Wright writes.....

[grahame]

. . . , and, perhaps, the availability now of 'superior' RTR has enabled modellers to focus their creative attentions elsewhere. 

 

Unfortunately, IMO, it's often the case that the time saved with a RTR purchase is very often not repaid with that time spent on improving the layout or used to build a bit of (kit or scratch-built) rolling stock (not available RTR).

 

G

[jrg1]

Unfortunately, IMO, it's often the case that the time saved with a RTR purchase is very often not repaid with that time spent on improving the layout or used to build a bit of (kit or scratch-built) rolling stock (not available RTR).

 

G

On the other hand, buying RTR to save time-in this case a Hornby A3-and on commencing an upgrade finding out that it had the famous ski-slope front (Why do Humorist's blinkers look really odd?), and replacing the front misapplied handrail, plus having to relocate one boilerside handrail, does not do much for my perceptions of RTR quality control.

[richard i]

I might not rely on rtr but it is noticeable that the range of kits and bits for the gcr seem to have risen since Bachmann has brought out the j11, o4 and d11. Not mention their copy of a gcr station, (if only the preserved version). Perhaps producers feel it is worth complimenting the rtr market. So I will take a little rtr to get a greater range of kits supplied. Who would have thought someone would offer a gcr petrol rail car in 4mm even 5 years ago.

Richard

[Black Marlin]

Keep your hair away from the spray nozzle in future!

 

Mike.

 

 

Armpit?

 

A few years ago, when all my railway modelling was of necessity done in my bedroom, I made the mistake one morning of confusing a rattle-can of matt varnish with my deodorant. I became excruciatingly aware of my error when subsequently raising my arm and undergoing a thorough and immediate exfoliation...

[Northmoor]

Unfortunately, IMO, it's often the case that the time saved with a RTR purchase is very often not repaid with that time spent on improving the layout or used to build a bit of (kit or scratch-built) rolling stock (not available RTR).

I agree, I think the trend is to exploit all the time saving to simply exhibit the layout more quickly - "Look, this layout only took six weeks to build".  Usually I think, yes, I can tell.

 

I have commented before that there are too many exhibitions chasing too few really good layouts. Just look in the latest RM listings; this month, within about 1hr's drive, I have FOURTEEN to choose from.  Assuming an average 15-20 layouts per show and the owner/club doesn't want to do more than one exhibition per month - I guess most will do no more than a few per year - that is over 200 layouts required for exhibiting this month, just within a 1hr radius.

[Clive Mortimore]

I agree, I think the trend is to exploit all the time saving to simply exhibit the layout more quickly - "Look, this layout only took six weeks to build".  Usually I think, yes, I can tell.

 

I have commented before that there are too many exhibitions chasing too few really good layouts. Just look in the latest RM listings; this month, within about 1hr's drive, I have FOURTEEN to choose from.  Assuming an average 15-20 layouts per show and the owner/club doesn't want to do more than one exhibition per month - I guess most will do no more than a few per year - that is over 200 layouts required for exhibiting this month, just within a 1hr radius.

Looks like model railways is a popular hobby.

[Guest]

Scaleforum (North and South versions) and Expo EM (North and South versions) along with selected "Finescale" orientated exhibitions are the only ones I attend nowadays. I aspire to a Finescale ethos, sadly don't have the skills I'd like, but too many exhibitions are overly supplied with RTR/RTP type layouts. Nothing wrong with that but it just doesn't inspire me. I have been known to travel quite a distance to an exhibition just because it had a layout I wanted to see. If an exhibition has several EM/P4/S7 layouts in it's list of layouts I'm more likely to attend. Even a "Finescale OO or O Gauge" will be likely to tip the balance into me attending.

[gr.king]

"Even finescale OO"?

 

Sounds a bit like a suggestion that we who "merely" model in a fine version of OO are only just worthy of consideration. I'm going off to sulk now......

[Lecorbusier]

I wonder if there might not be a better way of designating layouts. EM & P4 generally will be predictable (if not predictably reliable). However, 00 can run from the sublime to the ridiculous and everything in between. For me when visiting a show (other than scale four society offerings) it is the quality of modelling rather than the gauge which is most important. RTR is fine by me so long as it has been individualised and convincingly weathered.

Edited September 2, 2018 by Lecorbusier

[Compound2632]

RTR is fine by me so long as it has been individualised and convincingly weathered.

 

One might say, correctly used.

[Guest]

Grantham makes a mockery of my criteria! It’s a great layout but according to my criteria I shouldn’t like it. But I love it. Then again it has bespoke buildings, operates like a real railway and quite simply has a presence, that certain something. Probably because it is a model of a real location. The locos and stock are appropriate and not just RTR, but I do tend to be more interested in the kit built ones. Are there any RTP buildings on it?

[stewartingram]

Anybody notice this is page 1100?

 

Stewart

[copleyhill007]

I came across this photo in the September 2007 issue of Steam Days …

 

 

Wondered if Tony has this as part of his timetable (this is a down relief coming from Stoke Tunnel in August 1958).

Edited September 2, 2018 by copleyhill007

[Chamby]

Anybody notice this is page 1100?

 

Stewart

Nope. But as you mention it, page 1000 was reached on 25 May so that’s averaging about a page per day over the last three months.... 2,500 posts. And a wide range of topics covered too...

[Dazzler Fan]

+

This page is so overprevailing the site should change its name !

 

Is this what rmweb has now been distilled down to?

 

Noel

Edited September 2, 2018 by Dazzler Fan

[Headstock]

I came across this photo in the September 2007 issue of Steam Days …

 

179.jpg

 

Wondered if Tony has this as part of his timetable (this is a down relief coming from Stoke Tunnel in August 1958).

 

I suppose some work had to be found for them after the E.T. Pacifics nocked them of the cement trains.

 

 

+

 

This page is so overprevailing the site should change its name !

 

Is this what rmweb has now been distilled down to?

 

Noel

 

If only.

[Tony Wright]

I came across this photo in the September 2007 issue of Steam Days …

 

179.jpg

 

Wondered if Tony has this as part of his timetable (this is a down relief coming from Stoke Tunnel in August 1958).

Thanks Dave,

 

I do have the same picture in another publication. 

 

Sometimes I'll run a 9F on an express in the sequence, though not that often because there are so many Pacfics and V2s to choose from. 

 

It's not a timetable, but a sequence that's run on LB - and that sequence, to the purist, is anomalous. Why?

 

The picture you've shown is almost certainly taken on a summer Saturday, when any carriage which could turn a wheel was pressed into use. The result was a wonderful variety of ancient and modern bogie stock running together, made-up from what was available. Not only that, there'd be more trains - mostly passenger, and, probably, fewer freights than on a weekday. I have at least two rakes which reflect this variety. 

 

I have the relevant copies of the WTT and the PTT. Why the anomaly? Because I run extras, which means a Saturday, then the Elizabethan (as a named train, non-stop) would not run. The stock would run (often strengthened), hauled by an A4, but it wouldn't be the Lizzie. Neither would the TT Pullman run at the weekend. Another indicator that it's a Saturday service are the two DMUs, which only ran between Peterborough and Lincoln, via the main line, on Saturdays in the summer of 1958. Yet, in the sequence, both the Up Elizabethan and Down TT Pullman run. 

 

My stock answer to any 'critics' is 'so what?' It's my trainset, and rule 1 applies. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[Tony Wright]

1100 pages!

 

Wow! Thanks for all your contributions. 

 

Just for the record, over the weekend at Loughborough, Mo and I raised nearly £30.00 for CRUK through donations, sales of models and my loco-doctoring. 

 

With all the 'royalties' from the 1938 DVD and the articles accompanying it in the November issue of BRM going to CRUK, we should get near £3,000 this year. 

 

My thanks to all who've contributed so generously.

[chris p bacon]

+

 

This page is so overprevailing the site should change its name !

 

Is this what rmweb has now been distilled down to?

 

Noel

 

 

And yet it has nearly 200 pages to go to catch up with this one.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69664-a-nod-to-brent-fun-friendly-frivolity-and-happy-days-in-the-south-hams-1947/

[St Enodoc]

A few years ago, when all my railway modelling was of necessity done in my bedroom, I made the mistake one morning of confusing a rattle-can of matt varnish with my deodorant. I became excruciatingly aware of my error when subsequently raising my arm and undergoing a thorough and immediate exfoliation...

I'll refrain from telling the story of the bloke who got his toothpaste and his haemorrhoids cream mixed up...

[nerron]

And yet it has nearly 200 pages to go to catch up with this one.

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/69664-a-nod-to-brent-fun-friendly-frivolity-and-happy-days-in-the-south-hams-1947/

Yes, but interestingly with only just over half the number of views.

[Tony Wright]

I'll refrain from telling the story of the bloke who got his toothpaste and his haemorrhoids cream mixed up...

Or the one about the couple who couldn't tell the difference between Vaseline and putty.

 

Guess what? 

 

All their windows fell out! 

Edited September 3, 2018 by Tony Wright

[chris p bacon]

Yes, but interestingly with only just over half the number of views.

 

Less people contributing more?. . .that could mean there are more 'Thread openers' on here ..I'll check Youtube for some thread opening videos...

[Tony Wright]

I wonder if there might not be a better way of designating layouts. EM & P4 generally will be predictable (if not predictably reliable). However, 00 can run from the sublime to the ridiculous and everything in between. For me when visiting a show (other than scale four society offerings) it is the quality of modelling rather than the gauge which is most important. RTR is fine by me so long as it has been individualised and convincingly weathered.

Thanks Tim,

 

As an observation (or several observations), I'd say that most EM and P4 layouts display a higher (visual) quality of modelling than most OO layouts. 

 

In a way, I suppose that's axiomatic, because those who choose to model in the more accurate gauges are actual 'modellers' - those who make things for themselves, are able to do so and, because they've chosen a more stringent set of modelling criteria, out of necessity, have to model to a higher standard. 

 

Though I have no empirical evidence (apart from what I've photographed), most professionally-built models in 4mm scale (locos/rolling stock) are built for OO Gauge. To reiterate, that's because EM Gauge and P4 modellers, in the main, do things for themselves. 

 

'Most' OO layouts include, of course, things like collections on Tri-ang or Hornby-Dublo layouts, often seen at shows. These perform impeccably, with constant running, no derailments, no stuttering (particularly HD three-rail, where every wheel on a loco and every wheel in a train returns the current) and are hugely-entertaining. Without being contentious (even though I like to be), I think it's fair to say they run far better than most P4 layouts I've seen at shows, where derailments (not universally, to be fair) are seen far too often for me. That's not to say OO layouts don't display poor running (far too many in my view), but it's an odd state of affairs (or at least it is to me) that in over the last 60+ years (visual) standards in railway modelling have reached (visually) an incredibly high level, yet running standards are worse in many cases than they were in my schoolboy days. I did, of course, operate incredibly crude (as models) toy trains. 

 

As for me, I'm prepared to accept the gross compromise (not as gross as Hornby-Dublo) of narrow gauge and over-scale flanges/treads, because I can achieve very good running, with almost no derailments (in two and a half hours of intensive sequence operation), with constant propelling and pulling, the latter often at high speed.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[johnarcher]

Thanks Tim,

 

As an observation (or several observations), I'd say that most EM and P4 layouts display a higher (visual) quality of modelling than most OO layouts. 

 

In a way, I suppose that's axiomatic, because those who choose to model in the more accurate gauges are actual 'modellers' - those who make things for themselves, are able to do so and, because they've chosen a more stringent set of modelling criteria, out of necessity, have to model to a higher standard. 

 

 

 

As for me, I'm prepared to accept the gross compromise (not as gross as Hornby-Dublo) of narrow gauge and over-scale flanges/treads, because I can achieve very good running, with almost no derailments (in two and a half hours of intensive sequence operation), with constant propelling and pulling, the latter often at high speed.

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Hello Tony.  BY the higher visual quality of modelling do you mean locos and stock, or all aspects, including scenics, buildings etc?  If the latter (and from my smaller experience of shows I think that may be the case) what then about the argument that more use of RTR enables more time and effort to go into other aspects of the layout?

 

Re the latter point, I know from your comments (avidly followed of course) that you don't have much interest in small layouts of simpler prototypes, but do you feel that the compromises you mention are more acceptable on a large layout (like LB) where they are maybe not seen so closely, and the longer trains, higher speeds etc make good running more demanding?