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Model Rail 171, July 2012


Chris Nevard

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Nice issue with some good articles , must have a careful read of Polbrock! The Sheep Pasture pics are superb and show the layout to excellent advantage. Shame Mr Dibber is on his hols but no doubt we'll have pics from Canada to look forward to in the next edition.

But a couple of queries - firstly i do wonder about advising folk to put power supplies to a shed (near to the house) in copper pipe, it's far more difficult to seal or make joints to than proper conduit and there ought really to be a reference to need for an RCD although the advice to consult an electrician is made loud and clear.

 

And my final comment is similar to the one I have made about 'Hornby Magazine'; this issue of MR has 84 pages of editorial content (ie. editorial, articles, and the contents pages) but 20 of them are given over to reviews and new model etc announcements including anouncements about announcements. So I ask the same questions here as I did when talking about HM - is the printed model railway magazine media going a bit too far in devoting space to this sort of thing? Here it amounts to almost a quarter of the 'contents' part of the magazine and while I'm well aware that not everybody has access to the internet do the printed mags really need to be 'spending' their editorial space to this extent in this area? Just a heretical (perhaps?) thought.

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I agree wholeheartedly with Stationmaster about the large slice of announcements. However, if they were not there one would not come across little gems like this relating to the Garratt commissioned by a well-known Liverpool emporium:

 

"There will also be operational oil headlamps, a first for a ready to run steam outline model"

 

Will purchasers have to lift the lamps off the brackets to light and refill them? Then there is this, worthy of Pseud's Corner in Private Eye, on the subject of Bachmann's DP2:

 

"It looked like a Deltic, but had the 16-cylinder heart of what would later become Class 50."

 

The article on decorating containers is most interesting but since when has "decaling" been a verb? Lose a mark there, Dent. I was also wondering how many of us keep candles in the house, for we are advised to anneal brass by holding it in a candle flame. Fear not, fellow detailers: a gas flame wil do the job just as well and the brass will reach the desired shade of cherry red rather more quickly.

 

It is high time I stopped nit-picking and proffered praise where due. The three layouts featured are so different one from another but together make an excellent set. Sheep Pasture deserves the centre spread photo and builder Robin Whittle's text is clear and concise. Paul Rolley's Waun-gron Park captures the prototype incredibly well and merits praise for the way in which it has been compressed - an incredibly difficult thing to do well. The circular and compact MiniMSW was at Railex and I remember admirirng the overhead wires, little realising that it used commercial parts.

 

The feature on weathering with Modelmates' dyes is comprehensive but contains one telling line:

 

"The jars are a direct fit onto [which was two words when I was at skool!] a number of siphon-fed airbrushes ... However, as I write, Modelmates is now moving over to plastic flip-top 20ml pots". This evolution gets everywhere.

 

Chris

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Hornby Mag stole a march this month by coming out one week earlier, but as far as I can see we can expect Model Rail, Railway Modeller and BRM all to hit newsagents at the same time. Is this wise? BRM is, of course , going to have MI in it this month and I tend to find a lot more reading in RM than MR , so I suspect that MR will lose out this month. Hasn't the MSW layout appeared elsewhere before?

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I'm going to disagree with Mike and Chris.

 

Though I suspect reviews and announcements certainly help to sell advertising space, it is this content that is likely to have greatest longevityy for me and I'll refer back to when condering future purchases (along with more "hands on" reviews here). Sadly the days when British railway modelling magazines featured accurate prototype articles and scale drawings have largely passed and nowadays the focus is on emptying the contents of various boxes in a way that sort of resembles a real railway (not necessarily a bad thing, and suits me). Model Rail has established a niche for offering good reviews (let down by the occasional mistake and lack of corrections and apologies).

 

As to "announcements of announcements", these are useful (where not too excessive), and usually more reliable than some of the wishing and speculation that sometimes adds to the "noise" on these fora.

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I'm going to disagree with Mike and Chris.

 

Though I suspect reviews and announcements certainly help to sell advertising space, it is this content that is likely to have greatest longevityy for me and I'll refer back to when condering future purchases (along with more "hands on" reviews here). Sadly the days when British railway modelling magazines featured accurate prototype articles and scale drawings have largely passed and nowadays the focus is on emptying the contents of various boxes in a way that sort of resembles a real railway (not necessarily a bad thing, and suits me). Model Rail has established a niche for offering good reviews (let down by the occasional mistake and lack of corrections and apologies).

 

As to "announcements of announcements", these are useful (where not too excessive), and usually more reliable than some of the wishing and speculation that sometimes adds to the "noise" on these fora.

 

Nice to have a different viewpoint Eddie. 'Model Rail' reviews remain - I think - the best in the printed model railway media and i don't argue with your point that they have value both now and in the future. It's just that we seem to get more and more of all this 'first pics of' and 'XYZbymann have announced.....' or are going to announce and so on. In one way its I good to see what gives every appearance of a vibrant manufacturing trade supporting our hobby but does it need such extensive coverage prior to review? Perhaps I'm getting fed up with seeing things several times over because I buy a number of the mags but MR is not the only one that seems to follow this course although some others don't go overboard in quite the same way.

 

Maybe it's fair enough if a mag keeps up a consistent level of editorial content in terms of articles and 'how to,s' etc but at times I get the impression that some place greater importance or emphasis on trying to be 'first' with this sort of 'news'. Sorry but in the age of the internet they are never going to achieve that even if many of their readers don't have 'net access - maybe they need to start thinking about the way they should approach the publishing future? (And I wonder what percentage of 'solid' UK model railway magazine readers don't have some sort of 'net access? In 2011 according to the ONS 19 million (77% of) British households had access to the internet and 66% of all adults made purchases via the 'net.

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Nice issue with some good articles , must have a careful read of Polbrock! The Sheep Pasture pics are superb and show the layout to excellent advantage. Shame Mr Dibber is on his hols but no doubt we'll have pics from Canada to look forward to in the next edition.

But a couple of queries - firstly i do wonder about advising folk to put power supplies to a shed (near to the house) in copper pipe, it's far more difficult to seal or make joints to than proper conduit and there ought really to be a reference to need for an RCD although the advice to consult an electrician is made loud and clear.

 

Agreed, not good advice.

 

Where did the description of coreless motors in the Farish review come from? It's total gobbledygook (and that's being polite!).

 

Andrew

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I was thinking more about Sheep Pasture being in BRM.......!

 

As the owner and builder of Sheep Pasture I can confirm an article has also appeared in MRJ - 181 and 182 to be precise- and has definitely not featured in BRM or any other magazine.

Thanks for the kind comments and in particular to Chris for a superb set of photos.

 

Sheep Pasture is due to make it's next appearance at St Albans next January.

 

Robin

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I'm back now. Backscene will return next issue and there are some Canadian photos posted on rmweb under the USA and Canadian Railways heading. As far as layouts which have been in MRJ are concerned - with the exception of a handful of readers (several on here included) - Model Rail reaches an entirely different, and much wider, audience. In addition, of course, the illustrations are all new and in colour.

CHRIS LEIGH

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As far as layouts which have been in MRJ are concerned - with the exception of a handful of readers (several on here included) - Model Rail reaches an entirely different, and much wider, audience. In addition, of course, the illustrations are all new and in colour.

CHRIS LEIGH

Not only that, but in this instance they are accompanied by some excellent text on how it was done.

I found the notes about the bracken very informative.

Bernard

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Not only that, but in this instance they are accompanied by some excellent text on how it was done.

I found the notes about the bracken very informative.

Bernard

 

For anyone who would like further information on the larger trees I made for Sheep Pasture here are some notes and photos I posted on RMweb Showcase a while back.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/showcase/?p=2331

 

Robin

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