What locomotives and rolling stock should be produced first?

[Mike Storey]

3 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I wonder if this might be helpful, particularly in terms of helping us frame expectations of timescale for getting established?

 

My first layout was a small N-Gauge set up I had from about 1977 to 1982.  I think commercial N-Gauge had been around for something like a decade by the time I got started (I’m not counting early OOO).  Although the world was very different then, this list of r-t-r may help inform understanding - I’m not trying to start a thread drift, so I’ll take it as given that realism and reliability have moved on in leaps and bounds since those early days, and acknowledge there’ll be some items I’ve forgotten.  My aim is simply to give an indication of the kind of range of r-t-r Rolling Stock that was available after about ten years:

 

Peco: Peco had one locomotive, the LMS Jubilee 4-6-0 (I think it was made for them by Rivarossi?).  They also had a wide range of r-t-r Wagons, which were also available unpainted as simple Wonderful Wagon Kits which took just a few minutes to assemble.

 

Grafar (Graham Farish): a larger range, some of which replicated their OO offerings.  From memory these included:

GWR Pannier Tank 0-6-0T 94xx Class (9400).

GWR Large Prairie 2-6-2T.

GWR Hall Class 4-6-0 (Burton Agnes Hall?).

A ‘General Purpose’ 0-6-0 Tank Engine (that could pass as a Jinty).  I think it was in SR, LMS and LNER liveries.

SR Streamlined / unrebuilt West Country or Battle of Britain Class Light Pacific 4-6-0.

There were coaches liveried for the ‘Big Four’ (some generic offered in multiple liveries), plus wagons’.

A Class 08 0-6-0 diesel shunter (08 113) came a bit later, as did other models (eg: Class 25 diesel).

 

Minitrix (sold as Hornby Minitrix I think): Dock Shunter 0-6-0T (Steam engine), Class 2MT 2-6-0, Class 9f 2-10-0 Evening Star, Class 27 Green Bo-Bo Diesel, Class 42 Diesel-Hydraulic Warship (D823 Hermes) in Blue with full yellow ends.  I think a Class 47 came along around 1980 too.  Also a range of coaches (incl. BR Mk1s) and wagons.

 

Lima: Class 55 Deltic, Class 31 Brush Type 2 A1A-A1A (of particular note for TT:120 of course), Class 86 Bo-Bo Overhead Electric, LMS Class 4F 0-6-0 tender locomotive.  Also BR Mk1 Coaches and other rolling stock.

 

I think a Class 50 diesel and a Class 37 appeared, as did an HST and a DMU, but I’m not sure from whom.  I can’t remember if there were other LNER locomotives available - possibly as it had yet to catch my imagination.  As we move forwards in time through the 1980s and forwards the Graham Farish range began to expand, although Lima and Minitrix would fade away.  

 

But even allowing for omissions, if you took quite a broad view it was just about possible to put together a layout for any of the Big Four, BR Steam or contemporary BR diesel.  The big challenge for potential manufacturers now is the way expectations have risen - there are some great suggestions in this thread, but we generally have a much more defined view of accuracy, not just in terms of detail but in terms of where and how particular classes of locomotive and rolling stock were used.  We shall see, Keith.

 

I think it started earlier than that. My second layout was British N Gauge, in 1969. It included much of what you describe, but my pride and joy was an Anbrico whitemetal kit of a Class 50 (on a european chassis), the first loco kit I ever made. But the range was quite limited compared to now, and I switched to Continental N Gauge in about 1975, exhibiting a few times at the Canterbury and Sittingbourne shows. So, I believe British N Gauge developed faster than we think in the first several years, but then went to sleep for a decade or so, but took on a new life, as you say, mostly by Graham Farish.

 

Then I went back to 00......

 

[D9020 Nimbus]

5 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

 

I think a Class 50 diesel and a Class 37 appeared, as did an HST and a DMU, but I’m not sure from whom. 

They were all made by Farish—the DMU was a class 101 (it would be very useful in TT, given how widespread it was).

 

The class 50 and HST are now Dapol territory in N. Minitrix once did A3 and A4 Pacific’s; Farish did both of these later and they have more recently been done by Dapol.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

Thank you - some useful insights.  With respect to TT:120, this comment made me smile 🙂:

 

5 hours ago, Allegheny1600 said:

 I think their 31 was the only one worth having.

 

Absolutely!
 

More cautiously perhaps, I wonder if Mike’s comment about a slow down in British N (quoted below) maybe reflects on the broader economic situation of the late 1970s / early 1980s - sadly no need to spell out why that might be relevant for new launches right now:

 

2 hours ago, Mike Storey said:

So, I believe British N Gauge developed faster than we think in the first several years, but then went to sleep for a decade or so…

Looking on the bright side, the prices being quoted for the Peco and Heljan TT:120 releases seem competitive when compared to what I’m seeing for new OO, and with the advantage of correct gauge to add to the detail possible, it could work out more positively for the new scale.  We shall see.  Best get back on topic, Keith.

[Dava]

18 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

They were used in Austria...

The JZ Yugoslav Railways used the USA S100 tank loco as their class 62, more were built and survived in industrial steelworks & colliery  service till quite recently. So a credible Eastern European shunter. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JŽ_class_62#/media/File%3AZagorska_lokomotiva_062-70_1.jpg

 

Wikipedia says about the USATC S100 ‘After the war, they were used on railways in Austria, Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, the Netherlands, Israel and China’.

 

Seems to justify a picture.

 

Dava

 

[NCB]

7 hours ago, Moria15 said:

Been thinking about this a lot.  What I would like to see, to get us up and running so to speak, is a standard wheelbase (well as standard as you can get) motorised chasis for a tender.  I think that this would enable many locomotives to be built as the wheelsets for locos etc are freely available.  The tenders will be big enough to dcc and probably be fitted with sound and stay alive (if it can be done in "N" then it can be done in TT1:120) and then 3d print manufacturers could provide an appropriate wheelbase chassis for their locos that all you would need to add are bearings, pickups and wheels, and the tenders could be printed to fit on that chassis.

 

I know this doesn't help with tank engines, but I believe it would seriously enhance options for the first few years.

 

Am thinking a standard 7'6" x 7'6" tender chassis with motor mount would cover pretty much the majority of GWR and LMS tender classes  (sorry not up on SR or LNER 6 wheel tenders)

 

Graham

 

 

Think you're underestimating how easy it is for a manufacturer to put together a chassis these days. it's getting the body right where the effort is.

[britishcolumbian]

3 minutes ago, Dava said:

The JZ Yugoslav Railways used the USA S100 tank loco as their class 62, more were built and survived in industrial steelworks & colliery  service till quite recently. So a credible Eastern European shunter. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JŽ_class_62#/media/File%3AZagorska_lokomotiva_062-70_1.jpg

 

Wikipedia says about the USATC S100 ‘After the war, they were used on railways in Austria, Great Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, the Netherlands, Israel and China’.

 

 

Not to mention Djuro Djakovic works built a bunch of copies in the post-war period; I think the one in the photo there is one of these. Unfortunately, in ex-YU TT is a very minority scale - but it would look great with the era III JŽ wagons Tillig did... but between those fringes that model Yugoslav, French, Italian, and Dutch subjects in TT, plus the bigger (though still small) market in Austria, it's not a bad choice.

[andythenorth]

Soooo...I make mods for the OpenTTD game (open source reincarnation of the classic Transport Tycoon Deluxe from 1994).

 

One of them is a big set of 'might have been' UK-ish trains.

 

I think the ideal thing would be if a manufacturer just committed to make all of these, in TT? 😉

 

👉  https://grf.farm/iron-horse/2.49.1/html/tech_tree_table_red.html

 

April 1 would be the ideal date to announce it.

Edited June 20, 2022 by andythenorth

[britishcolumbian]

Hah, I play OpenTTD... I don't make mods but did supply info to the guy who did the North Korea sets.

[eldomtom2]

What we really need is a commitment to duplicate all the model trains photographed for Railroad Tycoon II in TT.

 

32 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

Not to mention Djuro Djakovic works built a bunch of copies in the post-war period; I think the one in the photo there is one of these. Unfortunately, in ex-YU TT is a very minority scale - but it would look great with the era III JŽ wagons Tillig did... but between those fringes that model Yugoslav, French, Italian, and Dutch subjects in TT, plus the bigger (though still small) market in Austria, it's not a bad choice.

The S100 could also serve the fringe American TT market. As could the S160, which would definitely appeal to the existing TT markets as they were heavily used in Poland. Less useful than the S100 for a UK layout, though.

[Moria15]

Not sure if any of you contemplating this scale have seen motorbogies.com.

 

They have multiple manufacturers that can make any wheelbase bogie with any size wheels on them with multpile fixing types and even if it's not on their standard list they are estimating delivery at 10 - 12 weeks max.

 

I found it a fascinating and thought provoking read, especially comparing it to what is available on the 3d printed websites.

 

The Bullant bogies are already spaced and setup for TT1:120 specifically, but most of the manufacturers there do 12mm gauge bogies.

 

Regards

 

Graham

[britishcolumbian]

7 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

The S100 could also serve the fringe American TT market. As could the S160, which would definitely appeal to the existing TT markets as they were heavily used in Poland. Less useful than the S100 for a UK layout, though.

 

I and just about every other person who models Hungarian railways would be all over the S160 too, since MÁV had some hundreds of them too - it would be a very successful model. And yeah, both it and the S100 would be useful for NorAm modellers too, although I don't know if any mainline railway used the S100 in the US, and the S160 AFAIK was used only by Alaska Railroad. Still, it looks American, so it'd have appeal for our small band of nuts.

[whart57]

35 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

Not sure if any of you contemplating this scale have seen motorbogies.com.

 

They have multiple manufacturers that can make any wheelbase bogie with any size wheels on them with multpile fixing types and even if it's not on their standard list they are estimating delivery at 10 - 12 weeks max.

 

I found it a fascinating and thought provoking read, especially comparing it to what is available on the 3d printed websites.

 

The Bullant bogies are already spaced and setup for TT1:120 specifically, but most of the manufacturers there do 12mm gauge bogies.

 

Regards

 

Graham

 

Hollywood Foundry has closed though. Are the Bullants available from someone else now?

[Moria15]

28 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Hollywood Foundry has closed though. Are the Bullants available from someone else now?

 

DCKits are still advertising them.

 

Graham

[maridunian]

Interesting comments.

 

The references to the early days of UK N Gauge (championed by Peco) struck a chord with me. In the early days there was very little British stock, so improvisation, conversion, scratch or kit building made it a maker's paradise. Obviously, most people didn't get beyond the early RTR from Minitrix and Farish, but I enjoyed slowly building (literally) a diverse collection of stock, most of which I still run. 

 

I dont think we should see this TT120 development as needing to be a clone of the current OO/N mass markets to succeed. For the foreseeable future it's going to be a niche for makers and/or improvisers (like 009,P4,EM, HOe etc). 

 

Mention has also been made of 3D printing, which I adopted a few years ago to produce better N Gauge models of non-commercially viable subjects than I could make with brass or plasticard. More recently, some TT3 modellers requested rescales of some of these designs and I added a few 'missing' models too. I've played about with a handful of my designs to try out TT120 and you can see the results in my Shapeways shop (https://www.shapeways.com/shops/maridunian-models). 

 

Mike 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by maridunian

[britishcolumbian]

34 minutes ago, maridunian said:

I've played about with a handful of my designs to try out TT120 and you can see the results in my Shapeways shop (https://www.shapeways.com/shops/maridunian-models). 

 

Looks good - and I love this quick initiative that's been taken by you and others to resize their existing work. I need to learn a bit more about the subject yet but I'll be ordering at least one tank car at some point down the road. Hopefully the decal makers you mention will be as amenable to resizing their artwork to 1:120.

[mdvle]

12 hours ago, Moria15 said:

Been thinking about this a lot.  What I would like to see, to get us up and running so to speak, is a standard wheelbase (well as standard as you can get) motorised chasis for a tender.

 

My feeling is that would kill off UK TT:120

 

I personally would have no interest in a market that would be going backwards and putting the drive in the tender and I suspect that would be true of a lot of others.

[britishcolumbian]

14 minutes ago, mdvle said:

I personally would have no interest in a market that would be going backwards and putting the drive in the tender and I suspect that would be true of a lot of others.

 

Though I'd prefer a drive not in the tender in general, in principle I don't mind it if necessary - there are some steam locos that have big space between the frame and the boiler and you can see straight through...

[Moria15]

8 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

My feeling is that would kill off UK TT:120

 

I personally would have no interest in a market that would be going backwards and putting the drive in the tender and I suspect that would be true of a lot of others.

I'm sorry, but what is the issue with the motor in the tender and why is it going backwards?

 

It's no different between having the motor in a diesel and having a brake tender in front of the loco, or having the single powered bogie of a diesel at the rear end pushing the non-powered bogie?

 

It works fine in N gauge, and is still accepted practice by some manufacturers.  The problem with some tender drives was the quality of the motor not the fact it was tender driven.

 

Graham

[britishcolumbian]

1 minute ago, Moria15 said:

what is the issue with the motor in the tender and why is it going backwards?

 

My biggest issue is that I want to use Tillig's BR50/52 chassis to build a CPR class R3:

 

CPR R3 in red superimposed over BR50 in same scale

 

Problem for me is that the BR50/52 has the motor in the tender... which makes the operation problematic.

[mdvle]

 

10 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

 

It's no different between having the motor in a diesel and having a brake tender in front of the loco, or having the single powered bogie of a diesel at the rear end pushing the non-powered bogie?

 

Single bogie powered diesels would also at this point be unacceptable.

 

The market has advanced over the decades and that includes the expectations.  In 2022 it is expected that a new tooled diesel will have all wheel drive and that a steam loco will have the motor and drive in the loco and not the tender.

 

You aren't going to encourage people to move to TT:120 by adopting designs that have been abandoned in OO.

[britishcolumbian]

20 minutes ago, mdvle said:

a steam loco will have the motor and drive in the loco and not the tender

 

Please explain how:

 

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, britishcolumbian said:

Please explain how:

 

Please explain how that loco and a potential model of it is relevant to the UK market?

 

When launching something new, whether it be TT:120 or a new car, perception matters.  The market has come to expect certain things and launching models with mechanisms that have been discarded as second rate is a good way to turn away your potential customers and kill your attempt at creating a new market.

 

 

[britishcolumbian]

We seemed to be speaking in general terms, but okay.

 

As others have said, I'm not entirely sure how/when tender drive was discarded as second-rate... my only issue with it is it makes it difficult to either use the chassis as a basis for something else, or perhaps if one wants to put a different tender on the engine. Maybe I just lack imagination but I can't picture what it is about putting the drive in the tender that automatically makes it inferior to having it under the boiler.

[Jeff Smith]

Sorry but I haven't heard of a technical reason why tender drive was abandoned, I know it was but don't know why.  Just saying it was inferior is not a good answer.

[Hal Nail]

 

7 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

Sorry but I haven't heard of a technical reason why tender drive was abandoned, I know it was but don't know why.  Just saying it was inferior is not a good answer.

 

I got the impression at the time that people just didnt like the propulsion starting in the tender (particulary back in the days when things accelerated with a lurch). So the brake tender analogy completely misses the point.

 

Bit of a wider point but in my long career at one company there were two ways of structuring my department and we had to put up with each new boss announcing a brilliant new way of doing things and switching back to the other one.

 

When they asked my opinion i would say it was a waste of time, they would say i needed embrace change and I would retort, give me your bonus and i'll embrace anyone you like*. I think this phenomenon is colloquially known as progress.

 

*this riposte actually happened in my head 3 hours later obviously.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Hal Nail