More model ideas

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

10 minutes ago, NBL said:

Why?

 

I have a huge interest in WW2 Luftwaffe, I was born 25 years after that war ended.  should Eduard, Airfix, Revell etc only concentrate on planes that I remember from the late 70's onwards?

Was a better time to most who remember it,its why steam is so modelled i guess,putting pennys on the line for the 9f and ore cars to squash..........happy times.

[JSpencer]

45 minutes ago, SulzerPeak said:

Bearing in mind to remember steam bar preservation locos you would have had to been 10ish in 1968, is it not more prudent to make stuff people remember?

 

I remember steam locos from all those preserved lines visited as a kid. 

[Bishdurham]

5 hours ago, NHY 581 said:

 

 

Phew ! I hoped you were being somewhat tongue in cheek !! 

 

Totally agree. Talk about flogging a dead racehorse.........

 

Rob

I wonder if the new LNER has ever thought of naming an Azuma Red Rum?  Of course they could call one Shergar, but they might never find it?

[97406]

44 minutes ago, SulzerPeak said:

Bearing in mind to remember steam bar preservation locos you would have had to been 10ish in 1968, is it not more prudent to make stuff people remember?

 

35 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Both Manors and 37's selling like hotcakes so the evidence is that the customer base is there for both

 

I was born in 1968 and remember green diesels alongside the blue ones from a very early age. The 40s and 25s made the biggest impression with the sound and their appearance, hence why I model them. 

 

Although my modelling is centered in the 80s, I often think about getting a green/blue crossover period fleet. I also remember going to Steamtown and Dinting with my Dad, so I’m open to a few preserved steam locos.

 

I only just missed the end of steam, but if I were just a few years older, then I’d be modelling the end of it. I’d also be retiring and looking to indulge more in the hobby.

[atom3624]

Born in 1960 myself, I don't remember any green diesels, but perhaps steam went out later in the Liverpool area, with the Black 5's and 8F's ... then my frequently observed, daily locomotives seen, and same choice, were the 25's and 40's.

 

Al.

[The Johnster]

71 now and 16 when steam finished on BR.  I have pretty solid memories from about 10 years before that, though, and at that age I would have been able to tell you the difference between the main classes that I saw  at Cardiff General; Brits, Castles, Halls, large prairies and 56xx, standard 3MT, 28xx, 9F, WD, 8750s, 94xx, and could have named them.  I would probably not have realised that the green pannier on the Marshfield Flyer (6412) was a different class, but I knew the difference between the newly introduced dmus, 116 and 120s. 

 

The other BR standards common in the area, 5MT and 4MT 4-6-0s, might have stumped me, but I was pretty clued up, courtesy of great-uncle Ted who we've met before in these pages.  Mother helped as well, more knowledgable than she let on, not many mums would have been able to identify Castles or Kings...

 

I'm probably bang in the middle of the retiree section of the market demographic, and if it is true that we model the scene we remember from our childhoods, then steam-outline RTR has perhaps another decade left in it, but the reality is much more complex than that.  The market may well change; one might expect a surge of interest in the 70s scene as that generation of gricers hits retirement with time and disposable income, but I predict an increase in demand for pre-grouping, Victorian, and 'early' layouts as steam enthusiasm becomes less bound up emotionally with the BR/Death Steam experience.  I suspect that firms like Accurascale and Rapido will be well placed to exploit this

 

My own sphere of interest is rooted in the period immediately before my 6-year-old experiences, 1948-58, BR changeover.  I can remember blood'n'custard coaches and locos with the unicycling lion device, but not their heyday, which has provided me with some very enjoyable modelling!

[Wickham Green too]

2 hours ago, SulzerPeak said:

Bearing in mind to remember steam bar preservation locos you would have had to been 10ish in 1968, is it not more prudent to make stuff people remember?

Bearing in mind that some of us WERE 10sh in 1968 ...... well fourteenish to be precise - and are actually capable of remembering 8Fs in action ....

 

...... though photographic equipment wasn't up to today's standards ! ☹️ : Passing Heaton Mersey Shed, 20/4/68 

[PieGuyRob]

2 hours ago, ERIC ALLTORQUE said:

Was a better time to most who remember it,its why steam is so modelled i guess,putting pennys on the line for the 9f and ore cars to squash..........happy times.

Done that on Blackpool tram line!

[Wickham Green too]

Was that a proper penny under a proper Blackpool tram - or a 1p piece under whatever internationally standardised vehicle they use nowadays ??!?

[The Johnster]

We did penny-flattening on the Roath Branch, at the back of Ty Draw Road in Penylan, Cardiff.  Not just pennies but pins as well to make decently sharp swords for our toy soldiers.  This spot, a cutting, was also good during the summer hollys for blackberries; trespassing of course but this was permissive block and the trains never went faster than 15mph, so we had plenty of warning of anyone who might object to us...

 

One day, this would have been about 1962 or 3, there were a group of us working the cutting sides with bags for the berries, when the cry went up 'train!'.  A glance along the line along the straight from Roath Junction on the TVR main line showed an 8750 approaching, so we cleared off, not in any great rush, to wait for it and it's train to pass; we could usually get a wave off the driver and the guard.  But after a while, nothing happened, so somebody went back on the four-foot to see what had happened.  'It's stopped', he said.  Well, it hadn't, there were puffs of smoke coming form the chimney, but it was crawling along, and there was something alongside it.  As the plodding train eventually approached, we could see what the mystery was; driver, fireman, and guard were walking along the foot of the embankment with buckets, blackberrying, while the train was left to it's own snail-racing devices.  That was the end of blackberrying for us; nobody had the patience to wait for it to crawl past and for the van to round the curve under Waterloo Road bridge about half a mile away!  w

 

We all went home with the berries we'd collected (less the 'angel's share' of course) feeling a bit cheated! 

 

The Roath Branch closed in 1967 IIIRC, for the A48 Eastern Avenue by-pass to be built.  An unglamorous and mostly forgotten railway, but it's ghost can be traced in the linear development of newer housing in the filled in cutting and the apparently illogical disconnect of some of the streets in the vicinity, and the name survives on the notices on the overbridges to inform the railway of any incidents.  The blackberry cutting seems never to have been photographed but there are shots of the line running through the allottments off Allensbank Road, one with a TVR A class.  It connected the TV south of Llandaff to Cardiff Marshalling and Tidal sidings, and thus the newer Roath and Queen Alexandra dock and East Moors steelworks, and sidings off delivered coal to Roath power station (bult originally to power Cardiff's trams but later absorbed by the CEGB) and the factories in that area off Colchester Avenue.  There is still an national grid substation on the power station site but the trading estate is now Sainsbury's and a sadly closed Wilko...

[BVMR21]

15 hours ago, SulzerPeak said:

Bearing in mind to remember steam bar preservation locos you would have had to been 10ish in 1968, is it not more prudent to make stuff people remember?

I mean not really, I would argue, as someone who is definitely on the young end of the hobby, that steam is very popular, partly because of the preservation era scene, and I do think it more likely we will see more people modelling pre BR steam, but also increasingly the preservation era, plus with industrial steam being very popular, I do generally think steam has a long way to go.

[TomScrut]

12 minutes ago, BVMR21 said:

I mean not really, I would argue, as someone who is definitely on the young end of the hobby, that steam is very popular, partly because of the preservation era scene, and I do think it more likely we will see more people modelling pre BR steam, but also increasingly the preservation era, plus with industrial steam being very popular, I do generally think steam has a long way to go.

 

I think the thing is, I don't think interest in steam is going away, but I don't see how the proportions would stay the same for the reasons stated by SulzerPeak

 

For example, if we were to fast forward 40 years then it would be 100 years since diesels were already on the scene and during the time that main line steam was being phased out. I presume at the moment, there's about a 50/50 interest level between pre and post phasing out of main line steam. I can't see that being the case in 40 years time when hardly anyone alive will remember seeing steam locos in service on a daily basis. It wont have gone away, in the same way as there's an interest in pre-grouping which is now 100 years ago, but a lot of people like modelling stuff they remember. Likewise this shift would be gradual and therefore it is logical to presume that this shift will happen as less and less people recall them in service.

 

I don't think the steam market is maintained by  people who are interested in preserved locos. I have 5 steam locos (4 as preserved, 1 Centenary Smokey Joe for nostalgia purposes) and 2 preserved ones on order, so 7 in total. I don't even know how many diesel/electric I have. I have more class 37s than I have steam locos. Likewise, preserved examples are in the minority on releases (because its not where the demand is)

Edited November 21, 2023 by TomScrut

[Wickham Green too]

Who knows what the 'current scene' will be in forty years' time? - but I'd guess far less variety than we have even now so maybe negligible interest in the hobby in any form. ☹️

[Dunsignalling]

I think an interest in steam era modelling will continue, though almost certainly not as it currently exists.

 

Memories of operational BR steam remains (for now) within direct personal memory for a significant number of us, and one generation away for many more, but that will generally cease to be so in a couple of decades.

 

However, I doubt the dominance of the BR steam/transitional eras will be directly transferred forward in time, simply because the operational variety available to the modeller has been in gradual decline ever since.

 

Many lines have become freight-free, almost entirely one-class unit fests with the most complicated procedure being the crew swapping ends at termini. It's also common for stations on such lines to have lost all or most of their buildings and (if they are lucky) gained the odd bus shelter in exchange.

 

My own line has kept quite a bit of interesting architecture, but (very sporadic) diversions apart, sees only one GWT 158 per weekday, a NR track recorder on alternate Thursdays, and visits by a MPV during the leaf-fall period. Those apart it's wall-to-wall SWR 159's which I actually like, and some livery variations do currently remain in the mix. 

 

That said, it wouldn't be enough to inspire me to base a layout around the concept, when picking an earlier time would offer infinitely greater scope for infrastructure modelling, traction and rolling stock variety, and operational complexity.    

 

So, there's an inevitably of change, but it seems unlikely that it will proceed in a chronological order matching the demographic shift. I'd expect the distribution to widen, with a revival of previously popular eras that declined with earlier demographic changes. 

 

However, for the modeller seeking ultimate variety, the mid-fifties to early sixties will always be compelling. Being able to model surviving pre-group locos, stock, more-or-less intact Victorian infrastructure and practices concurrently with BR steam and diesels on one layout makes it unique. The era has so much to offer that interest in it seems unlikely to decline as quickly as those of us who "were there".

 

With careful thought, such layouts can also be back-dated to earlier periods fairly readily, and even designed to switch to-and-fro using interchangeable features. Moving the other way quickly becomes problematic through subsequent infrastructure rationalisation.  

 

John  

Edited November 21, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[JSpencer]

One thought... Maybe the all new model could be a class 40.

 

Granted KR have one in the CAD room but..... maybe..... just maybe..... an Accurrascale one could be better.....

[Pacific231G]

16 hours ago, The Johnster said:

71 now and 16 when steam finished on BR.  I have pretty solid memories from about 10 years before that, though, and at that age I would have been able to tell you the difference between the main classes that I saw  at Cardiff General; Brits, Castles, Halls, large prairies and 56xx, standard 3MT, 28xx, 9F, WD, 8750s, 94xx, and could have named them.  I would probably not have realised that the green pannier on the Marshfield Flyer (6412) was a different class, but I knew the difference between the newly introduced dmus, 116 and 120s. 

 

The other BR standards common in the area, 5MT and 4MT 4-6-0s, might have stumped me, but I was pretty clued up, courtesy of great-uncle Ted who we've met before in these pages.  Mother helped as well, more knowledgable than she let on, not many mums would have been able to identify Castles or Kings...

 

I'm probably bang in the middle of the retiree section of the market demographic, and if it is true that we model the scene we remember from our childhoods, then steam-outline RTR has perhaps another decade left in it, but the reality is much more complex than that.  The market may well change; one might expect a surge of interest in the 70s scene as that generation of gricers hits retirement with time and disposable income, but I predict an increase in demand for pre-grouping, Victorian, and 'early' layouts as steam enthusiasm becomes less bound up emotionally with the BR/Death Steam experience.  I suspect that firms like Accurascale and Rapido will be well placed to exploit this

 

My own sphere of interest is rooted in the period immediately before my 6-year-old experiences, 1948-58, BR changeover.  I can remember blood'n'custard coaches and locos with the unicycling lion device, but not their heyday, which has provided me with some very enjoyable modelling!

Hi Johnster

I'm probably in the same demographic category as you having been a teenager when steam in my part of the country (Oxford) went from an everyday norm to something that was only to be found in the North. (The last time I heard a BR steam loco was from a ship I was on in Bootle) However, I model the steam era in France which I never knew and I think that a lot of the attraction of steam is that a steam loco just looks good. Miles Kington once described the steam locomotive (In a programme about the railways of Peru) as a ham actor. It made a great show of doing what a diesel did with far less fuss but in a far less entertaining way. I note that the steam locos currently being produced as mass market products for the French market* are almost all from classes that are in preservation, thus making them prototypical to run alongside TGVs etc. 

Britain is a slightly unusual case in that the end of steam largely coincided with the end of many other things that are interesting to model such as local goods trains shunting in local yards, through coaches, branch lines that were more than "basic railway" and so on.  According to Loco-Revue, the most popular epoch for modellers in France is Ep IV when steam had been replaced by diesels and electrics but the other aspects of interesting operation were still going strong (with many lines that lost their passengers in 1938-39 still handling regular goods trains) and most trains still loco-hauled. 

Although It represented my strongest memories of steam, I don't think I'd actually want to model the 1960s as it was a time when the railways seemed to be in a very depressing terminal decline with low staff morale (that only seemed to pick up when the HSTs brought new hope) , endless closures, and a general sense of dereliction.

The other thing I'd note is that sailing ship are still very popular amongst ship modellers even though very few of them can have ever seen a commercial sailing ship. (though one of my best recent memories was of going up the Thames on a Dutch sailing ship during a tall ships festival) Sailing ships are simply very beautiful things and we like modelling beautiful and intricate things, something for which steam locomotives certainly qualify. 

 

Ironically, at least in summer, it's now easier for me to see a steam loco in action now than it was in the late 1960s. 

 

*There are also a number of  models of ex German steam types that went to France as post WW1 or WW2 reparations but they're easy for manufacturers to adapt (or simply repaint) from models made for the much larger German outline market.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Pacific231G

[NBL]

2 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Who knows what the 'current scene' will be in forty years' time? - but I'd guess far less variety than we have even now so maybe negligible interest in the hobby in any form. ☹️

I've been hearing that for 40 years

[rprodgers]

Please can we not have anymore A3s, A4s, class 47s

As for the requests for a new GW 57xx couldn’t we have the more long lived 2021 saddle/ pannier tank or a Metro tank. More suitable for smaller branch lines.

 

Otherwise for steam a Saint, County 4-6-0, unrebuilt Bulleid B of B/B/ West Country, 8F, LNW Cauliflower, Ivatt 2MT.

 

Or an 08, class 67.

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by rprodgers

[Steamport Southport]

19 hours ago, SulzerPeak said:

Bearing in mind to remember steam bar preservation locos you would have had to been 10ish in 1968, is it not more prudent to make stuff people remember?

 

So they shouldn't make most of the diesels and electrics either?

 

Don't forget many of them were in the scrapyard next to the locomotives they were supposed to be replacing. In fact some BR steam locomotives outlasted entire diesel classes!

 

So Kernow shouldn't have made their version of these as they were all gone by 1967. A whole year before the last of the 8Fs of which 150 entered the final year whilst the NBL Warships were being turned into razor blades.

 

Ben Brooksbank - Wiki

 

 

BTW I still remember genuine British working steam at places like Agecroft and Bold and I wasn't even thought of in the 1960s. 

 

You would also need to be well over 40 to remember the BR Blue era, so is it time to stop making things from that era as well?

 

Certainly the Peaks were all gone by then....

 

 

Jason

[PieGuyRob]

16 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Was that a proper penny under a proper Blackpool tram - or a 1p piece under whatever internationally standardised vehicle they use nowadays ??!?

1p and 2p pueces under brush and english electric's. it was 30 years ago.

[PieGuyRob]

5 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Who knows what the 'current scene' will be in forty years' time? - but I'd guess far less variety than we have even now so maybe negligible interest in the hobby in any form. ☹️

So multiple units will be the norm? Which means a ready to run electrostar, civity, and siemens units.

[atom3624]

Each to their own opinions, all perfectly valid.

Many have been brought up commuting using MU's, whether 'D', 'E' or hybrid.

 

These are very hard-working units and a mainstay on the mainlines of UK, but personally I find them totally without character and frankly boring.

HST, 220/221, 390, 395 excepted.

Model railways has always been exaggerated with an excessive number of locomotives hauling coaches or wagons for me, however invalid.

 

Al.

[stewartingram]

It isn't just that the railways have changed since steam (and even that didn't change overnight to what it is now). Life changed rapidly as well. Rapid car ownership expanded, bringing  with it infrastructure, from full blown motorways to simpler things like yellow line restrictions and pedestrianisation of streets. Standardisation of many things across the UK from roadsigns to shops in the high street. The disappearance of local bus operators, new liveries on them, the old ways just fell out of favour. Just look at the inside of Beamish and a modern town (yes Beamish is set back in the '20s but rapid change didn't happen for another 50 years). Modelling the era transition era takes us back to a more comfortable zone perhaps?.

[wombatofludham]

Oh God, not the steam v diesel debate.

My view, based on an unscientific number of chats whilst briefly on the exhibition circuit with a decidedly modern-ish image layout (2006 Central Trains) and a expressly pre-diesel (but with occasional fictional diesel running sessions) big exhibition layout (Dolgellau) is that steam will always be attractive to some modellers, and I do recall two under 20 active modellers who were modelling steam, not preserved steam but LNER mainline and Western Region BR, but they stood out as memorable by their rarity, but it does show some younger modellers are attracted to steam.  Equally I have met many "returning" modellers ("empty nesters" taking up the hobby after retirement or raising a family) who are looking to recreate their youthful trainspotting experience who enjoyed our diesel running on the Dolgellau layout and asked about the models running saying that they remembered them.  For me, age 60, steam is a funfair ride at a heritage line despite no doubt having seen steam between bottles and filling my nappy so my memories are of electric blue AC electrics flying past my primary school, which is why my main layout will be West Midlands electrics 1968-1992, but I am also planning an LMS seaside terminus set in North Wales 1927-34 (which with careful rule 1 implementation will also double as Irish Rail 1993-4, don't ask) despite 1927 being very much outside my personal experience.  Based on my unscientific quizzing of people who stop to watch the layouts I have been associated with, I suspect that the biggest driver in model railways is the returning adult modeller alongside train sets, but there is also a large, hidden audience for contemporary models.  Why hidden?  Because they have their own social media channels not frequented by older modellers, don't join clubs, or buy magazines.  It may be difficult for some on this forum to believe, but these are the enthusiasts who are bemoaning the replacement of the Class 158s by Cif Cavity Class 197s in Wales and who are mourning the loss of the Class 175s, both classes which were reviled for replacing loco hauled traffic when introduced, and which will explain why Bachmann have done a range of contemporary or recent historical liveries on their new Class 158 and might explain their decision to go with the Class 143-144 units with EFE, as I suspect their market research bods are more adept at plugging into social media than the Margate mob who seem to rely on personal whims of senior staffers.

So I suspect whilst steam will still have a market, it will over time become less dominant, which, let's face it, is inevitable as demographics march on.  Whatever the relevance of my chats over the backboard, one thing I'm sure is an agreed fact.  Model manufacturers clearly have their own market research, own views on market direction, and really are not in the business to make a loss (although Hornby do sometimes make you wonder).  So, in reality none of us knows how the market is going, nor are likely to.  I'm just happy to see Heljan committed to making more Class 86s which, let's not forget, don't sell because they are electrics.

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Britain is a slightly unusual case in that the end of steam largely coincided with the end of many other things that are interesting to model such as local goods trains shunting in local yards, through coaches, branch lines that were more than "basic railway" and so on

 

I call this the 'traditional railway', because while it is almost instinctive to associate it with the end of steam the reality on the ground was far more complex than that.  I remember a trip to Tenby in the late 1980s, Derby 108 on the 07.35 ex Cardiff that consisted of dmus that split and served Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven.  Running down to Tenby from Whitland on a semaphore-signalled single line controlled by staff & token, in a 1957-built dmu, was arguably a more 'traditional' experience than that of riding, the previous weekend, from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth in a 1961-buillt mk1 coach on a similar single line semaphore signalled railway hauled by a light pacific rebuilt to it's present form in 1959...  Faster, too.

 

The killer blow to a 'traditional railway' already in deep trouble haemorraghing traffic and cash in the early 60s was of course Beeching, but there were significant closures in my area and others before that; the Gwent Valley passenger services and the entire hub of railways centred on Brecon went in '62, for example.  Beeching is remembered as the man who closed the branch lines, but his axe was far more active in disposing of main line stations and goods yards (except perhaps in the London commuter belt where the stations remained open but the goods yards were turned into car parks).  Hundreds of smaller towns and villages had main lines passing through them, but no train service; you had to drive or get the bus into town if you wanted to go anywhere by rail, and if you had to drive you might as well use the car for your whole journey.  For hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people, trains were something that whizzed past but didn't stop, and the railway faded from the national conciousness to an extent.

 

An interesting question would be 'why did this local passenger and goods aspect of the 'traditional railway' disappear so completely from the UK scene (and so very quickly, two years 1962-4 and most of it was gone) while in other European countries with comparable economies and population disrtribution it persisted for much longer and still does to an extent, sometimes in countries that developed motorway networks decades before we did'?  The answer would be complex and include political and cultural factors, and I am not really qualified as an historian, economist, or social observer to pontificate on the matter, but that probably won't stop me!

 

My subjective view is that, on mainland Europe, the cultural perception of what railways are for is different.  Most European countries nationalised their railways before we did and with much less association of the event with small s socialism.  The heyday of the 'traditional railway' under BR was a mere 15 years, and it proved to be not ecomomically viable, but the same system worked fine on the Mainland!  One can understand this is some of the less developed parts of the Eastern Bloc (Romania and the Balkans for example) but France, and by the 60s Germany, were the economic drivers of the continent.  France developed a TGV network in the 70s.

 

In the UK, railways are subliminally expected to make a profit, their original raison d'etre, and not trusted to do so (the middle class' race memory of the Hudson bubble and the Overend Gurney failure still haunts their darkest investment nightmares) because the punters don't really understand what's going on, and ascribe anything they don't understand to inefficiency and beauracracy, the reason that the privatisation of what was by then a very efficient and effective nationalised railway, one that had produced the stunningly successful HST from it's own internal resources despite Treasury investment that was wobbly at best, was the largely incorrect view that private companies are more efficient because they are in competition and will run the trains better.  In fact, competition always produces more losers than winners.

 

Perhaps some cultural sensitivity of mainland Europeans enables them, and especially their governements, to have a deeper understanding of such matters than is promoted in our get-rich-quick predatory investment national conciousness.  We tend to look to the allegedly successful American economic world as our main example, and look at the mess they made of their railways in the 60s and 70s!

Edited November 21, 2023 by The Johnster