'Genesis' 4 & 6 wheel coaches in OO Gauge - New Announcement

[PJT]

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

.... or is there a new breed of pre-Grouping modellers, who like the pretty liveries of the locos and couldn't care less what they are pulling - so long as the stock liveries are also pretty?

 

Yes, I think in all honesty there is a new breed of pre-grouping modellers.  They're those who don't model pre-grouping at all but have been seduced into pre-grouping loco ownership, 'on the side', as it were.  And there's a lot of us around.

 

My 'serious' modelling falls into three camps: late 50s/early 60s SDJR (yawn, yes, too many of us around); 70s BR Blue (what I grew up with); and 50s/60s Isle of Wight (for which I've built/adapted many a brass or resin carriage kit - ironically all pre-grouping types, of course).  That's what I spend all my time at my workbench doing. 

 

HOWEVER, in the last nine or ten years there have been some exquisite pre-grouping livery RTR locos produced, some of which have tempted me by their loveliness, despite the fact that they don't come anywhere near my 'serious' modelling camps.  The opportunity to have some equally lovely looking (albeit generic) RTR stock to run with them is a wonderful thing - I don't want to spend huge amounts of money or valuable workshop time making stock for them because I'd rather be building something else for my 'serious' projects. 

 

There have got to be many like me who've impulsively bought and enjoy running a Hattons P Class, a Hornby H Class, a Rapido Stirling Single, etc., etc. in all their pre-grouping finery on model railway backdrops that are totally inappropriate for them, just for the fun of it, from time to time.  For all of us, these carriages are right on the button (well done Hattons for identifying a need I didn't really know I had!).  And when I've scratched the itch and unashamedly watched my pre-grouping loco haul its equally colourful Hattons carriages around for a bit, I'll still have plenty of time and money left for my 'serious' modelling.

 

Pete T.

 

P.S. - Oh, and a very big thank you to Hattons' Dave and all those on this thread who are working so constructively together to get us as credible looking a range of generic carriages as they can (that last bit's close to an oxymoron, but I think I got away with it).

Edited October 10, 2019 by PJT
Added P.S.

[Hroth]

30 minutes ago, HonestTom said:

Oh boy, people have started using the phrase "deal with."

 

Just means that they're close to throwing the toys out of the pram.

 

I think that the "it doesn't meet my requirements/its not a scale model of what I want" posters are rather like 17th Century puritans, who feel that those who are not of the elect should just knuckle down and not cause offence.  They also remind me of phrases like "lack of moral fibre" in that everyone would (should?) enjoy scratch-building* an accurate representation if only they gave it a try!

 

* Or at least try soldering some etched-brass kits...

Edited October 10, 2019 by Hroth

[Jol Wilkinson]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, if it had looked anything like this:

 

 

... I think that would have been my reaction too but perhaps not quite in the sense you meant, @Miss Prism!

 

NB. Before anyone starts picking the nits off me, I know that's not a first but a centre-kitchen composite to WCJS Diagram 10; it was the first postable picture of a Wolverton diner I could lay my hands on.

 

 

Because I like the look of that and felt that no end of wishing would produce one in 4mm (and P4  as well), I found a way to make this.

 

 

 

22 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

It's called "Jenny Lind"

 

An original LNWR Bloomer might provide a better option for a "generic" 2-2-2. Early enough that most people wouldn't know about them, so could be offered in a variety of railway company liveries. There isn't a preserved one to scan/copy, which seems to be the preferred route for new RTR locomotives at present (which is why Hardwicke at the NRM is the only LNWR passenger loco likely to be manufactured in 4mm) so an element of make believe could readily be applied to the design.

 

 

 

Model and photo by Jim Kemp

 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

54 minutes ago, BackRoomBoffin said:

 

That's a ridiculous false dichotomy.

 

 

Not a bad working definition of the internet and its many, many forums.

[Compound2632]

2 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

Well: 

 

These will certainly appear very much to all builders of freelance minor light railways . That's a noticeable little niche

They will pass for archaic Departmental stock on 1950s layouts

The 4 wheelers seem to be close to LBSCR stock. The 6-wheelers might be close to LBSCR Billinton stock , or possibly LCDR 

They might do for the Isle of Wight

The LNER was still using clapped out 6 wheelers as excursion stock until the mid 1930s

Some look close to Cambrian 4 wheelers, surviving into the mid 1930s

They might pass for MR stock. 

 

They won't really do as GNR (roof profile wrong, panelling wrong) or LNWR. Door profile is wrong for the Met , body style is wrong for NLR

 

Not quite right for GER but might pass as representational. (Similar comments for GWR)  Possibly fairly close to MSLR. 

 

Less so for Scottish lines. Wrong bodystyle for Maryport & Carlisle - but hardly anyone knows . Not suitable for Furness

 

North Staffordshire????

 

Could pass for rebuilt 4 wheelers on a preserved railway

 

 

That's a respectable set of modest niches. At this stage I'd say the 4-wheelers look a better proposition than the 6 wheelers 

 

The LMS and Scotland seem least served , the SR well served, and the LNER to a degree

 

In that little round robin, you've failed to mention the North Eastern, which had 6-wheelers in this all-round-cornered panelling style* - and there's a Class O 0-4-4T in the offing. (Which reminds me, I should dig out my half-built D&S kits.) As for Scotland, the Caledonian used this style of panelling but whether for 6-wheelers, I don't know - the Drummond-era 6-wheelers had beading for the lower panels in the style Hattons have now moved away from. The Great North was using this style of panelling in Pickersgill's time, though with a 3-arc roof. The mystery to me is the 'Sou-Western - most photographers of the 90s were interested only in express trains and of course the chief of those were made up of joint stock of Midland design. Also missing from this roundup is the S&DJR, some of whose carriages were straight MIdland but many others were Midland-styled but essentially home-grown.

 

*and flat ends. There were 852 5-compartment thirds out of 1400 32 ft 6-wheelers [J.B. Dawson et al., North Eastern Record Vol. 2 (HMRS, 1997)].

[HonestTom]

11 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

I was thinking about this. I wondered if I had, say, a Midland railway 4 wheel carriage and a SECR 4 wheeled carriage in front of me, both unpainted and in plain plastic, would I be able to tell the difference?

 

Now a follower of the Midland or the SECR might (I am neither), but in all truth, the differences would be in the small detail. The differences between, say, a Gresley or a GWR Toplight design are much more obvious than the differences between many earlier carriages, which in all possibility were standard Metro Camm or Brown Marshall designs. 

 

I was looking at some old magazines the other day and there was a "mystery loco" photo, of an old 2-4-0T. The photo was clearly pretty ancient. No livery was visible in the photo and nobody knew. It was almost a "generic" loco and would have looked equally as good in a number of pre-group liveries. Railways from "back in the day" are much less documented than say from the 1930s onward. Even though I have followed the pre-grouping scene for many years, I still find photos of locos and vehicles I didn't know existed. If they don't have a visible livery, it is sometimes impossible to tell which company they are from.

 

As nobody is being forced to buy these carriages, those who don't want generic carriages can surely just exercise their right to carry on building their own accurate carriages as they have always done. Those who want to moan about the trade not producing exactly what they want have always been around and that won't change!

 

For me, a lot of the interest in these coaches relies on the fact that I'm not interested in some of the liveries offered. I'd like some accurate Metropolitan coaches, but other companies used the Met's lines. These coaches enable me to represent those non-Met trains without spending a lot of time and money on stock that doesn't particularly grab my interest. They aren't dead on, but to my unlearned eye they look just fine. Just as many modellers will happily include buildings or figures that aren't quite right, but give the flavour of the scene.

Edited October 10, 2019 by HonestTom

[Compound2632]

5 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

An original LNWR Bloomer might provide a better option for a "generic" 2-2-2. Early enough that most people wouldn't know about them, so could be offered in a variety of railway company liveries. ... an element of make believe could readily be applied to the design.

 

 

... such as painting it red?

[Denbridge]

8 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

 

 

Because I like the look of that and felt that no end of wishing would produce one in 4mm (and P4  as well), I found a way to make this.

 

 

 

 

An original LNWR Bloomer might provide a better option for a "generic" 2-2-2. Early enough that most people wouldn't know about them, so could be offered in a variety of railway company liveries. There isn't a preserved one to scan/copy, which seems to be the preferred route for new RTR locomotives at present (which is why Hardwicke at the NRM is the only LNWR passenger loco likely to be manufactured in 4mm) so an element of make believe could readily be applied to the design.

 

 

 

Model and photo by Jim Kemp

 

There is a very advanced replica being built at Tyseley. Last I heard work had resumed with a view towards completion in the next couple of years.

[Nile]

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

.... or is there a new breed of pre-Grouping modellers, who like the pretty liveries of the locos and couldn't care less what they are pulling - so long as the stock liveries are also pretty?

Out there in the real world this is true for many of the people that buy RTR models. It's the livery they will notice, not the fine details. There is a market there to be tapped.

[PaulRhB]

Thank goodness I model the Stoke, East Creech Railway on my little OO layout as these appear to be accurate models of Lord Weld’s initial stock. Who’d have guessed the drawings, long since presumed destroyed in the Lulworth Castle fire, would turn up in Liverpool?

 

  Oh modelling a fictious light railway is that also a backward step? 

 

Simple fact is people want pre group stock but manufacturers struggle to see it as viable due to the variations and very limited market. To be honest I’d just as happily buy an accurate model in a fictious livery if it looks right at 3-4ft away but I don’t think the production would be this cheap even on that. I’m not modelling the LNWR or Metropolitan but I do have a couple of locos from each that I get out of the display case and run with Midland coaches and LNER teaks because I’m not going to spend hours making kits or paying someone a lot of money to do it for something I run occasionally and don’t intend a full layout for. 

These are an option, if you want fully accurate ones the excellent kits are there and to be honest I’m more likely to buy and build some LNWR locos to go with these than I was to build coaches for the Coal tanks. 

We’re an odd lot with a myriad of different reasons we run, play or model railways.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, Craigw said:

 So instead do nothing accurate?

 

I can see how that is a step forward.

 

Craig W

For you it clearly isn't, but neither you or any of the rest of us is any worse off today than we were before the announcement was made.

 

Actually, Hatton's are being rather clever here. If they picked a particular company, they would:

 

1. Be swamped with complaints from devotees of all the other companies that weren't chosen.

 

2. Be deluged with nit-picking from self-appointed experts who weren't born when the last of the coaches bit the dust. To be fair, lots of these guys do know their stuff, but how would Hatton's know who to trust?

 

3. Not sell as many which would mean Bachmann type prices.

 

By going generic, they are providing something that looks the part for the maximum number of potential buyers at a modest cost. That clearly doesn't include you but I'm guessing that, had they done another company's coaches finished in "your" company's livery, you wouldn't buy those either.

 

This is a product aimed at people who aren't students of a particular railway company, and who primarily want cute colourful little coaches to go with their cute colourful little locos.  I'm not one of them, but these models are clearly going to be streets ahead of any existing r-t-r pre-group coaches (apart from Bachmann's Birdcages), and I'm perfectly willing to deploy them as plausible substitutes until somebody (maybe) offers me something better.

 

Hatton's could, for instance, produce accurate LNWR coaches, but that would require a lot more research than they need to put into a generic range, increasing costs and making their appeal more specific. Also, I would prefer LSWR prototypes, and LNWR coaches in LSWR livery (or any other bar the right one) are no better than generic ones.  

 

John

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[wombatofludham]

4 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

 

I’m not decrying the total scale approach just that these aren’t aimed at that segment of the market because it’s not viable for Hattons.

I know some are worried about the impact on the kits but I’d suggest there are more chances of people buying a few of these then getting a couple of bogie coaches made to go with them. 

 

 

I doubt there will be any impact on the kit market with these coaches.  What this approach will do is generate a new market, not stop those who want to build a LNWR or SECR layout.  They know that they will have to kit build to get what they want and this announcement won't change that.  On the other hand, those (like me) who are "pre-grouping curious" but don't want to bother hand knitting everything, so have decided to do models in periods where there is RTR support so I can concentrate on my first interests, scenery and operation, can now make a conscious decision to look at pre-grouping, accepting the slight compromise of generic carriages that look the part to someone who doesn't have a PhD in the output of Wolverton Works in the last decade of the 19th Century, assuming some RTR locos are coming our way.

Which frankly is why I cannot understand why so many are sneering at this announcement.  It is absolutely not the same as "a generic range of Mk1 coaches" which in any case were highly standardised mass produced prototypes anyway, or a "generic design of 2-2-2 loco" which is nonsense and hopefully a humorous comment, a lot of 19th century coaching stock shared similar characteristics enough to allow a generic design to satisfy many, whilst allowing those who want to modify them to something more accurate a chance to do so, whilst those whose interest is making a model that accurately model the detail differences of individual railway designs to continue to do so with kits or scratch building safe in the knowledge they would have had to anyway without the Hatton's announcement

I bet some of those who are dismissing these announcements will no doubt be using generic buildings of an architectural style which a purist like me could get sniffy about.  Things like super squeaky clean rural cottages when filth and poverty would have been rife, or with the wrong type of half-timbering for their area, or the wrong type of stone for that part of the country, or the wrong type of cow for their period.  I know this happens, I've seen the fabulously modelled exhibits at exhibitions with pitch perfect rolling stock and the scenery all to cock because they've used generic kits or not bothered to look at the local vernacular architecture.

Let he who is without sin, etc...

[Simon Moore]

Yasssssssssss !!!!!!!!

 

Finally there is a god.

 

Sign me up for those lnwr coaches, l&y livery would be another epic livery on those 6 wheelers

[LBRJ]

I am surprised there is so much detailed knowledge of carriages that were built about 150 odd years ago floating about.

Its a very long time ago; indeed an excellent modeller of past acquaintance took ages (if ever) to get around to painting his exquisite scratch built MSLR locomotives cos after all no one knows what colour they really were.

[boxbrownie]

They are nice, and such a welcome addition, well done Hattons..........but you could have announced them at the end of next year......we wouldn’t have to wait over a year for them then 

[HonestTom]

1 minute ago, boxbrownie said:

They are nice, and such a welcome addition, well done Hattons..........but you could have announced them at the end of next year......we wouldn’t have to wait over a year for them then 

 

On the plus side, @Hattons Dave has shown a willingness to listen to suggestions made here and amend the designs accordingly, which might not have been possible if they were announced closer to production.

[Dunsignalling]

6 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

They are nice, and such a welcome addition, well done Hattons..........but you could have announced them at the end of next year......we wouldn’t have to wait over a year for them then 

They've clearly done so to gauge reaction and generate feedback - far better to field criticism and make improvements at the first-CAD stage than make excuses after we open the boxes.

 

I like to have about a year's notice of new stuff, anyway, it helps with budgeting.

 

John

Edited October 10, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[Edwardian]

I notice a few of the Usual Suspects with their contrarian agenda emerging blinking into the sunlight. One day they'll want to slam contributors in apparent defence of an inaccurate model, and the next they'll attack a product for being generic hence inaccurate. This suggests more than an element of disagreeing for the sake of it, rather than a sincere and reasoned point of view. But, no matter: I am glad for Hattons that the overwhelming majority of comments have been constructive, supportive and clearly well-meant. 

 

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

I am surprised there is so much detailed knowledge of carriages that were built about 150 odd years ago floating about.

 

 

That is something for which we have to thank the various line societies, many of which have or have had members who have devoted many hours to researching the rolling stock of their chosen company and have published the fruit of their research.

[Hitchin Junction]

15 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Once again the elitist tones drip forth. So a buyer of these models doesn't have a model railway, but a "train set", or is younger modeller (the implication is that 'younger' suggests some undisclosed shortcoming) or is satisfied with things that are not accurate due to a lack of knowledge of the prototypes.

This is getting quite depressing.

I shall support this splendid initiative by buying some of these carriages and those who do not wish to buy any are very welcome not to. Enjoy your wait for the perfectly accurate pre-grouping coaches from company X, I am sure they'll be along at some point (and then I'll buy some of them as well). Or there's kits of course, far more enjoyable that buying something ready to run.

 

I don't know what point you are trying to make, but I moved to a home when I was 4 years old that had steam powered commuter trans running past the end of the garden every 4 minutes in rush hour. And I thought that was the most exciting and wonderful thing in the whole world. Several years on, I was given a post-war, barely afforded Hornby O tinplate circle of track and a clockwork 0-4-0 plus a couple of 4 wheel coaches. They were a joy, but now much more clearly as a 7 year old, I realised they were not quite like the beasts at the end of the garden. And when I was 10, a desperately wanted electric train set turned up, long after those of my friends, and again a financial compromise, which was a Triang Rovex "continental" freight set, with a Canadian pacific like 4-6-2. Not quite the UK tank loco and several bogie coaches I really hoped for, but then life was still not a bowl of cherries for most of us in the fifties.  But by then I was even more aware of the differences.  but would have loved the pick of what was commercially available, if my family could have afforded it. 

 

Over my teenage years I grew more and more aware of the details of the prototypes and still with very limited pocket money found a used "Princess" body to transform my CP pacific into something more UK appropriate,  discovered the (still) wonderful Kitmaster Mk1's and eventually acquired a used Hornby 2-rail 2-6-4 tank, with joy of joys, really moving valve gear as well as just coupling rods. And Triang introduced some "suburban" coaches that actually looked somewhat like the suburbans going past my garden. And by 14, It was time to go from what I called a "train set" oval on an 4 x 8 sheet of floppy "Essex board" to my glorious "model railway", with 7 Peco "Universal" turnouts on fibre sleeper bases on a did-it-myself "L" shaped baseboard around two sides of my bedroom. (But Peco's recommneded "wood fibre insulation board" was a lousy choice).  Yet that got me reading modelling magazines and learning all sorts of  modelling ideas. And got used to the ideas that (a) if you couldn't afford something, you could often get close enough by making it from a few parts and raw  materials and (b) that some key specialised tools that helped make models frequently paid for themselves many times over vs. instead buying the models they produced.

 

And then I became an adult, moved away,  acquired adult and family responsibilities and only dabbled in model making without a layout, until the past few years when I fully retired and of course re-entered the careful financial situation of being an UK OAP.

 

If there was a "golden age" of UK RTR model trains, then sorry, I missed it. I also don't have (actually never had)   the resources to fit what seems the be the RM Web membership model of rushing out and buying every RTR model (appropriate or otherwise)  that the industry can come up with. 

 

And if I call my younger and less educated days model railway implementation a "train set", then I'm fully entitled to do so. That's what it was.

 

Tim

 

B

[PatB]

We're I a) solvent and b) capable of actually finishing a project, I'd be more than happy to run a few rakes of these in and out of a 6ft long Minories, behind attractively liveried Dapol/Hornby Terriers, on 4'1.5" flat-bottomed Streamline (so what, when it should be ballasted to the rail tops anyway?). Whilst it might not be an accurate model in all, or any, respect it is something which I, and many others, might realistically build. Something which requires a decade of research, followed by another couple of painstaking kit and scratch building before the first train moves under its own power, is not. 

 

But then, I'm currently elbow deep in a big box of broken Triang 0-6-0s, and find myself surprisingly content, so I'm probably not a natural pre-Grouping modeller. 

[cctransuk]

25 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I notice a few of the Usual Suspects with their contrarian agenda emerging blinking into the sunlight. One day they'll want to slam contributors in apparent defence of an inaccurate model, and the next they'll attack a product for being generic hence inaccurate. This suggests more than an element of disagreeing for the sake of it, rather than a sincere and reasoned point of view. But, no matter: I am glad for Hattons that the overwhelming majority of comments have been constructive, supportive and clearly well-meant. 

 

 

Knowing myself to be included in your characterisation of "Usual Suspects", I would merely point out that I am, as usual, merely banging the drum for actual modelling. I cannot accept the premise that the availability of RTR 'never wazzers' can in any way promote the cause of acquiring modelling skills in order to produce accurate models.

 

The stumbling block nowadays seems to be that the newer generation of modellers wants it all NOW, and is not prepared to spend time building up a skill set. Producing generic coaches will only encourage this 'near enough' attitude - which is bound, in the long run, to lead to the 'dumbing-down' of the hobby.

 

Now that is not disagreeing for the sake of it; it is a genuine concern for the hobby.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

(Usual Suspect)

[Steamport Southport]

On 09/10/2019 at 13:07, Edwardian said:

 

Sorry, I think you have not quite grasped my point.

 

Neither the execrable Hornby 4-wheelers nor the new Hattons coaches represent accurate models of specific prototypes.

 

However, the Hattons coaches appear prototypical, i.e. they actually reasonably represent the appearance of coaches of that era.  The Hornby coach is not prototypical.  It is not realistic in any way and does not represent at all accurately how coaches of the period looked. 

 

If you don't want a nice model of a generic coach because it does not match any specific prototype, fair enough, though it might be fair to add that, given the economics of production and the current evolution of the market, I suspect your RTR choice for this era is a generic coach or nothing.

 

To dismiss these coaches, as one contributor sought to do, as no better than the Hornby 4-wheelers, seems to me to be wildly unfair and to display a lamentable lack of discrimination!

 

BTW, I don't use Photoshop for the purpose you suggest. My points in relation to these models, and I have had several, are based on the extent to which they represent generic features of coaches of the period depicted. Naturally the scope for such comments is relatively limited, and I think Hattons have done a very reasonable job in relation to their stated objectives. 

 

EDIT: As to the era, that explains some of the crudeness, but certainly not the solecisms of the Hornby design, and consider the Triang clerestory, a far superior body for a generic panelled coach, which is why it has been justly beloved of bashers and bodgers over the years, whereas the Hornby 4-wheeler is best forgotten.  

 

 

 

 

You do use photoshop or a similar program to ridicule models where the splasher is half a millimetre too big or the chimney is too wide. Or there is no ashpan.

 

Look through the Oxford Rail Dean Goods, Hattons 14XX and Hornby Terrier threads for evidence. 

 

 

 

 

Jason

[RLWP]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

... such as painting it red?

 

I've been sitting on my hands trying not to point that one out...

[PatB]

Perusal of almost any 60s or 70s issue of RM will throw up numerous examples of often highly acclaimed modellers accepting "near enough" in the interests of using what was available in order to produce a layout to a decent standard of completion in a reasonable time. I don't think the likes of PD Hancock or Mike Sharman, among others, could be reasonably accused of contributing to the dumbing down of the hobby.