Integration of Parkside and Ratio

[Fat Controller]

I've just been looking at the 'Parkside' section of the Peco web-site; there seems to have been a campaign to put the 4mm rolling stock kits in the Ratio range into the Parkside range.

[sparaxis]

Makes sense to me

[Flying Pig]

3 hours ago, sparaxis said:

Makes sense to me

 

It does and presumably there'll be some sorting out between Wills and Ratio too.  I wonder if the Ratio brand will disappear entirely?

 

On the other hand, for older modellers this may be like changing the colour of cheese and onion crisp packets and we may never get over it. (Is it just coincidence that the correct colour for cheese and onion is not unlike the colour of a Ratio box...)

Edited July 27, 2020 by Flying Pig

[Butler Henderson]

Coaches & Wagons = Parkside

Buildings = Wills

Signals = Ratio 

?

[Mark Saunders]

3 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

On the other hand, for older modellers this may be like changing the colour of cheese and onion crisp packets and we may never get over it. (Is it just coincidence that the correct colour for cheese and onion is not unlike the colour of a Ratio box...)

 

There should be a law about the colour coding of crisp packets!

 

 

[BernardTPM]

1 hour ago, Butler Henderson said:

Coaches & Wagons = Parkside

Buildings = Wills

Signals = Ratio 

?

Parkside don't really have a history of doing coaches though. Ratio does, even to wooden ones back in the 1950s, so what they've done does seem a little strange.

I note the 'Grand Junction' LNWR station parts are now Ratio so I think their building kits will stay Ratio for the immediate future. They also do both 4mm and N scales whereas Wills is just 4mm scale.

[Fat Controller]

4 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

It does and presumably there'll be some sorting out between Wills and Ratio too.  I wonder if the Ratio brand will disappear entirely?

 

On the other hand, for older modellers this may be like changing the colour of cheese and onion crisp packets and we may never get over it. (Is it just coincidence that the correct colour for cheese and onion is not unlike the colour of a Ratio box...)

There's probably a Group Standard...

[Antony Farrell]

When was the last time Ratio put out a new coach kit? With the loss of the 4mm ranges swallowed by Coopercraft I could do with some easy to build (relatively) GWR Dean and Churchward coaching stock.

[BernardTPM]

Last new Ratio coaches would have been the LNWR corridor ones around 1979, I think.

[Steamport Southport]

Southern Railway Bogie B van.

 

It was meant to have been part of a new range of modern kits but nothing else appeared.

 

 

 

Jason

[Steamport Southport]

6 hours ago, Antony Farrell said:

When was the last time Ratio put out a new coach kit? With the loss of the 4mm ranges swallowed by Coopercraft I could do with some easy to build (relatively) GWR Dean and Churchward coaching stock.

 

The old Slaters kits?

 

Slaters have them. They've already released most of the wagons. The PO wagons are available from POW Sides.

 

There was something a little while ago saying they needed new instructions for the coach kits.

 

 

 

Jason

[BernardTPM]

Yes, good to see Slaters 4mm kits re-emerging from the quagmire of Coopercraft.

[JohnR]

I've heard that the Ratio van kits are more complicated than similar ones from Parkside - maybe better to keep them apart?

[Fat Controller]

5 minutes ago, JohnR said:

I've heard that the Ratio van kits are more complicated than similar ones from Parkside - maybe better to keep them apart?

I've not found them so; I've just been looking at some of mine, built some 40+ years back, and they seem comparable to Parkside.

[griffgriff]

2 hours ago, JohnR said:

I've heard that the Ratio van kits are more complicated than similar ones from Parkside - maybe better to keep them apart?

 

‘I've heard” 

.... that’s how rumours start.

 

I've built both. Ratio kits are pretty good*. Some older Parkside kits can be a little tricky (due to age)... they are the same but different. Both have their strengths and limitations. 
 

* due to the join between  sole bar and floor they can be bothersome if you’re working in EM or P4 ....but you’d cobble up something nice and brassy using after sales parts if that was the case.

Griff

 

 

[BernardTPM]

I built a Ratio LMS van when I was in my early teens (not long after it came out, I suspect), so it couldn't have been that hard.

[Grovenor]

The Ratio goods vans were fine, the complicated one is the SR Bogie B. Spoiled IMHO by too many seperate bits to line up then etchings to add that could have been moulded in. And then when you look closely silly errors like wrongly positioned door hinges. IIRC.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Grovenor

[Ramblin Rich]

I wonder what will happen to Peco's "own" building kits, like the "Manyways" range?

[Antony Farrell]

Well assuming the 4mm Slaters GWR coaches do reappear I will be after several at least.

[hayfield]

On 27/07/2020 at 21:47, Butler Henderson said:

Coaches & Wagons = Parkside

Buildings = Wills

Signals = Ratio 

?

 

The larger building kits in the Wills and Ratio ranges differ, Wills having the Craftsman (more of a scratch aid) where as the Ratio being kits in the normal style where no cutting out is required

 

Don't forget a fourth brand of kits namely Peco with buildings etc

[Aire Head]

New packaging for everything now on the Parkside range. Basically the same plastic boxes the Ratio stuff used to come in with parkside packaging.

 

The kits themselves remain the same so far.

[Steamport Southport]

Plastic boxes!

 

Cheese and Onion flavour.....

 

 

 

 

[BernardTPM]

Salt & Vinegar!

[KeithHC]

You could call it Parkside Ratio or Ratio Parkside....... produced by Peco

 

Keith

[spamcan61]

4 minutes ago, KeithHC said:

You could call it Parkside Ratio or Ratio Parkside....... produced by Peco

 

Keith

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