Integration of Parkside and Ratio

[BernardTPM]

1 hour ago, KeithHC said:

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

Rapside?

[ikcdab]

On 28/07/2020 at 21:32, Grovenor said:

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

I agree on the bogie B. I have built 2 or 3, and there are some ridiculously tiny etched bits to apply that very easily ping off into infinity.

[Guest WM183]

I like the plastic box packages a bit better than the older plastic bag type. I suppose putting all the rolling stock kits under the Parkside brand makes sense but... It feels like a change made just to make a change. 

[hayfield]

I think most retailers especially those who do shows will be very pleased, its far easier to both display and pack up packaging which is the same size

 

I for one think these are far better and easier for the modeler to store than the older card backed packaging of the building series

[Grovenor]

Going to plastic packaging at this environmentally sensitive time is not IMHO the way to go.

And the modeller should be building them not storing them, and the built item won't fit in the box.

 

[Not Captain Kernow]

43 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

Going to plastic packaging at this environmentally sensitive time is not IMHO the way to go.

And the modeller should be building them not storing them, and the built item won't fit in the box.

 

 

The built item never fitted into the previous boxes either?

[hayfield]

39 minutes ago, Grovenor said:

Going to plastic packaging at this environmentally sensitive time is not IMHO the way to go.

And the modeller should be building them not storing them, and the built item won't fit in the box.

 

 

As far as the Wills building sheets are concerned, I have double figures of part used packs, most on space wasting card backed packaging. But extremely useful when you only need a small amount of the material. Very rarely will a whole box be fully used up

 

These new boxes are very useful in their own right as reusable packing for the spares box. Disposing of unused items is very wasteful and ultimately expensive way of modelling  

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Aren't you supposed to use the Wills packaging as glazing?

 

Mike.

[hayfield]

18 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Aren't you supposed to use the Wills packaging as glazing?

 

Mike.

 

Not whilst its still holding unused sheets/parts !!!

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

Not whilst its still holding unused sheets/parts !!!

 

That's what Really Useful Boxes are for.

 

Mike.

[hayfield]

[DCB]

On 28/07/2020 at 21:32, Grovenor said:

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.

 

That is so reassuring.   I had a bogie B for Christmas and have been struggling to build it, the sides went Banana shape due to under size guards compartment bulkheads, the roof had to be re engineered to make it removable in case the glazing fell out (again) the bogies were too flimsy and had to be replaced by RTR bogies and the rain strips on the roof, separate mouldings about 0.5 mm dia are proving absolutely impossible to attach anywhere near the correct place.  I parked it next to an updated  Triang SR bogie van and the Ratio looked a right mess.   The old GWR 4 wheelers and the like were much easier to build so I'm glad the Bogie B was the first and last of that range.

[Oldddudders]

On 28/07/2020 at 21:32, Grovenor said:

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.

I had a little more luck than you, but knew i'd never get the separate bits to sit right, so having got it to the running stage I passed it on gratis. Implausibly, the new owner featured it on his excellent layout thread exactly as I'd sent it! The Ratio provender store infuriated me, having apparently been designed by a sadistic  jigsaw-enthusiast. Far, far more separate parts than such a structure needed, and a great deal less presence than the Bachmann RTP (Ready To Plonk) version, which was twice the price but much better value. They sit rather uncomfortably next to each other on my traders' siding. 

[Ben Alder]

I built one of the stores years ago and it kicked around on various layouts, eventually being replaced with the Bachmann one on my current set up. A couple of years ago I  took two Ratio kits to make a more exact copy of the Thurso store, and rediscovered what a pig of a kit it is - managed to get panels and the supports  the wrong way round and in the wrong places - a whole c*** up of an offering. Eventually managed to get a finished article, but most of it was Evergreen strip and plasticard and on reflection it would have been a better use of my time to do it all from scratch. I'm sure there is a market for a good modular kit of this widespread building but the Ratio one isn't it....

 

 

[John M Upton]

4 hours ago, Grovenor said:

Going to plastic packaging at this environmentally sensitive time is not IMHO the way to go.

And the modeller should be building them not storing them, and the built item won't fit in the box.

 

 

It seems Peco has decided on platic boxes and sleeves across the range in the last couple of years, a decision I personally feel is environmentally daft especially where the packaging it replaced was a sensible card carton.

[Steamport Southport]

Oh the irony of someone buying plastic and then complaining that the plastic comes packaged in plastic....

 

 

 

 

Jason

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

Did Peco ever end up with the tooling for the Scalecraft Roadrailer kit, and if so I wonder if that will ever see the light of day.

 

Gibbo.

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Folks,

 

Did Peco ever end up with the tooling for the Scalecraft Roadrailer kit, and if so I wonder if that will ever see the light of day.

 

Gibbo.

Was that the Roadrailer kit that Peco produced in the first place - or another one ?

[Gibbo675]

3 minutes ago, Wickham Green too said:

Was that the Roadrailer kit that Peco produced in the first place - or another one ?

Hi Wickham,

 

We may be dealing with a mists of time question here !

 

The ones I have seen on eBay are by Scalecraft and whether or not they are the same as what Peco produced latterly, or took control of unsold stock or what ever actually happened I don't know for sure however, I'm guessing at re-branded Scalecraft.

 

Apologies for being as clear as mud.

 

Gibbo.

[26power]

7 hours ago, Grovenor said:

Going to plastic packaging at this environmentally sensitive time is not IMHO the way to go.

And the modeller should be building them not storing them, and the built item won't fit in the box.

 

 

3 hours ago, John M Upton said:

 

It seems Peco has decided on platic boxes and sleeves across the range in the last couple of years, a decision I personally feel is environmentally daft especially where the packaging it replaced was a sensible card carton.

I seem to recall reading some explanation from Peco for the use of plastic packaging for a different Peco product/line on another thread on this forum.  Seemed a reasonable justification at the time.

[Nile]

The new packaging is supposed to be more recyclable than the older ones.

 

The RoadRailer was made by Scalecraft but distributed by Peco.

[BernardTPM]

2 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

The ones I have seen on eBay are by Scalecraft and whether or not they are the same as what Peco produced latterly, or took control of unsold stock or what ever actually happened I don't know for sure however, I'm guessing at re-branded Scalecraft.

The Scalecraft Roadrailer was distributed by Peco. Given the way it faded at the end from a complete range of the various road and rail elements to just the trailer, I suspect there were no later runs of it, so the unsold stock theory sounds plausible if they were ever sold with Peco branding. The tooling probably never left Scalecraft.

There was also an R-T-R Roadrailer in the Minic Motorways range for a short while (completely different tooling of course).

[andyman7]

15 minutes ago, BernardTPM said:

The Scalecraft Roadrailer was distributed by Peco. Given the way it faded at the end from a complete range of the various road and rail elements to just the trailer, I suspect there were no later runs of it, so the unsold stock theory sounds plausible if they were ever sold with Peco branding. The tooling probably never left Scalecraft.

There was also an R-T-R Roadrailer in the Minic Motorways range for a short while (completely different tooling of course).

Scalecraft was a separate company  made various working model kits. The Roadrailer was the only one aimed at 4mm/00 scale model railways hence why it made sense for Peco to distribute it. As with many things that Peco have stocked they just kept the remaining inventory in their lists until stocks were exhausted, which is why in the end only odds and ends rather than the complete range were offered. Scalecraft itself was acquired by Airfix Products Ltd in 1978 who continued to issue a range of models (but not the Road Railer), but neither the name or any of the tooling ever saw he light of day after the sale of the AIrfix group to CPG Products Corp/General Mills in 1981.

[BernardTPM]

I wondered what happened to Scalecraft, thanks. I had one of their Medway Queen models as a youngster, totally different in concept and materials.

[Nile]

This from the advert in the September RM:

 

"We are starting to standardise the scales of products found within each of our brands, beginning by switching all of the classic Ratio rolling stock kits into the Parkside range."

 

Does this mean all the O scale kits will end up in one place (Peco?), only time will tell.