway.

 

Guys, if I were a manufacturer reading this thread, I would have seen three threads:

1) I want my wants provided for now;

2) I don't really know what the demand is, but as long as I am satisfied it will be alright;

3) I will find problems with any and every solution.

 

Why would a pollster, let alone a manufacturer, pay any attention to this wish list frippery?

 

There are possible solutions. There is the potential to satisfy demand. I have suggested some, as well as some of the realistic constraints, the biggest being time; the other is demand. Money, skill and information can all be acquired, given time.

 

Unfortunately, it seems that where I see opportunities, others - those with the most "need" - see obstacles.

 

 

 

The general consensus of the opinions expressed in this thread are, we want to model pre group railways and want the job made easier.

I have to admit, my own modelling philosophy is that I don't want things made easy. If modelling pre group Midland was dead easy I don't think I would have stuck to it all these years. The fact that my interest in early 20th century MR began in the 1950s when there was very little variety in railway models to buy was an advantage. I had to knuckle down and learn how to do things like building loco bodies. First it was out of card and bits of wood, but then slowly graduating to tinplate from old tins. Finally came the discovery of sheets of nickel silver. No one is born with the ability to scratch build model railway locomotives, it has to be learned.

I built a model of a Johnson class 3, 4-4-0 during the wonderful summer of 1959, using my parents concrete coal bunker as a bench, large sticks of solder, killed spirits (bakers fluid) as flux and my dads soldering iron with blow lamp to provide heat. The vice was in the shed.

I took the loco with me when I started a new job and showed it to one of my colleagues. He expressed a wish that he could do something like that. I offered to show him and used to go to his house one or two evenings a week to build a loco each. It just so happened that a drawing of a Midland 2F appeared in the Railway Modeller and we used that..

The first job was to teach him how to solder, which took a couple of evenings.

Frames were 1/16 inch nickel, drilled using an electric drill by hand, and so on.

After some time we both had a loco and tender and he got the bug for scratch building.

When I left to take up another job, he was scratch building a LNW G2 0-8-0.

So there is no magic property in a persons make up to be able to scratch build. I have said before, it is 10 parts skill and 90 parts determination to build something that looks a bit like the prototype, and the pride that comes with it is immeasurable. Greater skill comes in with highly detailed models that cannot be distinguished from the thing being modelled. We all aspire to this state, but it takes time, and we have to be willing to carry on after we make false starts.

I have to admit my early models were best kept under wraps, but this is part of the proverbial learning process.

My Johnson 4-4-0, now sporting a bogie tender, and my 2F are still running on my present layout, although the former is a bit too big and won't fit on the turntable.

Derek

 

I think I would say that it would be good if earlier periods were more accessible, and that tracks through from RTR products to kit and accessory availability.

 

I am enjoying building and bashing bits and bobs, and developing those nascent skills, and I doubt that anything for Castle Aching will have been OOB RTR.  Recently I found that typical company wagons for the region were not available even in kit form, but I am fortunate that Quarryscapes of this parish stepped in with a 3D print for the u/fs, saving a certain amount of cutting and swearing.  It could have been scratch-built,  or converted, but I will not deny that having frames to the correct w/b with the correct axle-boxes was not welcome.

 

Similarly, I have no objection to RTR releases that mean I would only have to kit or scratch-build 3 out of 4 locomotives and coaches! 

 

Beyond that I simply have a belief in promoting interest in earlier periods and RTR availability is a useful asset in that regard.

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Interesting, by that I mean the whole thread.  The problem with the Wishlist Poll is that almost everyone, wants their pet loco or rolling stock on it and then moans when one of the big players makes it and it does not have the tea stain on the inside of the cab that the driver made on 5th June 1956.  I think it would be easy just to have a separate question about when you model.  It will confirm, as a survey that was done in RMEMag did, that most people want to, or do model the 50s and 60s.  However if the question was asked regularly it may change with time.

 

I got into Pre-Grouping via narrow gauge, where the time makes very little difference.  As a point of interest, to me anyway, when they announced R-T-R 009 stock I thought ,'Why would I want that when I could make a kit?'  The rub for me is that most 009 kits are either plastic or whitemetal so can be glued, and there are chassis.  I am not looking forward to building my first loco chassis, but hey, I run BR stuff when I have a session as I do not have enough Cambrian locos or rolling stock.

 

As for 3D, there is Sparkshot Creations.  I ony mention him as I have a small bogie Cambrian passenger locomotive from him.  There are others if you search Shapeways.

 

Will I vote.  Yes for anything that is nearly relevant.  I voted for a J15 as it was the right time frame, and I think the LNER one is as near to original condition as possible.  My only problem is that it is the wrong side of the country, but at least it is reliable when the grand children turn up.

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Interesting, by that I mean the whole thread.  The problem with the Wishlist Poll is that almost everyone, wants their pet loco or rolling stock on it and then moans when one of the big players makes it and it does not have the tea stain on the inside of the cab that the driver made on 5th June 1956.  I think it would be easy just to have a separate question about when you model.  It will confirm, as a survey that was done in RMEMag did, that most people want to, or do model the 50s and 60s.  However if the question was asked regularly it may change with time.

 

I got into Pre-Grouping via narrow gauge, where the time makes very little difference.  As a point of interest, to me anyway, when they announced R-T-R 009 stock I thought ,'Why would I want that when I could make a kit?'  The rub for me is that most 009 kits are either plastic or whitemetal so can be glued, and there are chassis.  I am not looking forward to building my first loco chassis, but hey, I run BR stuff when I have a session as I do not have enough Cambrian locos or rolling stock.

 

As for 3D, there is Sparkshot Creations.  I ony mention him as I have a small bogie Cambrian passenger locomotive from him.  There are others if you search Shapeways.

 

Will I vote.  Yes for anything that is nearly relevant.  I voted for a J15 as it was the right time frame, and I think the LNER one is as near to original condition as possible.  My only problem is that it is the wrong side of the country, but at least it is reliable when the grand children turn up.

 

Agree, Chris.

 

I cannot see the tension between wanting to explore kit and scratch-building and also welcoming RTR support, after all, many Transition Era modellers represent such a synthesis. Unless, of course, one adopts the, somewhat illogical, to my mid, notion that RTR is inherently suitable for Transition Era, yet inherently unsuitable for earlier periods.

 

Knuckles of this parish is planning the tiny Sharp Stewart 2-4-0 in Cambrian as well as Furness guise; an absolute must for you (and perfect as a freelance loco for CA).

 

I will vote.  It might be a limited exercise, but it's worth it as far as it goes.

 

At worst, you might get something else you can convert!

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If we want the big boys to do some pre group for us, there has to be accurate drawings of the items, and they have to be given dates for that particular period. Since many of the locos built at the end of the nineteenth century bore no resemblance to what they became only a few years later. Otherwise as soon as the model is out, some smart Alec will tell the world what is wrong with it and why.

I wanted a Kirtley 0-4-4 well tank back in the 1960s. I got a drawing by J.N.Maskeline, the editor of the Model Railway News, and, as I thought, an authority on all things railway. So, I built my well tank, only to find some years later that the drawing incorporated details from the two manufacturers who originally built these engines. So my carefully built well tank is not quite accurate. Fortunately, no one has spotted the mistakes and I can live with them, especially as the model was painted and lined for me by my good friend Larry Goddard.

Derek

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Agree, Chris.

 

I cannot see the tension between wanting to explore kit and scratch-building and also welcoming RTR support, after all, many Transition Era modellers represent such a synthesis. Unless, of course, one adopts the, somewhat illogical, to my mid, notion that RTR is inherently suitable for Transition Era, yet inherently unsuitable for earlier periods.

 

Knuckles of this parish is planning the tiny Sharp Stewart 2-4-0 in Cambrian as well as Furness guise; an absolute must for you (and perfect as a freelance loco for CA).

 

I will vote.  It might be a limited exercise, but it's worth it as far as it goes.

 

At worst, you might get something else you can convert!

 

Is he?  I did not know that although I follow his threads.  I know Richard Evans, (?), is in the process of producing a brass kit with a resin boiler.  However, I must be careful as some were rebuilt at this stage and some were not.  I need at least two so one of each would be good.

 

When I started modelling the Cambrian the only kits available were about three coaches from Peter K and some white metal ones from Ks.  I think Peter K did a loco as well.  Now the situation is changing rapidly which means that once we have built our kits, Hornby will produce one.

 

I was interested to note from an earlier post that the Oxford Dean may come in 'original' condition.  If it does I can see the GWR using its right to running powers if the Cambrian has not got enough locos.

 

I forgot to mention earlier that a couple, no more than that, years ago I asked the Poll Team to list the Cambrian small bogie 4-4-0 but nothing came of it.  You can understand why because it would have limited appeal, unless of course you see it and fall in love with its beauty.  The other way to market it would be to say it is a precursor of the type that became Edward the Blue engine, which it sort of is.

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Brian Macdermott has contacted me by email as he read my post about the Cambrian 4-4-0 and has asked me to supply the details again as he wishes to put it to the Poll team.  He says it would balance the Jones Goods which is the only Cambrian locomotive they have on the list.  (I vote for it and would buy one if produced even though it is too late for me.)

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Hello everyone

 

I know we said we were bowing out of commenting here, but we hope you won't mind us 'popping our heads round the door' for a moment.

 

We have reflected on the perception that it might look as though we are in some way 'promoting the BR era'. That was mainly by the way we list BR running numbers (although that was as a result of voter suggestions and for which we were praised) and that we don't specify which period/era/livery etc voters can vote for.

 

From next year, we will be noting in the Q&A and at the head of each relevant category in The Guide that the BR running numbers are there purely to assist identification.

 

We will be adding that we cannot take into account the vast array of variations within classes over the years such as tender swaps, chimney types, safety valves and liveries. The manufacturers will 'get as much as they can' from any model via slip tools etc, and it seems to make sense for them to produce models which span a number of decades and which will appeal to a wide audience.

 

A similar statement was already in one of the Freight categories, but it makes sense to extend across the others as stated above.

 

We hope that helps.

 

Yours, bowing out again, Brian Macdermott (on behalf of The Poll Team)

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Hello everyone

 

I know we said we were bowing out of commenting here, but we hope you won't mind us 'popping our heads round the door' for a moment.

 

We have reflected on the perception that it might look as though we are in some way 'promoting the BR era'. That was mainly by the way we list BR running numbers (although that was as a result of voter suggestions and for which we were praised) and that we don't specify which period/era/livery etc voters can vote for.

 

From next year, we will be noting in the Q&A and at the head of each relevant category in The Guide that the BR running numbers are there purely to assist identification.

 

We will be adding that we cannot take into account the vast array of variations within classes over the years such as tender swaps, chimney types, safety valves and liveries. The manufacturers will 'get as much as they can' from any model via slip tools etc, and it seems to make sense for them to produce models which span a number of decades and which will appeal to a wide audience.

 

A similar statement was already in one of the Freight categories, but it makes sense to extend across the others as stated above.

 

We hope that helps.

 

Yours, bowing out again, Brian Macdermott (on behalf of The Poll Team)

 

Thanks, Brian.

 

For me it is more a case of the law of unintended consequences.; the poll is neutral or 'period-blind',  whereas the manufacturers 'see' only BR-compatible versions when they read it!  

 

That is our challenge.

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Well, I have now wish-listed, which means I have verbed (twice!)

 

I have voted for GW prototypes that favour both the pre-Grouping era and the Thirties, as I have an interest in both.

 

For others, I have tended to focus on pre-WW1 prototypes from the Pre-Grouping companies for which I have a genuine intention of building up stock: LSWR, SE&CR, LB&SCR, GER, MR and one or two others.

 

I hope my catholic tastes do not cause my entries to be disqualified.  They are all things I'd buy!

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