My journey in TT:120 begins

[gc4946]

My Tillig 01761 pack of two Royal Corps of Transport DB UIC-X green carriages (Epoch III) arrived from Germany.

They're 26.4 m long which will test clearances around the oval circuits. 

Here they're running behind a V200.

[britishcolumbian]

You might want to keep an eye out for Tillig's RCT V36 named Poyntz (article number 02638), too, if BAOR items are of interest to you!

 

[gc4946]

20 hours ago, britishcolumbian said:

You might want to keep an eye out for Tillig's RCT V36 named Poyntz (article number 02638), too, if BAOR items are of interest to you!

 

Brief history of the prototype, it was delivered in 1940 to the Oberkommando des Heeres and was used at the Heeres-Muna at Wulfen. In 1945, the locomotive moved to the British Army of the Rhine, in 1997 the locomotive passed to the Deutsche Bahn AG and is now at the Eisenbahn Museum Arnstadt.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by gc4946

[gc4946]

On 30/11/2022 at 19:21, gc4946 said:

My Tillig 01761 pack of two Royal Corps of Transport DB UIC-X green carriages (Epoch III) arrived from Germany.

They're 26.4 m long which will test clearances around the oval circuits. 

Here they're running behind a V200.

an image of one of the carriages in 1969 appears in a photo of this website https://www.baor-locations.org/BMT.aspx.html behind a BR 52 steam loco, by then the train ran daily between Braunschweig (Brunswick) and Berlin Charlottenburg until 1990.

PS it costed just over 60 euros for the 2-coach pack but with VAT and postage added it mounted up to over 103 euros, Hornby's TT:120 models now look far more affordable!

Edited December 1, 2022 by gc4946

[Chris M]

On 22/11/2022 at 22:57, gc4946 said:

 Firstly, I'm keeping to the 90 cm square layout footprint, it'll relate to people living in small apartments with limited room to swing the cat. That's what's Hornby are hoping to attract its customers with its entry into TT.

It's a challenge to me, even when I'm modelling in N. 

I'm not afraid to ditch modelling conventions if the end result means having a layout that works in a small area, eg the need for robustness over fragility.

 

 

If you model in British N I can't see the point of going to TT:120. Its not significantly bigger, despite Hornby's huge investment there is a very limited range compared to N and you won't get so much in. As you are modelling European TT:120 you will have a much bigger range and the stock will be noticeably bigger than European N. My  comment doesn't apply to Euro or North American TT. These smallish differences in N scales have an odd effect on how useful British TT:120 really is.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Chris M

[Philately]

One good reason to change is to lose the awful N Gauge couplings and allow some shunting without resorting to lifting wagons off the track.

I have N Gauge stuff and I note that (a) Hattons seem to have abandoned new N Gauge and (b) that the range of available models is if anything shrinking except from specialists using crowd funding. Perhaps the easier handling qualities of TT120 will accelerate current downward trends in N?

 

But let’s face it: TT120 is aimed at newcomers to model railways in an effort to grow the market,  not at established modellers.  The fact that the latter are taking an interest is a bonus to Hornby.  So if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. 

[britishcolumbian]

7 hours ago, Chris M said:

If you model in British N I can't see the point of going to TT:120. Its not significantly bigger, despite Hornby's huge investment there is a very limited range compared to N and you won't get so much in. As you are modelling European TT:120 you will have a much bigger range and the stock will be noticeably bigger than European N. My  comment doesn't apply to Euro or North American TT. These smallish differences in N scales have an odd effect on how useful British TT:120 really is.

Except that it is correct scale to gauge. That trumps all else.

 

But of *course* there's a limited range, they're literally just starting! Complaining about that is like complaining that it's still 0:0 a minute after kickoff. 🙄

 

And anything available in TT outside of the UK is useful because finally you're using a worldwide scale.

[Pacific231G]

8 hours ago, Chris M said:

If you model in British N I can't see the point of going to TT:120. Its not significantly bigger, despite Hornby's huge investment there is a very limited range compared to N and you won't get so much in. As you are modelling European TT:120 you will have a much bigger range and the stock will be noticeably bigger than European N. My  comment doesn't apply to Euro or North American TT. These smallish differences in N scales have an odd effect on how useful British TT:120 really is.

I doubt if many people who are happy with N scale will go up to TT but I think there will be far more coming down in scale from OO or H0 who just find N too small. Though the size of 1:120 stock is "only" 12% larger than 1:148  that is similar to the difference between the scale of H0 and OO where the difference is quite obvious*.  I think though that the difference in gauge is more significant.

I've mainly modelled narrow gauge and though I never got particularly good running with 009/H0e I've found H0m on 12mm gauge to be far more satisfactory in terms of locos not stalling on pointwork and running being generally smoother. It may simply be that the tolerances just get naturally smaller as you decrease the gauge but I suspect the difference in centre of gravity  relative to the track gauge may also be a factor- larger bodies simply wobble more.  (I have modelled North America in H0 where the stock is about 5-10% larger so does wobble more - in reality as well as in model form- but it all runs on bogies so is more forgiving than fixed wheel-base stock.

 

*Between the world wars, when in Britain the scale for OO gauge was being argued between 3.5  and 4mm to the foot. a suprisingly large number of modellers said they  preferred 4mm because they found 3.5mm/ft just too fiddly to work in when detailing stock etc. This was quite apart from arguments about motion clearances etc.

[woodenhead]

5 hours ago, Philately said:

One good reason to change is to lose the awful N Gauge couplings and allow some shunting without resorting to lifting wagons off the track.

I have N Gauge stuff and I note that (a) Hattons seem to have abandoned new N Gauge and (b) that the range of available models is if anything shrinking except from specialists using crowd funding. Perhaps the easier handling qualities of TT120 will accelerate current downward trends in N?

Just like there are coupling options in OO, there are options in N that allow for hands off shunting.  The most obvious being Dapol Easi-shunts, but there are others such as micro trains and there is the Fleischman profi coupling.

 

When it comes to Hattons, I would argue they picked the wrong model - not many people wanted a Garratt, but if they had offered a Black 5 or a Stanier 2-6-0 I would imagine people would have showed more interest.  However, given some of the problems they have faced with selling the A3 and A4 in O and some of the challenges with the OO Class 66 then perhaps Hattons as a loco manufacturer was not going as well as they'd hoped and may explain why apart from the OO generic coaches they have nothing else new in any scale not just N.

 

38 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

Except that it is correct scale to gauge. That trumps all else.

 

But of *course* there's a limited range, they're literally just starting! Complaining about that is like complaining that it's still 0:0 a minute after kickoff. 🙄

 

And anything available in TT outside of the UK is useful because finally you're using a worldwide scale.

Having OO all these years has not stopped most people modelling, those that really wanted accuracy went to P4, and others played about in EM, in fact there are enough people dabbling in EM that the EM Society commissioned Peco to create a ready to plonk track system.  If correct to scale gauge was that important, British HO would have taken off in the 1970s, but it didn't and Rivarossi didn't get beyond a Royal Scot and a Warship, Lima moved to OO.  Similarly, people have been happy with N gauge for years.

 

TT120 is a marketing ploy, it's a land grab by Hornby to develop a range unfettered by competition, to avoid a retailer network and to create it's own eco system where it doesn't need to worry about OO.  It chose TT because N gauge is as crowded as OO, the only option was somewhere in between.

 

I've seen the TT stuff at Warley, I'll admit I am impressed so far and Hornby are making a good fist of it.  Would I give up N gauge, no, the same layout I am currently building would require more space than my N gauge layout and apart from the Mark 1s and in a few months a class 31 and 47, none of my existing stock will be available any time soon in TT120.

 

All this cr*p about it being the only true scale is marketing, to make you think you are getting something you don't currently have and that you need.  If true scale was that important, everyone would be building P4 layouts, but we're not.

[britishcolumbian]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

Just like there are coupling options in OO, there are options in N that allow for hands off shunting.  The most obvious being Dapol Easi-shunts, but there are others such as micro trains and there is the Fleischman profi coupling.

 

When it comes to Hattons, I would argue they picked the wrong model - not many people wanted a Garratt, but if they had offered a Black 5 or a Stanier 2-6-0 I would imagine people would have showed more interest.  However, given some of the problems they have faced with selling the A3 and A4 in O and some of the challenges with the OO Class 66 then perhaps Hattons as a loco manufacturer was not going as well as they'd hoped and may explain why apart from the OO generic coaches they have nothing else new in any scale not just N.

 

Having OO all these years has not stopped most people modelling, those that really wanted accuracy went to P4, and others played about in EM, in fact there are enough people dabbling in EM that the EM Society commissioned Peco to create a ready to plonk track system.  If correct to scale gauge was that important, British HO would have taken off in the 1970s, but it didn't and Rivarossi didn't get beyond a Royal Scot and a Warship, Lima moved to OO.  Similarly, people have been happy with N gauge for years.

 

TT120 is a marketing ploy, it's a land grab by Hornby to develop a range unfettered by competition, to avoid a retailer network and to create it's own eco system where it doesn't need to worry about OO.  It chose TT because N gauge is as crowded as OO, the only option was somewhere in between.

 

I've seen the TT stuff at Warley, I'll admit I am impressed so far and Hornby are making a good fist of it.  Would I give up N gauge, no, the same layout I am currently building would require more space than my N gauge layout and apart from the Mark 1s and in a few months a class 31 and 47, none of my existing stock will be available any time soon in TT120.

 

All this cr*p about it being the only true scale is marketing, to make you think you are getting something you don't currently have and that you need.  If true scale was that important, everyone would be building P4 layouts, but we're not.

 

1. Going 1:120 for Hornby only makes sense, they're already involved in it via Arnold

 

2. *Obviously* it is not aimed at people happy with something smaller, it is aimed at new beginners who don't have room for something bigger, and secondarily those who want to scale down.

 

3. British H0 didn't succeed not because everyone is happy with an incorrect scale/gauge combination, but because it was misplayed by the manufacturers.

 

4. 1:120 opens up the world of British railways to people in other markets (i.e. the Continent). Like me, there are many others who would happily have done something with a British theme, if only there were something to an international scale, oh hey now we can! The interest amongst the German TT community isn't insignificant, even in Hungary people are interested.

 

Tl;dr Hornby would've been stupid to do anything other than TT.

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

 

4. 1:120 opens up the world of British railways to people in other markets (i.e. the Continent). Like me, there are many others who would happily have done something with a British theme, if only there were something to an international scale, oh hey now we can! The interest amongst the German TT community isn't insignificant, even in Hungary people are interested.

 

Tl;dr Hornby would've been stupid to do anything other than TT.

TT isn't opening up the British scene to people abroad, it's always been there, just like people who want to model an overseas railway have been able to simply order some HO models and hey presto they have a railway.

 

You're correct on that last point - with a diminishing market in OO due to higher quality models coming from other manufacturers and the problem with redoing the same LNER Pacifics over and over then Hornby did have a problem.  Hornby have found that going back to the 1960s and re-inventing TT is the answer to their conundrum.  What they wanted was a return to the end of the 1960s and 1970s when they had no competition and could control their market.  To make absolutely sure that the buyers of it's TT range did not see what others might have to offer in N or OO they have gone with direct sales and social media - to place their customer into a echo chamber where the only maker of TT is Hornby and the only trains to buy are Hornby's and the only things you talk about are Hornby.  They know the power of the brand and the power of brands, and they are betting the company on it that it succeeds.

 

I have seen the initial stock and it does look good, lets hope that they are not let down with reliability, damage from poor packaging or light bleed on these new trains because they cannot afford to get this wrong.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

On 30/11/2022 at 19:21, gc4946 said:

My Tillig 01761 pack of two Royal Corps of Transport DB UIC-X green carriages (Epoch III) arrived from Germany.

They're 26.4 m long which will test clearances around the oval circuits. 

Here they're running behind a V200.

 

I do like full length European 26.4m coaches - though they do rather overhang on tight Setrack curves (in any scale).  I also think the red / grey livery for the V200 works really well (I had one in N-Scale and I only sold it reluctantly).  Looking forward to seeing how this develops - thank you for sharing it here.  Keith.

[Dunsignalling]

43 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

 

1. Going 1:120 for Hornby only makes sense, they're already involved in it via Arnold

 

2. *Obviously* it is not aimed at people happy with something smaller, it is aimed at new beginners who don't have room for something bigger, and secondarily those who want to scale down.

 

3. British H0 didn't succeed not because everyone is happy with an incorrect scale/gauge combination, but because it was misplayed by the manufacturers.

 

4. 1:120 opens up the world of British railways to people in other markets (i.e. the Continent). Like me, there are many others who would happily have done something with a British theme, if only there were something to an international scale, oh hey now we can! The interest amongst the German TT community isn't insignificant, even in Hungary people are interested.

 

Tl;dr Hornby would've been stupid to do anything other than TT.

Much is made of the correct scale/gauge aspect of HO and TT:120 insofar as r-t-r is concerned. However, both come with other compromises to make them viable in small spaces. In TT:120 they will have more in common with those required to make HO work, rather than OO. Wheel profiles and cylinder/valve gear clearances of steam-outline locomotives are where they will be concentrated.

 

In HO that spawned P87, which parallels P4 in 4mm scale. Unless train-set-standard TT:120 fails to attract any users with a "fine-scale attitude" somebody will (if they haven't already done so) come up with a similar parallel in due course. 

 

It's happened in every commercial scale I've seen in my lifetime; O, OO, HO, 3mm TT and N, and it seems to be a pretty much an inevitable fact of life in the hobby. 

 

John

Edited December 2, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Chris M]

3 hours ago, britishcolumbian said:

Except that it is correct scale to gauge. That trumps all else.

 

But of *course* there's a limited range, they're literally just starting! Complaining about that is like complaining that it's still 0:0 a minute after kickoff. 🙄

 

And anything available in TT outside of the UK is useful because finally you're using a worldwide scale.

I really don't notice that my N gauge track is 6.9mm too narrow so it doesn't trump it for me. More noticeable is the rail height. I use Peco code 55, I should use Finetrax code 40 but life is too short to make my own track. Other folks will say it is well worth spending the time making track and that's fine, we all have different opinions and nobody is right or wrong. I see Peco TT track is code 55 which makes it good to scale. I don't know what code the Hornby TT track is but at Warley looked very wrong to me, I guess because of rail height which I see as more important than exact gauge for a realistic looking layout.

 

I was not complaining about the range, just stating it was rather thin compared to what is available in N. The range of items available, while nice models, do seem to be very much aimed at the toy train end of the market. They certainly do not come anywhere near being a range of stock that could be used to build a convincing layout.

 

A worldwide scale is great but how often do you see British and foreign locos alongside each other? Yes it has happened but it is very rare.

[Dunsignalling]

4 hours ago, britishcolumbian said:

Except that it is correct scale to gauge. That trumps all else.

 

But let nobody be under the illusion that will result in models that look like smaller versions of P4 creations.

 

Other compromises will result in badly proportioned steam locomotives just as happens in HO.

 

In order to go round train-set curves wheel-treads need to be wider than scale, and there has to be generous side-play in the driving wheel-sets.

 

In order to accommodate that side play, there are two ways to create the clearance needed between wheels and cylinders. 

 

The OO solution is to move the wheels inward, distorting the scale/gauge relationship, but keeping the outer "envelope" of the model accurate.

 

The HO method is to move the cylinders outward, distorting the proportions of the locomotive. TT:120 similarly makes the scale/gauge relationship the Holy Grail and will inevitably suffer from the same issues.

 

True scale representation of everything can only be achieved by "losing" the side-play and shrinking the wheel-treads to something approaching dead-scale width, resulting in a requirement for minimum curves of three times the radius that is acceptable for train-set buyers. 

 

Neither represents much of a visual problem for diesels and inside cylinder steam locos, but it's not good where Hornby's primary fetish is concerned.

 

John

Edited December 2, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Having OO all these years has not stopped most people modelling, those that really wanted accuracy went to P4, and others played about in EM, in fact there are enough people dabbling in EM that the EM Society commissioned Peco to create a ready to plonk track system.  If correct to scale gauge was that important, British HO would have taken off in the 1970s, but it didn't and Rivarossi didn't get beyond a Royal Scot and a Warship, Lima moved to OO.  Similarly, people have been happy with N gauge for years.

All this cr*p about it being the only true scale is marketing, to make you think you are getting something you don't currently have and that you need.  If true scale was that important, everyone would be building P4 layouts, but we're not.

 

The problem with British H0 was that, partly thanks to Hornby-Dublo, (though it may have happened anyway) 4mm/ft scale for 00 gauge got into the lead and, as there were no other mainstream manufacturers offering 3.5mm/ft, everything else needed, from buffers to building papers, ended up being in 4mm/ft scale and, for British outline,  that remains true today . Edward Beal went over to 4mm scale and even Stewart Reidpath, with A.R. Walkley one of the stongest advocates for 3.5mm scale, started producing in both scales by the early 1930s. After the war. when production restarted in an environment of metal shortages and austerity, it made no business sense for anyone in Britain to swim against the 4mm tide and even Stuart Reidpath only produced for 4mm scale though for  both standard 00 (16.5mm) and scale 00 (18mm gauge). If you wanted to work in the correct scale for the gauge, you were effectively going to have to build everything apart from track and mechanisms for yourself so, those who wanted that, went the other way and adopted a more accurate gauge instead with EM.

 

In a way it was rather like the VHS v Beta battle in video. Sony's Beta format was generally acknowledged to be the superior system in terms of picure quality  (a professionalised version of it, Beta SP,  became the standard format for TV news and field production) but VHS got ahead in the consumer market and thus came to dominate it. 

 

At that time railway modelling was also very localised so, track apart (both Peco and Wrenn produced H0 track aiming at the export market), British manufacturers produced just for the Briitish market and there were no global players. That's no longer true and TT:120 is entering into a world where the scale/gauge is already pretty well established so everything from track and wheelsets to motor cars and trucks are  already widely available. 

I do though find myself wondering what would have happened if Tri-ang had gone for mainstream TT rather than TT-3 in 1957 (with whatever compromises their coarse wheel standards created) Would TT have been so overtaken by N gauge when that appeared?    

[woodenhead]

12 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

I do though find myself wondering what would have happened if Tri-ang had gone for mainstream TT rather than TT-3 in 1957 (with whatever compromises their coarse wheel standards created) Would TT have been so overtaken by N gauge when that appeared?    

It is an interesting thought, being between the two had it gained a strong following then we might all be modelling in just O and TT now.

 

I don't see a lot wrong in TT as a scale, I just wonder at the drivers to why it is needed now when OO and N have become so developed for the UK market.

[Dunsignalling]

1 minute ago, woodenhead said:

It is an interesting thought, being between the two had it gained a strong following then we might all be modelling in just O and TT now.

 

I don't see a lot wrong in TT as a scale, I just wonder at the drivers to why it is needed now when OO and N have become so developed for the UK market.

 

Simply Hornby's need/desire for a captive market where they are insulated from the competitive whirlwind that is causing them problems in OO.

 

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

Simply Hornby's need/desire for a captive market where they are insulated from the competitive whirlwind that is causing them problems in OO.

 

Well apart from that 😆

[rekoboy]

I think there is also a genuine need, recognised by Hornby,  to offer a model railway scale that fits better into modern houses. I work in German TT 1:120 scale and have a reasonably sized decent attic to play in - I would not have managed to fit in the layout that I have in H0 scale.

[Pacific231G]

38 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

It is an interesting thought, being between the two had it gained a strong following then we might all be modelling in just O and TT now.

 

I don't see a lot wrong in TT as a scale, I just wonder at the drivers to why it is needed now when OO and N have become so developed for the UK market.

Or even TT and S 😀. When N turned up, I wonder whether it was the smaller size that made it attractive enough to replace TT (termini in violin cases and all that) or simply that what Arnold offered was better made, more realistic,  and ran better than Tri-ang's products.   As a kid I did have a small amount of Lone-Star diecast 000 stuff and it did seem very small compared with the Triang models in TT-3 I was then trying to build a model railway with.

I do see TT as having an advantage over N by being just that much less of a flea circus and over 00/H0 as a "Goldilocks" scale particularly when it comes to building a main line layout* However, for a great deal of the hobby, 00 and H0 probably are the sweet spot between size of models and the space they take up. It's not perhaps for nothing that the most popular scale for model aircraft and tanks ets is 1:72 

 

* A surprisingly large proportion of the TT-3 layouts in the late 1950s and 60s, or those that appeared in RM, had a main line theme, I think because you could fit into an average spare room what you couldn't quite manage in 00 or H0 without a  lot of cramping. OTOH there were very relatively few TT-3 branch  lines because most people could find space for such a layout in 3.5 or 4 mm/ft. 

At Ally Pally a few years ago there were a bunch of Minories based layouts and I remember finding the EM, 00  and TT examples very attractive but the N gauge one, though a well made and presented layout, just didn't cut it for me.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Pacific231G

[rekoboy]

Continuing the topic of the freedom that TT 1:120 grants you in a typical UK location (traditional semi-detached!) here are further photos of my layout, Kirchheim. My two 'musts' for a layout are decent-length freight trains and plenty of opportunity for shunting - and these wishes have been easily realised with the choice of TT 1:120. Additionally, I have managed to include at the back of the layout loops and dead-end sidings (with track-circuits, no less) so there is ample opportunity, if I have time, for operating fun, especially as the goods sidings were designed as a form of time-saver for shunting puzzles.

[gc4946]

Here's latest progress on this layout.

All styrene bases cut (13 sections) and basic road layout installed, perimeter road round inside of oval and grid layout with centre intersection.

Some edges highlighted to show road layout clearer.

Detailed roads, pavements, etc await arrival of Quonset structures from the U.S and outstanding track from Germany.

 

[gc4946]

This week my Matchbox Routemaster arrived in the post.

I placed this aside my Corgi Enviro400.

(NB as the model was bought in 2012 it represents the earlier Enviro400 version, not the later MMC variant)

Sources of prototype dimensions: Wikipedia.

 

Dimensions of model Routemaster: 71 mm long x 35 mm high x 20.5 mm wide.

Dimensions of prototype: 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m) long x 14ft 4 1/2 in (4.38 m) high x 8 ft (2.44 m) wide

 

Dimensions of model Enviro400: 75 mm long x 36.5 mm high x 22.5 mm wide.

Dimensions of prototype: 10.1 m long x 4.2 m high x 2.55 m wide.

 

The Routemaster scales around 1:117, the Enviro400 scales around 1:110.

If scales are confirmed I'll add either or both those buses in the appropriate thread in the TT120 section.

 

 

[gc4946]

My second (and for now the final West German epoch III loco) Tillig 02743 Deutsche Bundesbahn Epoch III diesel arrived from Scograil.

 

V 162 003 loco (later 217 003), built by Krupp with Siemens electrical generator in 1966 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Class_V_162

 

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by gc4946