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'Genesis' 4 & 6 wheel coaches in OO Gauge - New Announcement


Hattons Dave
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 That would hugely increase tooling costs though: presumably Hattons figure (and it's their money) that there isn't a big enough market for any one company, but generic will sell enough to work financially.

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A generic coach will be fine for the majority of the people buying RTR stuff, as long as it looks about right to an uneducated eye.  How many ‘model railways’ have you seen with class 66’s hauling private owner wagons, or Cock O’ the North pulling a rake of blue and grey coaches?  I can’t see them being bothered, as long as they look good.  

 

Those of us who count rivets are very much in the minority, and Hatton’s know this.

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But in that case pick the original southern coaches, do a brilliantly accurate model of them, and then release them in the correct southern (and pre-grouping livery) first. Then wait a year and see if the demand is there for accurate coaches. If they don't sell well then paint them blue and grey and flog them as generic and the money isn't lost totally. At least one lot of modellers get something proper.

This will cost no more to do, but to try and make something generic is very difficult, the variables are far too many to mash them all together and to even get a decent curates egg...

 

Or get hold of a triang clerestory and copy its panelling, at least then they will match something that has been used as a bodge for all sorts for years... Go for broke or go for Triang I say.

 

Andy G

Edited by uax6
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43 minutes ago, uax6 said:

But in that case pick the original southern coaches, do a brilliantly accurate model of them, and then release them in the correct southern (and pre-grouping livery) first. Then wait a year and see if the demand is there for accurate coaches. If they don't sell well then paint them blue and grey and flog them as generic and the money isn't lost totally. At least one lot of modellers get something proper.

This will cost no more to do, but to try and make something generic is very difficult, the variables are far too many to mash them all together and to even get a decent curates egg...

 

Or get hold of a triang clerestory and copy its panelling, at least then they will match something that has been used as a bodge for all sorts for years... Go for broke or go for Triang I say.

 

Andy G

 

I intend to treat the generics as Tri-ang Clerestories that have been "pre-hacked".:jester:

 

John

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1 hour ago, uax6 said:

But in that case pick the original southern coaches, do a brilliantly accurate model of them, and then release them in the correct southern (and pre-grouping livery) first. Then wait a year and see if the demand is there for accurate coaches. If they don't sell well then paint them blue and grey and flog them as generic and the money isn't lost totally...

 

I don't want a lesser railways vehicles painted in a proper railways liveries, I'd rather see generic coaches! :jester:

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A drawback of the Triang clerestories is the lack of bolection mouldings on the quarter-lights. Here I've picked out the window surrounds in mahogany but I hope you can see that the window surrounds are recessed in the same was a the panels, rather then projecting slightly beyond the beading:

 

547567906_PoscaliningexperimentHornbyclerestory2.JPG.14d5b6fae043f18174d2fa3c114e9edd.JPG

 

This was an experiment in lining-out. I don't know how it comes to be so dusty in this photo.

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Yep.

 

All the perfectionists are pushing to get the coaches closer to what they consider proper, ie their favoured company style, and then only a narrow group will be "winners".  All Hattons need do is step back and (taking a few tweaks that enhance genericity) make a truly generic rake of 4 and 6 wheelers!

 

Yay!  :jester:

 

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Hroth said:

All the perfectionists are pushing to get the coaches closer to what they consider proper, ie their favoured company style, and then only a narrow group will be "winners".  All Hattons need do is step back and (taking a few tweaks that enhance genericity) make a truly generic rake of 4 and 6 wheelers!

 

 

I'm puzzled and confused by this comment. There have been a few suggestions that these carriages should be models of those of one particular company, even if then offered in a multiplicity of liveries. Form my part, I've not taken that line, but rather, tried to identify what makes a "generic" carriage look realistic - not a model of something that did exist but a model of something that could plausibly have existed, whilst trying to avoid any distinctive feature that marks them out as one company or another. I'm happy to see that as perfectionism of a sort - the perfect nondescript unremarkable carriage.

 

To that end, I have tried to collate relevant information and see what conclusions can be drawn from that body of evidence.

Edited by Compound2632
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5 hours ago, uax6 said:

Why not identify an area where there is a large amount of pre-grouping engines available and then produce a rake of accurate 4 and 6 wheelers to go behind those locos? 

 

Andy G

Me, I model in O gauge, mainly scratch build, so really I have to admit to an interest in this just to encourage folks to go pregroup modelling. Not that aware of what is available in OO RTR suitable for these coaches, I did a quick look at Hattons site. Oh dear, there isn’t that much, certainly compared with the plenitude of 1950s steam they’ve got.. Hattons should be complimented on what must be a bold commercial venture, and I can understand their need to try keep it simple and throw the net as wide as possible.

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1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I'm puzzled and confused by this comment.

 

Sorry, I wasn't having a dig at you, it was just a response to Zunnans post above your post, which got interpolated whilst I was composing mine!

 

Yes, "realistic" though not "particular" is the ideal that Hattons seem to be striving for.  Your contributions seem to be valuable in that respect.  :yes:

 

Close-ups always seem to attract dust, for some unknown reason perhaps the power of the digital camera lens acts in the same way as an electrostatic grass device?  :jester:

 

Edited by Hroth
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An interesting observation has been made elsewhere on the price of these carriages, pointing out that more carriages are needed to make a train of typical length, than for later bogie carriages 57 ft or more long. Working this through, the Genesis carriages are £6 per third class compartment. Compare some current Hornby non-corridor carriages:

 

LMS Period 3 third: £5.11 per compartment

GW Collett bow-ended composite: £5.44 per compartment

LNE Gresley 51 ft third: £6.25 per compartment

SR Maunsell rebuilt LSWR third: £5.44 per compartment (plus a lavatory thrown in for free).

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

An interesting observation has been made elsewhere on the price of these carriages, pointing out that more carriages are needed to make a train of typical length, than for later bogie carriages 57 ft or more long. Working this through, the Genesis carriages are £6 per third class compartment. Compare some current Hornby non-corridor carriages:

 

LMS Period 3 third: £5.11 per compartment

GW Collett bow-ended composite: £5.44 per compartment

LNE Gresley 51 ft third: £6.25 per compartment

SR Maunsell rebuilt LSWR third: £5.44 per compartment (plus a lavatory thrown in for free).

 

 

 

 

Its what you get when buying Third Class compartments in bulk!

 

While LMS PIII compartments cost only 85% of a Hattons Generic Third, an LNER Gresly Third is 4% more expensive.  The pricing ain't that different overall.  The pricing is probably down to trying to prevent the hoi polloi from travelling too much!

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

LNER Gresly Third is 4% more expensive. 

 

LNER enthusiasts are being short changed there. Having established that they can charge £48 - £50 for a 57 ft 9 compartment coach, Hornby have the gall to offer a 51 ft 8-compartment coach at the same price.

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2 hours ago, Hroth said:

Yep.

 

All the perfectionists are pushing to get the coaches closer to what they consider proper, ie their favoured company style, and then only a narrow group will be "winners".  All Hattons need do is step back and (taking a few tweaks that enhance genericity) make a truly generic rake of 4 and 6 wheelers!

 

Yay!  :jester:

 

 

 

 

 

Just imagine having a couple of winners rather than everybody losing.

 

How Terrible!

 

 

 

 

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What they could do, of course, is go for designs built by the independant coach builders, where similar vehicles were supplied to a number of railway companies. Firms like Ashbury, BRC&W, Gloucester.

Edited by NCB
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2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

An interesting observation has been made elsewhere on the price of these carriages, pointing out that more carriages are needed to make a train of typical length, than for later bogie carriages 57 ft or more long. Working this through, the Genesis carriages are £6 per third class compartment. Compare some current Hornby non-corridor carriages:

 

LMS Period 3 third: £5.11 per compartment

GW Collett bow-ended composite: £5.44 per compartment

LNE Gresley 51 ft third: £6.25 per compartment

SR Maunsell rebuilt LSWR third: £5.44 per compartment (plus a lavatory thrown in for free).

 

 

 

So all roughly comparable, which is interesting, given that, compared to Hornby, Hattons might be considered a rather smaller concern. 

 

Although my interest in these is somewhat academic at the moment, I see the train length issue a little differently. Although, to be truly prototypical, a train may require a lot of non-bogie vehicles, to create a pleasing impression I would not expect to need so many. For example, a suburban train for a short Minories would, IMHO, look perfectly OK if made up of a pair of brake 3rds, a pair of composites and an all 3rd. The viewer sees a 5 coach train - reasonable, if not excessive - but the space occupied is equivalent to 3 bogies or less. Very handy for the space starved and a perennial justification for going pre-Grouping. 

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4 hours ago, Craigw said:

 

Just imagine having a couple of winners rather than everybody losing.

 

How Terrible!

 

 

 

 

 

Ah... what we seem to have here, is a railway modelling example of The Nash Equilibrium!

 

If we all try and win, we all lose - but if we all compromise, we all win.

 

If you have seen the film A Beautiful Mind, you'll remember it from this scene: 

 

 

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, NCB said:

What they could do, of course, is go for designs built by the independant coach builders, where similar vehicles were supplied to a number of railway companies. Firms like Ashbury, BRC&W, Gloucester.

 

Show me these 6-wheeled carriages of the 1880s / 1890s built by the trade to their own designs for a number of railways.

 

5 hours ago, RLWP said:

I'm now waiting for a detailed analysis of £ per class per linear foot of model

 

Enquiring minds need to know!

 

Richard

 

I did think of looking at it that way. Mk3 carriages are undoubtedly the best value.

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7 hours ago, Craigw said:

Just imagine having a couple of winners rather than everybody losing.

 

Its all been rehearsed in the last 40 pages.

  • The folk who don't have a place for the particular "couple of winners" won't be keen to buy.
  • Any livery other than that appropriate for the "couple of winners" will produce howls of protest.
  • Prices will creep upwards and we'll lose decent alternatives for the Hornby 4-wheeler or the Ratio GWR 4-wheeler kits.
  • Fewer people will dabble their toes in pre-grouping, other than those who are prepared to spend an arm and a leg on very precise replicas of what they want OR have the skills to scratch-build appropriate carriages, assemble advanced kits and then paint them to a high standard.
  • Etc,

It's been said that the RTR market for anything Grouping and onwards has been more or less saturated so pre-grouping is perhaps the way forward.  I'd rather see Hattons make a go of successfully producing and selling generic pre-grouping coaches that may well build a market for other manufacturers to join in and, say produce a representative rake for another company or produce more affordable pre-grouping locomotives.

 

Lots of winners there, and you might get the winners YOU want too!

 

How terrible would that be?

 

 

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8 hours ago, Craigw said:

 

Just imagine having a couple of winners rather than everybody losing.

 

How Terrible!

 

 

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

Or couple of losers and everybody else winning...…:good:

 

 

Hatton's (and most of us) are evidently hoping that this feedback process end in a score draw for everybody. That seems reasonable to me when (IMHO) the real alternative is nobody getting anything (i.e. the status quo). They would surely not have gone down this route had they thought that coaches from any one company would sell in sufficient quantities to justify making them.

 

If we consider the locos already available and announced in RTR that could plausibly haul such stock, I'd think anyone other than SECR modellers would be disappointed anyway. C, H, P and D against no more than two from any other company.

 

Given that, barring Bachmann's relatively modern (prototypically) Birdcages and the hackers' favourites from Tri-ang days, no other OO manufacturer has yet ventured to produce pre-grouping coaches.. With most of them seemingly locked in an authenticity arms race, could any of them dared to go "generic"? Probably not, so we're back to the status quo again.

 

For pre-group provision in the RTR mainstream to increase in the future, it needs some commercial stimulus to convince the established producers of its viability. Ironically for the critics, this range succeeding could provide just that.

 

It may not be wholly logical but, for many, a model that omits any strongly individual design characteristics, finished in your preferred team colours, will beat one that's obviously from somewhere else, in disguise. It's not the perfect solution, but that's not on offer and probably never will be.

 

Many will be content with these as they come, and many others, me included, will (based on what we know so far) consider them to be "good enough until the real thing comes along", whilst accepting that it might not. Hatton's have clearly decided that those groups will provide a level of demand that will enable this venture to succeed, and those who feel otherwise are under no compulsion to buy them, after all.

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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14 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

The pre-group companies also had bogie coaches. I wonder if Hattons if these are successful would consider producing longer bogie coaches to match?

We already have "generic" pre grouping bogies.

They are called Hornby Clerestory Coaches:jester:

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