How will TT:120 differentiate itself from N, OO and 3mm scale?

[Revolution Mike]

On 18/06/2022 at 15:07, NCB said:

Maybe with N is not so obvious until you look at what Corgi have done with  their static TT models; they have a fineness and presence which has eluded even the best N models, and show there is a clear slot between N and 3mm to be filled. My view is that to fill it manufacturers will need to aim for the highest standards, even if prices are high.

 

I'm not sure that I agree with you on the difference in presence/finesse between 1:148 and 1:120 - I'll reserve judgement on that until we see the first UK models.

 

However I agree with you completely on the latter point ie that it will need to be high standards (and almost certainly high prices).  More than anything relatively low volume production runs will probably have to determine high prices, and having got a correct scale/gauge combo it would seem self-defeating not to go for the highest standards possible! 

 

Cheers Mike

[andythenorth]

28 minutes ago, Revolution Mike said:

More than anything relatively low volume production runs will probably have to determine high prices

Can you say anything publicly about the size of production runs on Revolution OO and N wagons? 🙂

 

Is it a fixed batch size, or simply the number of orders placed when the book closes?  Or is there an element where you produce more than ordered, which go to the retailer channel maybe?

 

cheers,

 

Andy

[Revolution Mike]

It is entirely dependent on the model ie no fixed batch size. The starting point is a minimum order quantity (which is a combination of factory MoQ per model and livery plus a financial decision on what is the minimum needed to cover tooling/unit costs vs what do we think is a fair price).  Obviously some of that cost of tooling or assembly/decoration depends on the complexity of the models in question ie a simple box is likely to be cheaper than a more complicated tank.

 

After tooling and unit costs the greatest impact on price is normally volume of (expected) sales ie higher volume = lower price.

 

The batch size is a combination of orders direct from customers and retailers.  

 

Cheers Mike

[Hobby]

On 17/06/2022 at 22:06, whart57 said:

You'd be surprised how many Faller, Kibri and similar buildings that are sold as HO scale are actually 1:100 when you take a ruler to them.

 

Many of the early plastic kits from Faller, Kibri, etc that were sold as 1:87 were, in fact, 1:100, door size is always the give-away. Hence some track plans from the 60s and 70s included those buildings but when you try to make them in true H0 they won't fit!! (Been there, done that!) Auhagen have their own range of TT/H0 kits of which some are from the earlier Vero range and they are 1:100. However there are also a proper TT 1:120 range, as there are in other ranges. I suppose early on the manufacturers didn't know how popular each scale was going to be so compromised and saved costs!

 

On 21/06/2022 at 16:11, Revolution Mike said:

I'm not sure that I agree with you on the difference in presence/finesse between 1:148 and 1:120 - I'll reserve judgement on that until we see the first UK models.

 

I've modelled in 00, H0 and TT scales and whilst I've not modelled in N, I have seen and handled many N scale buildings and stock and I assure you there is quite a difference in "bulk" between N and TT 1:120. the photos of the A4 clearly show that.

[SD85]

On 20/06/2022 at 00:13, Revolution Ben said:

 

Hi John,

 

I am not quite sure what there is to elaborate.

 

As you said, 32mm is, in British 0 1:43.5 scale, 4'7.  So, as I said, it joins 00 and N which are all out to varying degrees.  If you're happy with 0 that's great, and the degree of error is less, but it's still wrong. 

 

Unless you're modelling in European 0 gauge at 1:45 of course which is correct.

 

Apologies for thread drift.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

 

Could I just point out that not all European 0 gauge is correctly to scale. French 0 gauge is AFAIK the same as British 0 gauge (1:43.5 on 32mm track). Also, American 0 gauge is out of scale in the other direction (1:48 on 32mm track). German 0 gauge is correct.

 

I personally don't really notice the discrepancy when it comes to 0 gauge, at least not in comparision to 00.

 

To return to the topic in hand, however, I'm pretty enthusiastic about British outline TT120, and if they ever start producing Bulleid pacifics then a model of Exeter Central would become relatively feasible (compared to doing it in 00).

Edited July 5, 2022 by SD85

[rogerzilla]

It feels too close to N gauge to be properly differentiated.  The correct track gauge is nice but P4 hasn't exactly taken off and, before you say there's no RTR stuff in P4, there's none in this either - yet :-)

 

I don't think TT:120 and N can coexist in volume.  One will prevail, and the longevity of OO suggests the advantage is with the incumbent, however wrong it is.

[Nearholmer]

I’ve been thinking about this a bit more since the thoughts I gave back near the start of this thread, and I’m heading towards the view that TT120 is so close to N, and that N itself is so good in many respects these days that the real “fighting ground” is with N, and that TT120 could win hands down if it went for N’s weak points: track and wheel profile, and couplet grossness.

 

The track gauge, track profile, and wheel profile of N really do let it down, especially in the case of steam outline locos, and the coupler now looks seriously at odds with the finesse of what it is fitted to. My fear is that TT120 will adopt some historic standards on these areas which mean that it too lets itself down.

[rogerzilla]

Despite the looks, I quite like the Arnold coupler because things can be lifted straight off the track.  OO tension lock couplers need a twist, or an uncoupling tool.

[F-UnitMad]

1 hour ago, rogerzilla said:

before you say there's no RTR stuff in P4,

Didn't Sutton Locomotive Works offer their Class 24 with a P4 option?

 

No idea what the take up was on it.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, the standard N coupler is very practical, and once one gets down to such a tiddly scale it’s very hard to make things for a mass market that are practical without being gross; finesse tends to imply delicacy, which tends to imply fragility.

 

I “await with interest” as the saying goes. If TT120 emerges with a ‘finescale look’, I will probably give it a go, if it emerges looking a bit gross below the footplate, I probably won’t.

[spamcan61]

9 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Didn't Sutton Locomotive Works offer their Class 24 with a P4 option?

 

No idea what the take up was on it.

There's some figures from Alan Gibson 'somewhere' in a thread on here, from memory their wheelset sales were around 80%  OO (can't recall the EM/P4 split of the remaining 20%) ... and that's at the 'finescale' end of the market.

[Hobby]

12 hours ago, rogerzilla said:

It feels too close to N gauge to be properly differentiated. 

 

11 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve been thinking about this a bit more since the thoughts I gave back near the start of this thread, and I’m heading towards the view that TT120 is so close to N,

 

I think you both need to look at the other threads which have photos of N and TT side by side, there is substantial difference, I can assure you. Whilst I've only handled Continental TT stock (as there isn't any British as yet!), I have handled similar N and TT buildings and can assure you that they are not "close", for example the difference is much greater than that between H0 and 00, and even they can easily be told apart. In fact if anything the scale is "close"(-er) to 3mm rather than N, in the same way you can mix H0 and 00 but it still look different but be acceptable. I've said before that I see it's market as being people who don't like the small, fiddly, size of N but haven't the space for 00, for them (me!) that will work.

[Nearholmer]

When you come at it as I do from 0 and 16mm/ft, both TT and N are really tiny, the fact that one is a bit tinier than the other isn’t really the main point.

[Hobby]

I'd get your magnifying glasses out for Z and T then! ;)

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi all,

 

At the recent DEMU Showcase in Sutton Coldfield I was able to look at a continental TT Bo-bo electric loco by, I think, Tillig.  When I actually handled it and set it down to admire I was struck by how much physicaly larger it seemed than N; I had been expecting the difference to appear more marginal.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

I'd get your magnifying glasses out for Z and T then! ;)

Dust. Vaguely train-shaped specks of dust.

[Pacific231G]

44 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

When you come at it as I do from 0 and 16mm/ft, both TT and N are really tiny, the fact that one is a bit tinier than the other isn’t really the main point.

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

I'd get your magnifying glasses out for Z and T then! ;)

Dust. Vaguely train-shaped specks of dust.

Reading the very first model railway magazine (Model Railways & Locomotives 1909-1916) It's clear that attiitudes to size have changed considerably.

"Unless you are very short of space there is normally no need to go down to no. 0 gauge. nos. 1 and 2 gauges should fit in any normal sized room."

Mind you, so have attitudes to scale. After publishing what today would be an absurdly coarse set of standards for 0 gauge Henry Greenly (who edited the magazine with Wenham Bassett-Lowke) went on to say in the next edition "Now that the question of track and wheel standards has been settled for once and for all" Some chance - fortunately!

Edited July 29, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Hobby]

32 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Reading the very first model railway magazine (Model Railways & Locomotives 1909-1916) It's clear that attitudes to size have changed considerably.

"Unless you are very short of space there is normally no need to go down to no. 0 gauge. nos. 1 and 2 gauges should fit in any normal sized room."

 

I do wonder if it's more to do with who is doing the speaking, the above strikes me as coming from the mouth of someone in the upper middle/upper classes of that period where rooms 20ft+ long would not be uncommon for people in those classes. Once the middle classes got involved, and later the working classes, 10/12ft rooms were more the norm. If you look at suburban houses of the mid 20s onwards only the large rooms were bigger than 12ft and even then they'd be the main living space and not a space for the model railway. Hence H0 and 00's appearance in the 30's.

 

TT's continued popularity in the old Eastern Bloc countries is as much to do as the space available as price, the Communist built flats that abound weren't all that big inside. Luckily N never took off over there so TT continued to be the main scale below H0, perhaps the reduction to N wasn't thought worth it? (To turn the discussion on it's head!!) :)

Edited July 29, 2022 by Hobby

[Nearholmer]

That point about G1 and G2 pre-WW1 has to be understood in the context of how people used those gauges at the time. If we now think G1, we might think 10ft minimum radius curves, but as 231G will know from that magazine some users then were building what we would now call 

train-sets, using 2ft of 3ft radius curves, so could get a circuit and a few sidings into a room maybe 10ft of 12ft square. There are innumerable requests from readers for details of how to accurately signal such cramped layouts too - they took signalling far more seriously than curve radii. 
 

The abiding impression that I got from reading the first few years of MR&L was that enthusiastic and ingenious people of all walks of life, from the seriously wealthy to ordinary working men, we’re having a go, and that the image of the hobby at that time as only for the rich is actually a bit off-beam. Certainly wealthy guys built whopper layouts, indoors and out, but that was by no means the whole picture. People were chopping-up and modifying r-t-r stock on the kitchen table then as now, just that the stock was made from tin, and the soldering iron was heated on the stove.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Nearholmer

[F-UnitMad]

51 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

That point about G1 and G2 pre-WW1 has to be understood in the context of how people used those gauges at the time. If we now think G1, we might think 10ft minimum radius curves, but as 231G will know from that magazine some users then were building what we would now call 

train-sets, using 2ft of 3ft radius curves, so could get a circuit and a few sidings into a room maybe 10ft of 12ft square.

Beat me to it. 😉😁

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

That point about G1 and G2 pre-WW1 has to be understood in the context of how people used those gauges at the time. If we now think G1, we might think 10ft minimum radius curves, but as 231G will know from that magazine some users then were building what we would now call 

train-sets, using 2ft of 3ft radius curves, so could get a circuit and a few sidings into a room maybe 10ft of 12ft square. 

 

Maybe they could (just about!) fit an oval of track in a 10x12 if there was nothing else in there, but my point stands that the lower middle classes and working classes wouldn't have had a room to spare. I feel you are over-egging the situation somewhat, there may have been some requests but they weren't typical of the majority, it was a mainly well-off person's hobby, and they had the room to accommodate it and, just as importantly, the leisure time to indulge in it. 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Hobby

[Nearholmer]

You need to read the magazine to get the picture - it wasn’t as ‘cut and dried’ as one might expect. 

[D9020 Nimbus]

Perhaps the failure of N gauge to catch on in Eastern Europe was down to the poor scale appearance and unreliability of the Piko N gauge models of the time. (The modern Piko N gauge products are a different kettle of fish altogether.)

 

I think that the advantages of TT:120 over N are better for smaller locomotives — things like GWR 14xx, Terrier etc — especially if they can be fitted with digital sound and stay-alives. Generally though, an incumbent scale usually has the advantage in terms of the range available in particular.

[britishcolumbian]

3 hours ago, Hobby said:

TT's continued popularity in the old Eastern Bloc countries is as much to do as the space available as price, the Communist built flats that abound weren't all that big inside. Luckily N never took off over there so TT continued to be the main scale below H0, perhaps the reduction to N wasn't thought worth it? (To turn the discussion on it's head!!) :)

 

Piko did do a range of N scale, but it never caught on and remained a niche scale as HO and TT were already far too well established by then. A cousin of mine in Hungary had a Piko N scale set.

[Ravenser]

23 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’ve been thinking about this a bit more since the thoughts I gave back near the start of this thread, and I’m heading towards the view that TT120 is so close to N, and that N itself is so good in many respects these days that the real “fighting ground” is with N, and that TT120 could win hands down if it went for N’s weak points: track and wheel profile, and couplet grossness.

 

The track gauge, track profile, and wheel profile of N really do let it down, especially in the case of steam outline locos, and the coupler now looks seriously at odds with the finesse of what it is fitted to. My fear is that TT120 will adopt some historic standards on these areas which mean that it too lets itself down.

 

You have left out a key element - running.

 

In my limited experience N gauge is still a generation behind 4mm. Modern N gauge diesels run as well as a good "pancake motor" OO diesel - but certainly not as well as modern OO or HO centre-drive mechanisms . "running well" here means - does it start reliably? Does it stall or stick? How slow can you go.

 

Now large diesels are by common consent the best running locos of all. Small shunting tanks are very much more challenging . These days 0-6-0Ts and even 0-4-0Ts in OO run very well indeed - think of the Hornby Peckett and Ruston 48DS

 

But in N ??? We just don't see those kind of things - which tells a story

 

TT-120 will have twice the volume of N . That means twice the mass, and twice the space for motors and decoders . DCC in N still means semi-hardwired installations, and getting a decoder into small locos is extremely challenging for most ;people. TT-120 should have a lot of advantages over N in these areas.

 

I'm seeing TT-120 as offering the chance to build layouts with the same sort of subject and ethos as the 4mm "finescale cameo layout" , but in a much smaller space, suitable for modern housing.

 

When did you see a Colonel Stephens railway in N ?  Or a very minor rural branchline? The only examples of exquisite branchlines and shunting layouts I can think of are 2mm finescale, not N