MRE Mag 2010 wish list results

[Pugsley]

As a GWR modeller I'm almost relieved that I now belong to a minority. To all GWR-bashers, go find someone your own size to beat up .

You think you're a minority? My era (sectorisation 1988-1994) doesn't even feature on the list!

[Bernard Lamb]

 

Like I say, offer me a decent Scottish locomotive built to modern standards, and I'll buy it without getting too precious about exactly what it is or what livery its wearing.

 

 

That explains how I aquired a Hornby Clan.

I voted exactly as I did in the scottish poll on here. Let's hope that this rather vague wish list does not detract from the work done in bringing the need for scottish locos to the attention of the major players.

Bernard

[298]

I generally find w*ish l*sts like this to be mis-representative for two reasons: firstly there is a difference between what someone wants to see produced, and what they'll actually buy, for example in the last year i've brought a Bachmann City of Truro and a load of Underground Ernie trains, neither of which I could honstly say i'd think of voting for but was prepared to buy (for different reasons) when available. The LNER section might have a no more than a handful of locos with a significant number of votes, when in reality quite a few classes would appeal to the avarage modeller of this region.

 

Secondly (and certainly in the D&E world), an average modeller may see certain releases as "crossing off" requests, when in reality the manufacturers obviously know better. How else would you explain the many class 37 & 47's available, or explain why i'd be voting for a decent class 86 when in most people's eyes, the Heljan loco would suffice...?

[Guest Phil]

Interesting thread.

 

Have to say I am not particularly hung up over the MREmag poll. I do understand how some people feel about the Plowmans and I have to agree that the poll is not the straightforward piece of fun which it should be. It can certainly be perceived as skewed and slanted - previous posts certainly proving that.

 

No matter, I enjoy adding my wishes to the poll, and contrary to other poster's thoughts, they are my wishes and I would buy at least one each of them. Stanier push pull stock, "Porthole" stock, Retooled 4F, LNWR radial tank, retooled 25 and retooled 40.

 

I sometimes get the impression that the slab under which I live is quite a useful lump of rock. It certainly manages to shield me from some of those people that others have a poor opinion of. I'm quite sure Andy Y has perfectly valid reasons for his dislike of the Plowmans but that slab does it's magic for me !!!!

[45568]

Rather like Phil above, I added my choices to the poll, mainly because tricky and perhaps overcomplex, it is, as far as I know, the only one of it's type widely accessible. In addition, certain models appear to have been made by manufacturers after polling well in the list.

Certainly, the LNER "push" that emanated from these hallowed halls appears to have borne fruit, and I wish the Scottish fraternity luck with their efforts. I did support their RMWeb poll, and if they are successful, I would certainly be tempted with models of their top 3, even though outside of my area of specific interest.

I find the N-gauge modellers attitude somewhat puzzling, "I didn't vote because not enough people vote to make it count" surely is self-defeating?

There have not been as many clear-cut standouts this year, possibly for all the reasons outlined, the obvious choices have been modelled and the remainder are more diverse, but the humble 0.6.0 is fast becoming the "peoples champion"?!

Next year, I would urge as many as possible to put aside personal greivances and take the time to work out their 10 wishes, then take the time to vote for them, no matter how tiresome, and add more weight to the results.

Cheers, Peter C.

[The Stationmaster]

In an idle moment yesterday I had a closer look at some of the detail of this poll and was greatly amused by several things. For instance 5 people voted for the (already announced) Class 70 but no doubt wished to encourage its early arrival by adding that between them they intended to buy 58 locos - maybe all 5 of them are modelling a commissioning site, or are they Ebay re-sellers I wonder?

 

And of course the very inclusion of the Class 70 illustrated another out of touch aspect of the thing - the inclusion of classes only recently released or recently announced, and presumably therefore up to the latest standards and not in need of replacement.

 

But moving on from the ridiculous we come to the unknowing - and the apparent inability of the poll to differentiate between the same class being shown twice. I've only looked at the Western - which in any case is most susceptible to this kind of thing - but a bit of further checking has revealed that the class which actually came second in that section was the 'Dukedogs', which appeared under two different titles (so did people even know what they were voting for?). And incidentally the 42XX came out as the 10th most heavily voted for steam loco overall - due to ignoring a second number series.

 

No - I'm not trying to push the Western case (for once) but simply to show some very basic counting errors in the totals; in my view that is not how any sort of poll should be run, surely accuracy is important?

 

With organisation like that I'm left wondering just what the purpose of the poll was - apart from suggesting that ever more folk are turning to DCC and that no one wants industrial locos.

[beast66606]

Lies, Damned lies and statistics - Mark Twain

[Michael Delamar]

the poll should be....

 

do you want a Blue Pullman? yes/no

 

 

actually, probably not even worth having "No" as an option

 

Mike

[reevesthecat]

I did wonder if the DCC/DC questions were a direct response to graham plowmans recent spat with clive greedus on mremag where each day there was a message from each with neither willing to budge. Did feel sorry for pat hammond on that one! Would he cut off the plowmans who assist on mremag and set up the poll or cut off greedus who would then shout from the rooftops and every mag where he gets letter of the month that he is being censured?

In the end he told them both to stop!!

mark

[S.A.C Martin]

For the record Simon, I dont think an Ivatt Atlantic is particularly obscure, and if somebody running a poll as supposedly influential as this one hasnt heard of a given pre-Group loco, that's their problem, not the person who suggested it

 

Thank you Ian, I must admit at the time I was scratching my head as to why it wasn't a choice when the Plowmans put almost every other engine in LNER livery into the poll...

 

I just didn't expect the C2 to be obscure, if I'm honest, given we have one in the national collection in the form of Henry Oakley.

[pete_mcfarlane]

If I read the summary correctly, the two coaches that form a Maunsell pull-push set managed to get different amounts of votes.

 

Amongst the EMUs, the favourites were the 2BIL with 34 votes, 3SUB/4SUB with 33 votes and the 4COR with 27 votes.

Ignoring the fact that the 3 car suburban units weren't called "3SUB", that's an awful lot of different types of EMU to lump together! It's like saying "I'd like a Blue Square DMU please"

[The Stationmaster]

Thank you Ian, I must admit at the time I was scratching my head as to why it wasn't a choice when the Plowmans put almost every other engine in LNER livery into the poll...

 

I just didn't expect the C2 to be obscure, if I'm honest, given we have one in the national collection in the form of Henry Oakley.

 

Maybe you should have asked for a DCC fitted version

[S.A.C Martin]

Maybe you should have asked for a DCC fitted version

 

 

You're probably right!

[Guest Phil]

Thank you Ian, I must admit at the time I was scratching my head as to why it wasn't a choice when the Plowmans put almost every other engine in LNER livery into the poll...

 

I just didn't expect the C2 to be obscure, if I'm honest, given we have one in the national collection in the form of Henry Oakley.

 

Not only that it is LNER and part of the National Collection. It and it's smaller or bigger brother are both APPLE GREEN - a surefire winner in the 1:1 scale world.

 

Perhaps one or other will be the next NRM collaboration.:D [runs for the door]

[Dick Turpin]

...why it wasn't a choice when the Plowmans put almost every other engine in LNER livery into the poll...

 

I think it has something to do with the C2 not reaching BR, and they used some sort of BR listing of locos for drawing up the poll.

 

What with all the recent focus on Scottish locos I looked for some of my favourite Scottish types, and noticed that the LNER C11 Reid Atlantic wasn’t there either, but reasoned that if nobody else had requested it by now, it wasn’t going to be very popular and therefore probably not worth voting for.

 

A good job I didn’t bother to ask for it to be included then Simon!

[S.A.C Martin]

That strikes me as daft, if I'm honest. There's plenty of preserved locos we saw in steam after 1948 that weren't in BR ownership, the C2 and C1 most definitely with the C1 making it into BR livery...just.

 

The inherent advantage of asking for the smallest of the four related locos (C1, C2, Marsh H1, H2), is the chassis can be tailored to the smallest boilered one and still fit the other three, while also offering the opportunity of number 990 in preservation some airtime, as we have seen with Deltic and City of Truro (although my money is on the Stirling single for the next NRM special).

 

I guess my question to the plowmans would be: why does a locomotive have to have existed in BR times to be made, when we have 140 years of steam railways before that to choose from? Treat each class on its own merit, I dare say...

[The Stationmaster]

That strikes me as daft, if I'm honest. There's plenty of preserved locos we saw in steam after 1948 that weren't in BR ownership, the C2 and C1 most definitely with the C1 making it into BR livery...just.

 

The inherent advantage of asking for the smallest of the four related locos (C1, C2, Marsh H1, H2), is the chassis can be tailored to the smallest boilered one and still fit the other three, while also offering the opportunity of number 990 in preservation some airtime, as we have seen with Deltic and City of Truro (although my money is on the Stirling single for the next NRM special).

 

I guess my question to the plowmans would be: why does a locomotive have to have existed in BR times to be made, when we have 140 years of steam railways before that to choose from? Treat each class on its own merit, I dare say...

 

I don't think it's worth asking them - they just seem to view things from their own perspective and no other one counts for as much.

 

I realise that a poll probably has to have boundaries somewhere but I'm not at all sure where they were on this one and I don't think any (if there actually were any?)could be rationally explained. Hidden within the poll were one or two industrials (in 'big Company' guise), a number of classes that didn't make it to the BR period, several which I don't think even made it to the Grouping, several which are the subject of already announced models due to be released this year (most of which were announced before the poll went live), and some which had been released in the few months prior to the poll.

 

Overall that suggests to me not so much 'a careful selection' of what to exclude as a sloppy and indiscriminate selection of what to include.

[Dick Turpin]

...my money is on the Stirling single for the next NRM special.

 

I'm with you there. I have considered the options, and the Stirling Single really has the potential to match the City of Truro in the wow factor stakes. Bring it on I say!

[Guest dilbert]

And with the passage of time, the 'wish list results' has morphed into a wishlist thread... - it seems particular to OO scale (irony) rather than 2mm or 7mm scales which apparently have insufficient data (thank goodness !!).

 

What the RTR manufacturers can objectively glean from this apart from the fact that there are hidden agendas is a mystery to me? The cottage industry should take heart...dilbert

[Guest Phil]

And with the passage of time, the 'wish list results' has morphed into a wishlist thread...

 

Inevitable wouldn't you say ?

 

- it seems particular to OO scale (irony) rather than 2mm or 7mm scales which apparently have insufficient data (thank goodness !!).

 

Probably not so well populated - I'd hesitate to use popular.

 

What the RTR manufacturers can objectively glean from this apart from the fact that there are hidden agendas is a mystery to me? The cottage industry should take heart...dilbert

 

 

I'd say the answer to that was pretty obvious. There are a bunch of modellers who subscribe to various online fora and who would like one or more of the modellers they mentioned on the wishlist poll. The RTR manufacturers can use or discard the info as they see fit. It's only really a kind of gameshow. You know when you type your request in that there is little chance of Hornbachelpol doing a model of a J36 in 1946 LNER black complete with animated footplate crew, working lights, smoke etc, but it is still a hoot to put it on the list.

[coachmann]

The thing is, if one is trying to encourage RTR manufacturers to look beyond big green named engines in the direction of lowly 0-6-0 goods engines (etc), one is also battling against people wanting something that was scrapped 85 years ago, no one has ever seen in daily traffic, but which looks pretty and resides in the NRM.

[S.A.C Martin]

The thing is, if one is trying to encourage RTR manufacturers to look beyond big green named engines in the direction of lowly 0-6-0 goods engines (etc), one is also battling against people wanting something that was scrapped 85 years ago, no one has ever seen in daily traffic, but which looks pretty and resides in the NRM.

 

That said Coach - we have an RTR Deltic and City of Truro model - clamouring for the NRM to do the Stirling Single next is surely still allowed? It doesn't tie in directly to any of the RTR companies' normal ranges, so I can't see the problem there. I will admit perhaps I should have said this in a separate thread, so my apologies for taking us off topic somewhat.

 

Whereas my choice of a C2 was to allow for a C1 and H1/H2, all three locos which were seen in BR days to some extent, and also yes - of the green and express passenger livery variety!

 

I've made my case for a C2, I don't think it's particularly frivolous as these Atlantics were seen up to 1945, and of course, one in preservation, too. I do think this makes a difference as aside from the Midland 3F, B17 and L1s due to appear next year, most of the most recent RTR steam items (7F, O4, G2A, A2, Jubilee, Castle, 38XX, and similar) have a surviving member in preservation. I'm sure that must go some way in the manufacturer's thinking when they are looking for a new subject to model.

 

I totally agree we need workhorses of the 0-6-0 variety so I will vote with my wallet and buy a 3F when it arrives in order to get another variety of 0-6-0 next time around. I don't think it makes my choice of the C2 any less viable, to be honest.

[Ravenser]

The thing is, if one is trying to encourage RTR manufacturers to look beyond big green named engines in the direction of lowly 0-6-0 goods engines (etc), one is also battling against people wanting something that was scrapped 85 years ago, no one has ever seen in daily traffic, but which looks pretty and resides in the NRM.

 

I don't recall anyone demanding a RTR ex S&D Bouch long-boiler 0-6-0 ??

[The Stationmaster]

I'm sure manufacturues look at a lot more than polls - their reps sound out their customers to see what feedback they are getting, SK and others get buttonholed at exhibitions and some folk even write to them. All of that must be worth something.

 

As for modelling something which is extant I presume that all the latest scanning gear must make it simpler in at least the early design stages if there's a live subject to work from.

 

But in the meanwhile I understand that Hornby have their scouts out looking for drawings and photos etc of 'a something' although there is one in preservation (but I'm not sure in quite what state at present and maybe they haven't come across it?). But perhaps they only want drawings for a preliminary assessment and costing at this stage?

 

And talking of singles from the National Collection I would have thought one with inside cylinders might be a simpler proposition

[micklner]

Aerolite please