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BBC Four - James May's Big Trouble in Model Britain


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1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

Not everyone is a finescaleP4 modeller, some people just like a train set.

 

Nail, head..... 

There is room for every approach in this hobby. One is not more virtuous, worthwhile or better than any other. 

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14 hours ago, rob D2 said:

I thought it was very interesting - especially actually the airfix bits with the hellcat and the big Telford show, I hadn’t realised plastic kits were still so big - I wonder how big the market is in the UK ?

 

The plastic kit market in the UK, yet alone the rest of the world is I suspect substantially bigger than the model railway market.  The number of major kit manufacturers way out numbers model train manufacturers and the choice is substantially greater, for example one British outlet lists 167 different models of the Spitfire in a number of marks and scales costing between £6 and £200.  They stock more than 6,000 plastic aircraft kits alone, with the dearest costing over £440.  Their dearest kit is a multi media U-boot costing nearly £1,500, and it still needs to be built and painted.  You only have to look at the magazine section in WH Smiths and compare the different numbers of magazines supporting each sector of modelling.

 

Although, as railway modellers, we might like to think that our hobby is the best and biggest, compared to plastic kits we are probably comparative minnows.  Years ago, plastic model magazines used to use railway modelling as the standard to aspire to, no longer.  You just have to look at the models in some of these magazines to realise that the skills in other hobbies are every bit as good as,  if not better, than ours.

 

I am not trying to do rail modelling down but to emphasise that other parts of the Hornby company, like Airfix, may be more important to the company's good health than model trains.  Airfix have been investing significant amounts of money in replacing older kits with new versions, as well as bringing out totally new models, they would not be doing that if there was not a market waiting to buy them.

 

Regards

 

Roddy 

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10 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

 

 

I've only just watched Wednesday night's first episode.

That's the impression I got.

 

The chap building the Hellcat (Jim?) came across as a normal guy and a serious modeller and there was a good glimpse of the level of detail involved, both with the kit and his own painting and modelling skills.

The kit building hobby appeared as a fairly vibrant scene, which I must say, did surprise me.

 

On the other hand, the model railway fraternity and the hobby were not portrayed in such a good light, IMHO.

No offence to the guy, but Gerrard seemed (or at least was portrayed as) slightly eccentric and the DOGA layout Batcombe appeared to be a very poor example of crude and dated modelling.

Unfortunately, the predominance of "old scuffers" at the exhibition and in other scenes, is the reality of the hobby's situation.

 

 

 

There's a very big element of trying to rewrite history here.

As has already been pointed out, Hornby got into serious difficulties long before the "previous management" took charge.

Things started to go wrong almost 10 years ago, following the financial crash and the sale of Sanda Kan to Kader.

Some of the circumstances were outside of Hornby's control, but the managements teams, of which SK was very much a part of, were responsible for a series of blunders that took the company into serious financial losses.

 

The "previous management", with whom SK is said to have fallen out of favour with, were guilty of screwing up and making things worst in trying to dig the company out of the deep hole created by those in charge before them..

 

p.s. I'd love to hear the unedited version of what the old guy in the visitor centre said about it all.  

 

 

 

.

 

I think the above is a pretty fair summary.

 

It was an enjoyable program if not really setting the dial forward. Other than J36 problems and the fact that some moulds had disappeared I don't think we learned anything that was really new, although it was an enjoyable look behind the scenes.

 

I think there are two aspects I'd take issue with

 

We were all worried at how model railway enthusiasts would be portrayed in the Great Model Railway Challenge , and yet apart from some crappy music and the cringing tannoy announcement  "5 minutes left" generally it did it pretty well .  But here we had references to no woman , faces of young people blanked out so as not to affect their chances of getting a girlfriend in the future. Really that's quite insulting , but because its James May he seems to get away with it . In any case isn't there a legal reason while peoples faces would be blanked out , reading some of the above. Really surprised given our nervousness about GMRC before it aired there's not more of an outcry about this

 

The impression given is that the previous management were crap and Simon Kohlers brought back to save the company, but actually the previous management was brought in because the one before that had made a mess of it . I put the problems fair and square at Frank Martins management .  Olympics , Sanda Kan as Ron Ron Ron points out , the lack of being able to deliver anything because they suddenly had no manufacturing capacity , that's what hit the financials.  Even small things , yes "Design clever" but who really thought it would be acceptable to mould cab handrails on the Saint . Surely you might think someone in a "serious hobby company"  would step in and say while we can make some compromises that's a step too far, but no one did. And as has been pointed out , the previous team have been delivering some good models . Presumably the Duchess, 87, J36 , Lord Nelsons, Unrebuilt MNs etc are down to them. On Airfix  you've had Valiants , Victors , Phantoms all introduced . The fact that products are beginning now to flow probably isn't because of short term changes made by the new management, but measures put in place by the previous lot now coming to fruition. The previous mgt also had a pretty successful announcement at Warley if I remember correctly when they announced Duchess and 87, gave us the well followed "Engine Shed", got catalogues into WH Smith , so a much bigger target audience . They did , however drop a few large clangers such as deep discounting (although I took advantage at the time), alienating retailers , and dropping the catalogue (was that 2016?).  So the program impression that the previous lot were crap but the new management will save the day is a bit simplistic .  I'm hoping the second program might bring out the root cause issues more , but I suspect not.

 

Just wondering if we would have got the 87 if the previous mgt hadn't been there . Before them there seemed to be the view that "electrics don't sell".  Similarly for Scottish engines we have been waiting for a long time for something purely Scottish like the J36.  Before that we might have had to make do with a reheated Caley 123 to satisfy Scottish modellers.

 

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As far as plastic kits go - Tooling costs £100k, about the same as a loco.

 

RRP £119.99

 

5000 identical units sold.

 

Assembly costs - nill (it falls out of the machine and goes in a box)

 

 

If I were Hornby, I'd be looking very closely at the plastic kit market. The profit margin appears to be much better than model railways. The Hellcat isn't the first kit like this from the firm either, the Mosquito proved the market. 

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3 minutes ago, Legend said:

In any case isn't there a legal reason while peoples faces would be blanked out

 

If you wish to show identifiable faces of minors, you need permission from their parents or guardians. I understand the production team didn't want the paperwork. Having done this, fuzzing the faces is a lot easier.

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38 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

 

Further to which, the management of ancient tools still in the UK - which therefore probably haven't been used in twenty years - is a tiny sideshow  to the essential business of managing the tool store currently located in China and India, and quite possibly yet elsewhere. That's the kind of information about a vital aspect of their current manufacturing process that would be infinitely more interesting; and is absolutely necessary for the future of the business. When you read potential customers griping that there's been no production of this or that model for an age, that may point to 'a problem' in tool store management. No amount of personable charm will get you anywhere with this, it's hard graft.

 

I hope we see a little more of Lyndon Davies in round 2. He looks like a guy with his head on right who will be able to talk from direct knowledge of the manufacturing process.

Another thing which came to my mind is while the stack of a stored tools  at Margate may well have shrunk did they actually have a register of tools and what had been scrapped in the past (e.g the Blue Pullman long ago reported as damaged/deteriorated and unusable)?   And what had been sent to China where some of it obviously exists in order to allow recent and planned reintroductions of some very old models (or presumably to India in the case of Airfix tools for old models which are being reintroduced).   I recall that some time back the 'previous management',  or - more correctly - one of the several 'previous managements' were making a special effort to ensure that they knew the location of all their tooling in China; were they successful?

 

We keep on hearing, quite rightly, just how expensive these tools are so they are obviously an important asset of the company if they are usable and equally they can provide potentially useful accountancy items for depreciation;   when scrapped they were  presumably written off somewhere in the detail of the company's accounts?

Edited by The Stationmaster
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9 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

If I were Hornby, I'd be looking very closely at the plastic kit market. The profit margin appears to be much better than model railways. The Hellcat isn't the first kit like this from the firm either, the Mosquito proved the market. 

Shhhhhhh - we don't want Hornby dumping model trains in favour of 1/24 scale models of Vulcans

 

This is a train forum not an Airfix one :jester:

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10 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

As far as plastic kits go - Tooling costs £100k, about the same as a loco.

 

RRP £119.99

 

5000 identical units sold.

 

Assembly costs - nill (it falls out of the machine and goes in a box)

 

 

If I were Hornby, I'd be looking very closely at the plastic kit market. The profit margin appears to be much better than model railways. The Hellcat isn't the first kit like this from the firm either, the Mosquito proved the market. 

 

Yes I was thinking that . There's the cost of the plastic, packaging and maybe some limited manual work, preparation of instructions , artwork, but there must be a fair amount of margin in there .  No tricky decoration or tampo processes.

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1 hour ago, Georgeconna said:

 

My Wife heard the 'Spectrum' bit and informed me she will be applying for carers allowance...Ouch.

 

Whilst I realise that was a tongue-firmly-in-cheek comment I would like to add that some of us that are on the spectrum, as in the ASD/Asperger's spectrum, have no more 'needs' than anyone else - we just have different social interaction levels and/or sensory difficulties ;)

 

Paul 

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7 minutes ago, Chameleon said:

How come Hornby still have the huge building at Margate? (Big enough to currently house 12" to the ft models) if they have moved out both production and offices. That sort of building must cost a helluva lot to keep and maintain?

 

They sold it , moved to Sandwich and are now moving back. Presumably leasing a small part of the site they used to occupy , not the whole factory. Probably a lower cost than the glitzy offices at Sandwich , that we did see in the program.  They don't need the whole factory as they don't manufacture anything

 

Edited by Legend
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12 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

I disagree. You only need to frequent some of the more trainsetty Facebook groups to discover that Hornby = trainsets and trainsets = Hornby. There are people to whom Hornby is still the only go-to product for their hobby. Locos, coaches, wagons, track, controllers, buildings, trainset-sheets even.

Even though the writing was put on the wall by Airfix in 1981, Hornby and their railroad range is still today a critical and successful product stream. It is the arrival of the Bachmanns, the Rapidos and the critical demands of the high-end modelling market that have obliged Hornby to set aside their entire 1980s quality products into a new "railroad" label and fork out on new R&D and tooling to satisfy us. Yes, us. People who are prepared to glue cosmetic screw couplings onto the buffer beam of a loco are high-end. There is stil a huge and viable "toy-trainset" market out there and Hornby's railroad range seems to now be the only player in that market. The Railroad range, based on 1980s and 1990s tooling may well be keeping the company alive.

 

Actually I think we agree.

 

Your point, with regards to Facebook groups thinking that Hornby is the be all and end all of model railways makes very well the point of a public perception of Hornby.

 

When I wrote:

Surely the point being made was that the days of a model railway/train set = Hornby have been and gone. 

 

The point I was trying (poorly) to get across is that this perception exists, but the business reality - as shown by the guy with his layout and only a humble Class D8 as a Hornby model on it - is different. It is the business reality that I think the program was trying to make with this particular clip.  This is after all the purpose of the program - to show the problems of an iconic British company.  Despite the entertaining and rather "soft" * presentation this is essentially a "business program".

 

[*"soft" as opposed to hard hitting.]

 

The fact the perception of Hornby still exists has to be good for the company if they can continue to capitalise on it.   It does not however remove the increasingly more competitive situation they find themselves in.  

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1 hour ago, Jeff Smith said:

I used to build plastic model aircraft but am not up with the hobby so was interested to see that type of model fair.  I wonder, and I'm sure there are multi-disciplined modellers here, whether the same type of accuracy discussions/complaints take place about aircraft models as about loco models? 

 

 

I think that aircraft kit builders do share discussions/complaints about their specialism. I know very little about aircraft (other than I love it when the real ones zoom past here as low as 500 foot!), but I have kits of both RAF Hercules and A400M types to complete and in doing a little on-line research regarding interior details/painting it soon became apparent that, while the subject matter changes, the modellers need for accuracy doesn't.

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37 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

As far as plastic kits go - Tooling costs £100k, about the same as a loco.

 

RRP £119.99

 

5000 identical units sold.

 

Assembly costs - nill (it falls out of the machine and goes in a box)

 

 

If I were Hornby, I'd be looking very closely at the plastic kit market. The profit margin appears to be much better than model railways. The Hellcat isn't the first kit like this from the firm either, the Mosquito proved the market. 

Interesting, I saw one of these online interviews with a model retailer who said, the problem with the kits is a modeller buys one and disappears for six months to build it...they are not popping in every now and again for a point motor or a signal box etc etc...

 

but I digress .

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2 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Interesting, I saw one of these online interviews with a model retailer who said, the problem with the kits is a modeller buys one and disappears for six months to build it...they are not popping in every now and again for a point motor or a signal box etc etc...

 

but I digress .

You can't play with kits either - they just sit on a shelf or maybe a diorama and do nothing.

 

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4 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

I think that may be an inescapable requirement. Without it, the models would effectively become items for static display only for many/most purchasers. 

 

There are many "relatively serious" modellers who need their locos to be able to negotiate No.2 radius hidden curves in order to free up room to create a more realistic appearance to the visible parts of their layouts.

 

The ability to juggle geometry in this way Is one reason why so many of us have stuck with OO rather than adopting EM or P4, both of which require more generous radii unless one is willing to limit oneself to straight-line "shunting plank", loco-depot or BLT layouts.

 

 

John

 

  

I think this is one of the fundamental, and possibly insurmountable, difficulties with our hobby- particularly in Britan. There is no really clear difference between toy trains and scale model railways. In most other hobbies and leisure pursuits (particularly sports) youngsters generally engage in a junior branch of an adult activity and expect, if they maintain that interest, to graduate to the adult game as soon as possible.

However, because railways as a whole are so vast compared with the individual items that most other modellers tackle, all of us have to accept enormous compromises. That runs from simplified track layoutsto the scale of lengths and curves but should we expect a highly detailed scale model, that you simply wouldn't give to a child, to be compromised enough to be able to negotiate track designed for toy train sets?

Over the years we've got used to doing that so design our layouts accordingly and accept, for example, that beautifully detailed coaches run in sets with absurdly large air gaps  between their corridor connections. This wasn't 't always been quite so true. In the 1950s most modellers in OO, those whose layouts got into the magazines at least, seemed to largely adopt BRMSB standards and generally accepted minimum radii.  Once you accepted those standards  you designed  your layouts within the constraints it imposed. 

 

I suspect that one of the attractions of EM and P4 is not just the more realistic appearance as the sense of a definite step change into serious modelling.  After all, Frank Dyer's OO Borchester doesn't look particularly "wrong" compared with Peter Denny's  EM Leighton Buzzard and far better than Doug Williams' EM Metropolitan Junction (three famous layouts that are happlily still with us) and I confess that from the side I often find a well modelled fine scale OO layout difficult to distinguish from one in EM

I've noticed In the H0 world inhabited by most of our hobby there seems to be far less enthusiasm for P87 than there is for P4/S4 here. That's possibly because standards like NMRA RP25 are "good enough" for most scale modellers. I'd be interested to know how much Setrack Peco, regarded there as a premium brand, sell into the N. American market. I suspect the answer is not that much

 

 

Edited by Pacific231G
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6 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Interesting, I saw one of these online interviews with a model retailer who said, the problem with the kits is a modeller buys one and disappears for six months to build it...they are not popping in every now and again for a point motor or a signal box etc etc...

 

but I digress .

 

Yes good point

 

On the other hand there are those who buy them and it stays in their kit stash in the garage or up the loft. People don't necessarily construct them when they buy them . I'm into model airliners and probably have 30-40 built up over the last couple of years for the time I get round to building them. I got back into them when model railways became too dear, although I still buy model railways when I fancy something eg TPE 68

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5 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

Yes good point

 

On the other hand there are those who buy them and it stays in their kit stash in the garage or up the loft. People don't necessarily construct them when they buy them . I'm into model airliners and probably have 30-40 built up over the last couple of years for the time I get round to building them. I got back into them when model railways became too dear, although I still buy model railways when I fancy something eg TPE 68

 

They are also more giftable than trains. When I was a kid, I went through a shortish phase of building Airfix kits. It didn't last all that long, but, while it did last, I got loads of them for Christmas and birthday presents. But I never - ever - got a single model railway item as a gift.

 

I think Airfix kits are more easily understood by non-aficionados. That's partly because far more youngsters (particularly boys) go through a phase of building them than get into trains, so there's a huge pool of residual memory of them (and fondness for them) among the dads, uncles and grandads of this world. But it's also partly because kits tend to be much more standalone - you might build a Hellcat this month, and a Tornado next month, and it doesn't matter that, in reality, they wouldn't occupy the same airspace (and it doesn't matter either that you might have a mix of scales on your shelves). When buying train-related stuff for a serious modeller, you need to know what they are into in far more detail than you do am Airfix kitbuilder. And that tends to put people off buying railway models as gifts as they're less sure what to get.

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50 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

If you wish to show identifiable faces of minors, you need permission from their parents or guardians. I understand the production team didn't want the paperwork. Having done this, fuzzing the faces is a lot easier.

Not just paperwork (which is actually fairly standard) It would be almost impossible to get those permissions in a busy exhibition unless the youngsters appearing in shot were pre-arranged. You also have to be careful with adults. If the shot of the waiting queue had been illustrating a script line about sad old gits on the spectrum anyone identifiable would have quite a good case for legal redress.  Remember that those rules don;t just apply to professsional broadcasters. They also apply to anyone who posts videos on YouTube etc.

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Yes with a model railway its a system approach, set , controller, scenery, large place to put it , quite large cost for the lot.   With a kit its an individual buy , apart from glue and paint nothing else required.    I do wonder how many kits do actually get constructed in the end . There do seem to be many 60/70/80s vintage ones around on eBay .  I really don't have the patience to construct the engine on that Hellcat in the program. I bet a substantial number of the 5000 kits sold will never actually be put together.  On reflection it was quite a fascinating program

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1 hour ago, Jeff Smith said:

I used to build plastic model aircraft but am not up with the hobby so was interested to see that type of model fair.  I wonder, and I'm sure there are multi-disciplined modellers here, whether the same type of accuracy discussions/complaints take place about aircraft models as about loco models? 

 

Yes, most definitely - the various plastic modeller forums I'm a member of are full of threads bitching about inaccurate kits with various major dimensional inaccuracies, never mind the more subtle detail stuff. And they also have to contend with poor fit or alignment of parts when they build the thing, requiring much filing, sanding, application of filler, smoothing of seams and re-scribing panel detail lost in the previous operations! We do have it rather easy with RTR!

 

I have recently rejoined the model aircraft world, prompted by a couple of Airfix's new toolings (their 1/72 Lightnings and Shackleton, but have equally bought kits from the likes of Revel, Sword and Italeri, all post-WW2 RAF types). I've started a couple of kits and have first-hand knowledge of my previous para!

 

I've attended Scale Model World the past 2 years and have been impressed by both the sheer variety and quality of models displayed and the high number of visitors, (with an average age maybe 10-15 less than many of the larger model railway shows). Then again, while the models on display are very high quality, the interaction between exhibitors and punters is much more limited and there's very, very little in the way of demos or sharing of techniques. And the models are, of course, static. There's no 'action' to keep the viewer entertained.

From a trade point of view - there's the box-shifters, second hand merchants and plenty of detailing stuff (much of which is far, far ahead of what we're happy to accept)

 

I firmly believe there is much we can learn from the plastic modelling world (and vice versa), if only folk on both sides of the lineside fence would venture over it!

 

 

Regarding the James May programme, I found it largely informative and enjoyable, with only a few cringe-worthy moments and I'm looking forward to part 2.

 

The programme that followed it on BBC4, about the history of 'train sets' and model railways was possibly better in that it presented the hobby in a largely positive light, including contributions from the likes of Gordon and Maggie Gravett, showing that we're not all sad weirdos! :locomotive:

 

 

Edited by CloggyDog
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2 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Not just paperwork (which is actually fairly standard) It would be almost impossible to get those permissions in a busy exhibition unless the youngsters appearing in shot were pre-arranged. You also have to be careful with adults. If the shot of the waiting queue had been illustrating a script line about sad old gits on the spectrum anyone identifiable would have quite a good case for legal redress.  Remember that those rules don;t just apply to professsional broadcasters. They also apply to anyone who posts videos on YouTube etc.

James May's jockular quip about teenagers, girlfriends and modelling, may have been a throw away gag to hide a legal requirement, but I wonder what would be the effect on any teenagers watching, did it just reinforce the stereotype of 'do this and your just plain sad'  that does deter some from more active indulgence?

 

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4 hours ago, blueeighties said:

So in that case, why do DCC Concepts sell analogue and digital Cobalt motors? 

The answer is in my post - same point motor, but one is set up to be run by DC and the other by DCC. I don't know how much clearer my post could have been.

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