Thought experiment - if you were starting an entirely new range of UK model trains, what would you start?

[whart57]

I was thinking of building one of these:

 

 

It's a 2-6-0 but the wheelbase I want is 38mm, split 19mm + 19mm. This is considerably longer than any N gauge chassis I know.

 

A Grafar 4MT I have has a wheelbase that is OK for a post war Japanese built Pacific, but even with that the wheels need replacing with bigger ones.

 

[009 micro modeller]

6 hours ago, whart57 said:

I was thinking of building one of these:

 

 

It's a 2-6-0 but the wheelbase I want is 38mm, split 19mm + 19mm. This is considerably longer than any N gauge chassis I know.

 

A Grafar 4MT I have has a wheelbase that is OK for a post war Japanese built Pacific, but even with that the wheels need replacing with bigger ones.

 

 

But have you tried 009/H0e chassis? Or would the wheel diameter and detail parts be too large?

[johnofwessex]

What about something 'Ride On'

 

Remember

 

http://www.tmnr.co.uk/#contact

 

My suggestion would be a 5inch industrial NG loco - like the Maxitrak Planet with associated trucks and track.

 

I wonder what the cost of a 5inch battery loco might be if it was 'mass produced'

 

Or, at the expense of thread drift, what about a RC Railway Ship'

 

The SDJR's SS Radstock is a nice simple little ship about 400mm long in OO, or for something more glamorous - and steam ship, Maid of Kent?

[298]

On 31/01/2021 at 01:43, PatB said:

True, but I got the impression the OP was proposing a hypothetical exercise rather more ambitious than gap-filling in an existing, or, at least, well catered fo, scale. Something more akin to what Triang attempted in TT3, or Marklin succeeded at with Z.

 

Not that there are that many big gaps in available scales. I think there might be a small market in British Z. N is, of course, fairly well provided for, ditto 00 and, increasingly, 0. I don't think there's any meaningful RTR in British G1, but G3 seems to be doing quite well.

 

So for already established, but non-rtr, scales we're left with 3mm/TT3, which I quite like, but which even the then industrial might of Triang failed to succeed at. It's said that the advent of N killed it but, realistically, Triang TT was dead in the water years before building a reasonable British N layout became a practical RTR proposition. 

 

 

 

3mm scale on 9mm track works out nicely for 3' gauge, if it suits your prototype- in fact it matches quite a few scale/gauge combinations. In the case of the Sóller Railway here their trains of a Motor plus six coaches are 300' long which is quite lengthy for a layout, so a decrease in scale is an advantage.

 

 

 

Interesting to see continental TT at 1:120 is becoming more popular, despite the perception that it is closer to the vastly better supported N gauge. Is this because it is less fiddley than N, or just because it is different....?

[PatB]

On 02/02/2021 at 05:24, johnofwessex said:

What about something 'Ride On'

 

Remember

 

http://www.tmnr.co.uk/#contact

 

My suggestion would be a 5inch industrial NG loco - like the Maxitrak Planet with associated trucks and track.

 

I wonder what the cost of a 5inch battery loco might be if it was 'mass produced'

 

Or, at the expense of thread drift, what about a RC Railway Ship'

 

The SDJR's SS Radstock is a nice simple little ship about 400mm long in OO, or for something more glamorous - and steam ship, Maid of Kent?

But Maxitak already do the Planet at GBP1295 ready to run. There may be some scope to reduce that a bit by mass production methods (though I assume Maxitrak already employ CAD/CAM tehniques to reduce labour input) but even as things stand, a genuine passenger hauler for the price of 2-3 Heljan 0 gauge diesels, or fewer than 2 roughly equivalent Roundhouse SM32 locos, strikes me as a pretty good deal. After all, for most practical layouts, you'd only need one.

[johnofwessex]

7 hours ago, PatB said:

But Maxitak already do the Planet at GBP1295 ready to run. There may be some scope to reduce that a bit by mass production methods (though I assume Maxitrak already employ CAD/CAM tehniques to reduce labour input) but even as things stand, a genuine passenger hauler for the price of 2-3 Heljan 0 gauge diesels, or fewer than 2 roughly equivalent Roundhouse SM32 locos, strikes me as a pretty good deal. After all, for most practical layouts, you'd only need one.

 

I am not for a moment critisising anyones pricing, and of have no knowlege of 'production engineering' but given what I paid - for example for a bicycle for middle son last Christmas I cant imagine that there is a significant scope to cut costs for a 'passenger hauler' if you make enough.  Ditto of course for track and coaches

[PatB]

On 07/02/2021 at 17:16, johnofwessex said:

 

I am not for a moment critisising anyones pricing, and of have no knowlege of 'production engineering' but given what I paid - for example for a bicycle for middle son last Christmas I cant imagine that there is a significant scope to cut costs for a 'passenger hauler' if you make enough.  Ditto of course for track and coaches

My apologies. I wasn't having a go, just pointing out that the affordable passenger hauling niche is already very effectively filled by Maxitrak et al. Sufficiently effectively that any potential competitors are going to need a pretty persuasive unique selling point to make any ground. The one area that established manufacturers are not serving, however, is ride-in, rather than ride-on, stock. Not really feasible in 5", but there was a chap, whose name I now forget, who built a few 71/2" enclosed railcars and closed cab battery diesels on a semi-professional basis, back in the 70s. They looked to be rather good fun and his fairly simple construction methods would probably lend themselves to similar, relatively affordable, production methods to Maxitrak's. 

 

However, that sort of thing is getting well away from model railways, and is even starting to step beyond miniature, into the world of minimum gauge "real" railways. 

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, PatB said:

there was a chap, whose name I now forget, who built a few 71/2" enclosed railcars and closed cab battery diesels on a semi-professional basis, back in the 70s.

 

Is this what you’re thinking of?

https://www.miniature-locomotives.org.uk/taxonomy/term/182

 

Alternatively there’s Roger Marsh’s ‘Tinkerbell’ steam loco design.

[PatB]

41 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Is this what you’re thinking of?

https://www.miniature-locomotives.org.uk/taxonomy/term/182

 

Alternatively there’s Roger Marsh’s ‘Tinkerbell’ steam loco design.

Yes, that's the beastie that sprang to mind, along with its predecessors that Tom Smith built for his own garden line. I've always been under the impression that there were more, but maybe not. 

 

Tinkerbelle, and steam in general in the larger sizes, is a whole other teapot full of eels. I'm not covinced that there is much scope for it to go beyond where it already is, with designs like the Polly range offering the closest approach to affordable RTR. There are bits of a steam loco where it's very hard to make economies (the boiler and its testing and certification, for example), resulting in a fairly solid floor price for the finished product. Combine that with the potential for a large kettle to level a good proportion of a suburban street if it goes bang through neglect or mishandling, plus the amount of work required to operate and maintain a steamer, and I think there are limits to the potential. 

[009 micro modeller]

10 minutes ago, PatB said:

(the boiler and its testing and certification, for example)

 

Actually I’ve always wondered - do SM32 (and other relatively small) locos have to have certificates, and if so how is this enforced?

[PatB]

I'm not sure how it works in the UK, but here in Australia there is a code of practice for what, IIRC, are referred to as "sub-miniature boilers", which is, at least in theory, compulsory for anything SM32ish sold commercially or allowed out in public. In general it's fairly sensible, although, IMHO, its restriction of max working pressure to 35 psi, and some of its joint specs, are overly conservative. But then, my understanding of live steam mostly comes from the works of LBSC, for whom 60 psi seemed to be a bare minimum, and Australia is, contrary to its own self-image, a staggeringly risk-averse nation, so my opinion is almost bound to diverge from the collective outlook of my adopted country.

 

 

Edited February 9, 2021 by PatB

[6990WitherslackHall]

There's a picture of a strange locomotive in a book I have. It is a tender engine but its tender shares its chassis with part of a coach. It's a LMS locomotive and it's number is 10000

 

[Nick Holliday]

1 hour ago, 6990WitherslackHall said:

There's a picture of a strange locomotive in a book I have. It is a tender engine but its tender shares its chassis with part of a coach. It's a LMS locomotive and it's number is 10000

 

That's the LMS's CME's Private Coupe. The loco is an ex-L&YR 2-4-0 and the tender carriage was specially built, with accommodation for the Chief, from which he could inspect the passing scene from the open balcony.  It was quite common for elderly passenger locos to be used to haul inspection trains, and several examples could be found elsewhere, such as on the LNWR, where the tender incorporated a coach section. I believe the famous preserved Cornwall hauled a similar vehicle for a while. Some lines did the same with small tank locos - LBSCR Inspector for example and the LSWR specially built one for Drummond, nicknamed Drummond's Bug.

[009 micro modeller]

4 hours ago, Nick Holliday said:

That's the LMS's CME's Private Coupe. The loco is an ex-L&YR 2-4-0 and the tender carriage was specially built, with accommodation for the Chief, from which he could inspect the passing scene from the open balcony. 

 

Sounds interesting - does anyone have a link to an image of it?

[Nick Holliday]

2 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 

Sounds interesting - does anyone have a link to an image of it?

Can't find one on line, but this is a picture, courtesy of Hatton's, of a kit-built model of one of the LNWR versions, with the one-off Cornwall as the loco.

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Nick Holliday said:

Can't find one on line, but this is a picture, courtesy of Hatton's, of a kit-built model of one of the LNWR versions, with the one-off Cornwall as the loco.

 

OK - the coach section is longer than I imagined it would be.

[laurenceb]

Funny,- I have only seen one photo of 10000 in locomotive Liveries of the LMS, Jenkinson & Essary Roundhouse 1967