UK TT

[CUCKOO LINE]

Seems Gaugemaster not going to produce items for UK TT but will continue to supply continental TT and develop products with those partners according to today's newsletter.

[D9020 Nimbus]

AFAIK the items Gaugemaster was listing for TT were rebadged Continental items — figures and building kits. I don't know which company would have produced the class 66, but GM do distribute Piko, so they might have been the ones — and might still do one if they think it will sell, especially in the TT heartland of Germany.

 

It's looking that, if TT:120 succeeds, it might end up like Z gauge in Germany, which appears to be totally dominated by Märklin with little other involvement. In many ways, Märklin are the German equivalent of Hornby (more like "original" Hornby, in many ways — and there were a number of technology sharing agreements between Märklin and Meccano pre-WW2).

 

[MartinRS]

5 hours ago, CUCKOO LINE said:

Seems Gaugemaster not going to produce items for UK TT but will continue to supply continental TT and develop products with those partners according to today's newsletter.

I have looked at the Gaugemaster site, their on-line newsletter of the 21 October, their Facebook page, their Twitter feed and even their Instagram page and can't find anything about Gaugemaster not producing items for UK TT.

 

Their newsletter of the 6 June 2022, in which Gaugemaster state, It is also our intention to release a Class 66 in this scale, subject to demand, is still on-line and can be found at this link or via their news archive at this link.

 

Do you have a link to the information Gaugemaster are not going to produce items for UK TT or is your information from some subscription only news source?

[irishmail]

From the Gaugemaster email I recived yesterday.   I hvae just copied and pasted the section relevant to TT:120.  Hope this is useful!

 

"22nd October 2022

Welcome to this week's Main Lines, your one-stop-shop for all this week's news, announcements and anything you need to know about your favourite hobby.

This week was a bit quieter on news, but that doesn't mean this issue isn't packed with things to read! To start with, we would like to take this opportunity to update you all on the status of our TT:120 range:

Following Hornby’s news that they have developed an expansive range of TT:120 products which they intend to supply exclusively via their own website, it makes little or no commercial sense for us to develop a complimentary range of products in this scale.
 
Gaugemaster are committed to supporting our crucial network of UK model and hobby retailers, who continue to be the backbone of our industry and an essential resource to the modelling community.  It is difficult for us to see why UK dealers would want to stock a range of British TT products when nearly all the reward in this scale would be beyond their reach.  We will continue to offer the large range of European TT products from brands such as Herpa, Noch, Piko, Preiser, Roco and Viessmann which have always been available for dealers to order, or to buy direct from ourselves.
 
Instead, we will continue to work independently and with partner brands across the more established scales such as OO, N and O to develop widely available new products.  We will share details of these with you over the coming weeks.
 
Everyone here wishes our friends at Hornby all the very best of luck with their new venture and as modellers, we look forward to seeing their huge number of newly-announced TT:120 models emerge over the coming years.

With the above taken in, onto the rest of the issue!"

[MartinRS]

7 hours ago, irishmail said:

From the Gaugemaster email I recived yesterday.   I hvae just copied and pasted the section relevant to TT:120.  Hope this is useful!

 

Hi irishmail, thanks for clarifying that. I don't subscribe to the Gaugemaster news letter. I suppose it makes sense for  both Gaugemaster and Heljan to wait and see how successful TT:120 is before they commit to investing in manufacturing locos. I would imagine that collectively modellers only have a finite amount of money to spend on TT:120 and with Hornby producing a comprehensive range of products I can see them being the first choice for many.

[APOLLO]

Hornby's Ode to TT120

 

The Small Faces - All or Nothing Lyrics

 

I thought you'd listen to my reason
But now I see, you don't hear a thing
Try to make you see, how it's got to be

Yes it's all, all or nothing
Yeah yeah, All or nothing
All or nothing, for me

Things could work out just like I want them to, yeah
If I could have the other half of you, yeah
You know I would, If I only could

Yes it's yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
You'll hear my children say, all or nothing, for me

I didn't tell you no lies
So don't you sit there and cry girl
Yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
D'you know what I mean
You got to, got to, go to keep on trying, yeah
All or nothing, mm yeah
All or nothing, to keep on working on to me
All or nothing for me, for me, for me
Come on children, yeah
All or nothing, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah
All or nothing, I kept on singing to myself
All or nothing, yeah for me, yeah

 

 

Brit15

[Ravenser]

Apart from a Class 66 in partnership (presumably) with someone on the Continent , what TT-120 British models were Gaugemaster intending to produce?

 

Not sure very much has been cancelled here

[adb968008]

On 25/10/2022 at 01:24, Ravenser said:

Apart from a Class 66 in partnership (presumably) with someone on the Continent , what TT-120 British models were Gaugemaster intending to produce?

 

Not sure very much has been cancelled here

Flipping that statement on its head, it doesn't look like they had much confidence in TT, and obviously lost what little they did.

[Ravenser]

5 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Flipping that statement on its head, it doesn't look like they had much confidence in TT, and obviously lost what little they did.

 

They were taking a speculative punt. On the one banker as a model loco - the indispensible post-privatisation loco , in all the colours of the rainbow, which also happens to be the one British loco that runs in substantial numbers in TT's Mittel Europa heartland.

 

But Gaugemaster were surely only the British sales front for this . I'm quite curious about which Continental manufacturer was behind the exercise. Who on the Continent thought they would test the water to see if a  presence in the British market was viable while selling TT Class 66s to their established clientele in Central Europe?

 

Someone said in one of the threads that Tillig tended to regard TT as their territory and had managed to run Roco out of town the first time Roco tried to get involved in TT. I don't know whether that's true but it does suggest one scenario - "The Empire Strikes Back" .  A reprisal for Arnold's incursion into TT : snatch the plum loco class from under the noses of a company not very interested in D+E who largely rely on reruns of basic vintage tooling and who have serious issues getting product into the shops (That may be a very distorted and inaccurate view of Hornby , but it's what a Continental manufacturer would presumably have picked up on the grapevine)

 

Once Hornby had announced they had a 66 at an advanced stage of tooling for release in 9 months time, the whole basis of whatever underlay the Gaugemaster announcement had evaporated. Of course it would be quietly dropped.

 

Since Gaugemaster are also distributers and wholesalers to model shops the announcement was accompanied by some warm words of support for the shops (Gaugemaster's customers..)  in their fight with Hornby. Gaugemaster have very little dependance on Hornby - they sell some through their shop but otherwise Hotnby aren't part of their business.

 

Perhaps it wasn't Tillig, it was someone else

 

But still - a manufacturer with existing interests in TT was interested in tooling up a loco for the British market if they could find some interest.

 

That's why TT:120 isn't quite like Triang's TT-3 or Marklin Z. If Hornby dropped out there are other players in this scale on the Continent who would be interested in serving  British 1:120 scale modellers if they exist in any significant number. Perhaps in a small way only, but still there would be ongoing commercial support for the scale

 

Once a 1:120 Class 66 model has been tooled , it is going to stay in production at some level, with someone , if only for the Continental market 

 

 

[D9020 Nimbus]

AFAIK, apart from Arnold, the only manufacturer of TT RTR that Gaugemaster distribute is Piko. But they normally use different couplings. I'm surprised the Euro class 66 hasn't been done in TT so far.

 

Tillig is distributed by Golden Valley Hobbies.

[The Meerkat]

why didn't Hornby go with European tt scale and keep it all one scale or is that to easy???

[NBL]

19 minutes ago, The Meerkat said:

why didn't Hornby go with European tt scale and keep it all one scale or is that to easy???

Hornby TT 120 is the same scale as European TT

[The Meerkat]

23 hours ago, NBL said:

Hornby TT 120 is the same scale as European TT

i heard its not compatible ??

[PeterStiles]

Just now, The Meerkat said:

23 hours ago, NBL said:

Hornby TT 120 is the same scale as European TT

i heard its not compatible ??

There was me thinking Meerkats had good hearing...

[frobisher]

1 minute ago, The Meerkat said:

i heard its not compatible ??

 

In what way?  It's pretty much the whole point of TT:120 is that it is same scale, same standards as the dominant European TT scale.  The 120 suffix is there to distinguish it from the former TT:3 range which went its own distinctly Triang way whilst using the same gauge of track.

[The Meerkat]

28 minutes ago, PeterStiles said:

There was me thinking Meerkats had good hearing...

LOL

[HSB]

It's only incompatible visually if you want to run British and Continental stuff together as the Continental loading gauge is a lot bigger. Only some Continental ferry wagons are designed to run in the UK. Wheel and track standards are the same.

[The Meerkat]

23 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

In what way?  It's pretty much the whole point of TT:120 is that it is same scale, same standards as the dominant European TT scale.  The 120 suffix is there to distinguish it from the former TT:3 range which went its own distinctly Triang way whilst using the same gauge of track.

ahh thats were i got confused with the old TT and TT120

[The Meerkat]

1 minute ago, HSB said:

It's only incompatible visually if you want to run British and Continental stuff together as the Continental loading gauge is a lot bigger. Only some Continental ferry wagons are designed to run in the UK. Wheel and track standards are the same.

thats TT120 not old TT???

[HSB]

British TT120, European TT and American TT are all the same scale.

Edited October 3, 2023 by HSB

[Covkid]

On 02/10/2023 at 16:06, HSB said:

It's only incompatible visually if you want to run British and Continental stuff together as the Continental loading gauge is a lot bigger. Only some Continental ferry wagons are designed to run in the UK. Wheel and track standards are the same.

But it exactly isn't incompatible. This was Simon Kohler's dream - to be able to run European stuff on the same layout. Google class 66s in Europe or 59003 for that matter. The European wagons tower over the UK designed locos.

 

My dad used to rant about this because he wanted OO scale non UK locos. He had the Kitmaster range - German class 23, Swiss Krokodil, French 241P and the Italian Crosti.  They did indeed tower over his Hornby Dublo tinplate!! But he wanted big USA locos. He once tried to bid on a US design big steam loco manufactured on OO scale but the bidding was quite fierce.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Covkid

[adb968008]

I run my HO alongside my OO. They coexist in their own worlds on my shared track.

 

But beyond that theres not much point running European or US alongside British stuff, theres very little overlap and tends to be niche.. 1 class 56 and 47 in Hungary, 86’s /87’s in Bulgaria, a few 92s across EE.

When the 37/58’s were in Europe they were mostly on construction projects on new lines, though the 58’s ran a little in Holland.

 

The big one is the 66 and at least three rival HO 66 projects exist.

 

For steam your looking at a few wartime locos, WD, Jinty etc unless your doing Turkish 8f’s or Greek WD 2-10-0’s.

 

so there not much  reason in any scale.

Edited October 20, 2023 by adb968008

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

.... theres not much point running European or US alongside British stuff, theres very little overlap and tends to be niche..

Ignoring the US, of course, one of the attractions to me of TT120 was the opportunity to re-create a very regular traffic I used to see myself, of Continental ferry tankers to the Albright & Wilsons Chemical works in Oldbury, West Midlands.

Granted it was a niche traffic flow (lost, ironically, when the Channel Tunnel opened) but TT120 would allow UK locos to pull genuine EU stock in the same scale, in the same - prototypical - universe!!

The stumbling block so far for me is the lack of suitable UK diesels, although no doubt they will/may become available, and as far as I can tell, the similar lack of ferry spec. chemical tankers.

[Mike Harvey]

8 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Ignoring the US, of course, one of the attractions to me of TT120 was the opportunity to re-create a very regular traffic I used to see myself, of Continental ferry tankers to the Albright & Wilsons Chemical works in Oldbury, West Midlands.

Granted it was a niche traffic flow (lost, ironically, when the Channel Tunnel opened) but TT120 would allow UK locos to pull genuine EU stock in the same scale, in the same - prototypical - universe!!

The stumbling block so far for me is the lack of suitable UK diesels, although no doubt they will/may become available, and as far as I can tell, the similar lack of ferry spec. chemical tankers.

Just needs Class 31, UK gauge ferry vans and UK gauge tankers and you are there. The prohibition on hazardous cargoes passing through the Channel Tunnel did for several regular international flows. I campaigned for some train ferry capacity to be retained for hazardous cargoes but it was felt that retaining maritime capacity could undermine the non-hazardous flows switching to the Tunnel.

Edited October 21, 2023 by Mike Harvey
Added info

[F-UnitMad]

48 minutes ago, Mike Harvey said:

Just needs Class 31, UK gauge ferry vans and UK gauge tankers and you are there.

The first two will no doubt come along in due course. Classes 25 & 37 were also used. The tankers were distinctively Continental though, unlike any domestic tankers, and that's part of the appeal. I could do it in O scale, as the difference between 1:43.5 and 1:45 is minimal, or at least a lot less of a gap than there is between 1:76 & 1:87!!

But I don't have space to do it in O; TT120 opens up that opportunity, even if I'd need a magnifying glass to see small models again!!