MROL Poll 2011

[spamcan61]

 

It is unfortunate that the attention to detail across the selections is allowing such errors to be repeated year-on-year. I only noticed the 4TC because it is of interest to me, so how likely are other items to have been split in a similar way?

 

Well it's presumably designed by someone who knows quite a lot about railways, but not very much about designing a meaningful poll. I can't see any raw numbers presented, but it would be interesting(ish) to know, for example, how many votes the J15 received, and what proportion of the total number of voters that represented.

[The Stationmaster]

It is fascinating to see how people expressing an interest in the different Companies (Post Group) and BR Regions used their votes with a considerable difference between the Eastern side and the others. Excluding Scotland those claiming an interest in other than the Eastern side used an average of around 2.5 - 2.6 votes on 'home' steam locos while the Eastern side (including North Eastern Region but, again, excluding Scotland) used an average of 3.7 votes. (All of this assuming that people voted for locos which matched their Company/Region interest and discounting the BR standards). Interestingly those who expressed a Southern or Western preference used more of their voting power for coaching stock than either the LM or Eastern and this was also reflected in the votes for NPCCS.

 

All of this assumes that I can count reasonably accurately and also that voters went with their geographical preference when turning it into votes. The value of such a potted analysis is no doubt dubious to say the least but what it does seem to say is that the overall higher number of votes from 'the dry side' were targetted strongly on locos. But then the number of LNER classes listed was almost equal to those of the SR and (G)WR added together, let alone the fact that the Western list includes numerous duplications. All of which suggests that, if nothing else, Eastern supporters were out in force and they were concentrating on locos but - unlike the Southern & Western - this resulted in no one class standing a clear distance ahead of its competitors.

 

And contrary to what the headlines might say the clear winner in the steam loco voting was the Western 42XX/52XX 2-8-0T which overall got 96 votes (and 135 alleged purchases) putting it well ahead of its nearest competitors from the Eastern (J15 with 82 votes & 149 alleged purchases, and the D11/1 with 81 votes & 169 alleged purchases) and the Southern (H2 with 81 votes and 159 alleged purchases. You can of course prove whatever you want with numbers, it's all in the, er, 'presentation'. Oh, and this year's NRM 'special' will be ..........

[spamcan61]

OK thanks for doing the Carol Vorderman bit Mike , will take a look at the direct link.

[pete_mcfarlane]

I do like the fact that some one off types have more prospective purchases than people voting for them. Check out the SECR S class and Ironside (number 744 in the list and so good that one person wants 7 of them).

 

And then there's the Remembrance class - 7 people want 57 of them. Not bad for a class of 7 locos.

I'm sure this is genuine, and not an attempt to subvert the poll .

[Guest dilbert]

Well the Dukedog (32xx) polled some votes despite this being a new model which has yet to be released by Bachmann.. CoT also got a vote as well as a couple of new models such as the 28xx.

 

My favourite entry has to be 'Goods Brake Van (Toad) (Various lengths)'- it just sounds so 'cute' (like a kid wanting a dog with different size leg variations) and completely avoids the fact that these vehicles were built in various guises because they also had specific purposes such a pway, running on London Metro lines, or even restricted to certain routes with tunnels etc...

 

Only another eleven months to go, by which time we'll have gone thru another frothy frosty winter solstice wishlist ... dilbert

[Guest Phil]

 

And contrary to what the headlines might say the clear winner in the steam loco voting was the Western 42XX/52XX 2-8-0T which overall got 96 votes (and 135 alleged purchases) putting it well ahead of its nearest competitors from the Eastern (J15 with 82 votes & 149 alleged purchases, and the D11/1 with 81 votes & 169 alleged purchases) and the Southern (H2 with 81 votes and 159 alleged purchases. You can of course prove whatever you want with numbers, it's all in the, er, 'presentation'. Oh, and this year's NRM 'special' will be ..........

 

Am I right in thinking that the promoter of model railways in general and O in particular, having a company that produces kits in that scale, is owner or part owner of 5224. A 42xx / 52xx obviously won't be an NRM special but it is about time it was RTR'd, but I believe there is the small problem of trying to make it go round "corners". If that can be overcome than a Bachmann example on grimy black on about 60 minerals, or a GWR shiny green one on 60 POs would be just fine.

 

Ya see - ya need some nice wagons to put on the back of a nice loco, but I won't climb onto my hobbyhorse about Hornby wagons again

[Adrian Wintle]

And contrary to what the headlines might say the clear winner in the steam loco voting was the Western 42XX/52XX 2-8-0T which overall got 96 votes (and 135 alleged purchases) putting it well ahead of its nearest competitors from the Eastern (J15 with 82 votes & 149 alleged purchases, and the D11/1 with 81 votes & 169 alleged purchases) and the Southern (H2 with 81 votes and 159 alleged purchases. You can of course prove whatever you want with numbers, it's all in the, er, 'presentation'. Oh, and this year's NRM 'special' will be ..........

 

 

 

It is even more telling when you consider that the 72xx could be made as a tooling variant (as some kit manufacturers did), adding another 58 votes. It would provide a challenge to get an RTR version that could get around curves, though.

 

Adrian

[reevesthecat]

I do wonder how representitive a poll of the mremag readership in relation to the wider modelling community is, reading mremag regularly it appears to be mainly populated by steam era modellers therefore the poll results may be biased to this era.

It would be interesting to see a RMWEB poll and compare the results as there appears to be a larger proportion of diesel and electric modellers here.

Or it may be exactly the same!!

cheers

mark

[The Stationmaster]

I do wonder how representitive a poll of the mremag readership in relation to the wider modelling community is, reading mremag regularly it appears to be mainly populated by steam era modellers therefore the poll results may be biased to this era.

It would be interesting to see a RMWEB poll and compare the results as there appears to be a larger proportion of diesel and electric modellers here.

Or it may be exactly the same!!

cheers

mark

 

Doing a very quick count the number of diesel era modellers (on the basis of the primary and secondary era of interest) amounted to 315 including the BR blue period. That is almost as many as the 'Eastern' (not including NERegion and ScR) total of 322 and just ahead of the Southern which had 306 - these latter figures cover the period 1923 to end of BR steam. The comparison then becomes a bit awkward due to the nature of the post-steam railway so while a total of only 321 votes for diesel locos lags way behind all the steam categories except the BR Standards (which only got a total of 282 votes) you also have to bear in mind electric locos with 249 votes (including 31 for pre-nationalisation designs) and multiple units where 'diesels' scored 465 votes (but including not only pre-nationalisation but one pre-group design) and 'electrics' scored 427 votes (again including some pre-nationalisation designs and 1 pre-group design).

 

Even the highest individual diesel loco counts were low in comparison with the higher scoring steam designs with the highest only getting 26 votes - that would have put it in 6th on the BR Standards, =7th on the (unadjusted) Western list, 4th on the LMS list, =19th on the Eastern list, 11th on the Southern list, =3rd place on the electric locos list, and 2nd on the gas turbine list. So clearly the diesel era modellers were not voting heavily for locos and indeed their overall figure only just exceeded one loco vote each (or less if voters with other 'interests' had voted for any diesel locos).

[Ian J.]

I do wonder how representitive a poll of the mremag readership in relation to the wider modelling community is, reading mremag regularly it appears to be mainly populated by steam era modellers therefore the poll results may be biased to this era.

It would be interesting to see a RMWEB poll and compare the results as there appears to be a larger proportion of diesel and electric modellers here.

Or it may be exactly the same!!

cheers

mark

While not in anyway an RMweb thing, I am working on an online poll system tailored to UK outline but it's going to be a fair bit of time before even the test version sees the light of day.

[Fenman]

The GWR 42XX and 52XX are exactly the same - and added together (because they are basically the same class of course) they score more votes than any other loco class

 

I know you're having fun with this poll, but surely you can only add the votes together provided not a single person voted for both models?

 

So, if they are the same, surely you should just take whichever class scored the highest number of votes and use that as the total representing the combined classes? Although that might then change your subsequent analysis a little?!

 

Paul

[S.A.C Martin]

Here's what I don't get. "D16" - I am certain I voted for "D16/3" - have they lumped all the D16 votes together into one?

 

Which begs the question why it's not "D11" in the same vein (it's "D11/1" according to the above bit of news)?

 

Happy to see half of my choices in there, but it's an odd list to be sure.

[D605Eagle]

The GWR 42XX and 52XX are exactly the same - and added together (because they are basically the same class of course) they score more votes than any other loco class - which isn't too surprising when you look at the era/area modellers have said is their primary interest where the Western Region scores high. This class business also extends to the GW 54XX/64XX/74XX and various other GW classes which are split into number sub-groups. This was something I 'made representations' about prior to last year's poll and was effectively told to go away because it didn't matter and they would 'correct' the results to take account of this.

 

Overall and putting it in the simplest possible way I think the results largely express whatever the pollsters think it ought to express plus making sure that the 'flavour of the month' gets a good showing (if they want it to). All a bit of amusing fun and perhaps to be taken with a wagonload of salt.

If you add the 42xx + 52xx, and the 72xx as well considering it just has an extended bunker and a rear pony truck you get 154 which is a huge amount more than any others. Next inline by adding all the LNER/GCR Directors you get 115. That puts those two groups for want of a better word absolutely head and shoulders above the rest, unless anybody else can come with other groups? I wonder if either will be announced next year......

Jim

[Fenman]

If you add the 42xx + 52xx, and the 72xx as well considering it just has an extended bunker and a rear pony truck you get 154 which is a huge amount more than any others. Next inline by adding all the LNER/GCR Directors you get 115. That puts those two groups for want of a better word absolutely head and shoulders above the rest, unless anybody else can come with other groups? I wonder if either will be announced next year......

Jim

 

Except that, as I pointed out in post no.65, you can't add the votes together even if they're the same type UNLESS you can guarantee that no-one voted for more than one of them.

 

I'm guessing that some/many people would have voted for more than one of them (just as I voted for both the J16 and J17, and for the D14, D15 and D16) -- otherwise one person could vote for this prototype, unlike all the others, more than once, thus skewing the votes.

 

You should probably take the highest vote that any one of them scored and use that as the vote for both (or all three).

 

Paul

[D605Eagle]

Except that, as I pointed out in post no.65, you can't add the votes together even if they're the same type UNLESS you can guarantee that no-one voted for more than one of them.

 

I'm guessing that some/many people would have voted for more than one of them (just as I voted for both the J16 and J17, and for the D14, D15 and D16) -- otherwise one person could vote for this prototype, unlike all the others, more than once, thus skewing the votes.

 

You should probably take the highest vote that any one of them scored and use that as the vote for both (or all three).

 

Paul

Yes I missed that post, sorry. Was there anything to stop you voting for the same model twice? I noticed that when you selected LNER locos, it defaulted to a GCR/LNER A5 every time.

[Karhedron]

I am not too worried about how the poll is structured, like The Stationmaster I look on it as a bit of fun. If manufacturers do look at the results I suspect it is simply to see which way the wind is blowing rather than to make detailed plans.

[The Black Hat]

Well if I was Hornby Id be pleased with the results. The fact that they have done the Brit, B1, B17 and L1 all make modelling the GEML a real possibility. Now with the J15 and D16 so far up the wish list, its obvious that more people share that ambition and are wanting the less glamerous engines to haul the branch line engines and freight. Seems like Hornbys plan for modelling areas is coming off nicely and I imagine they are quite pleased.

 

I've maintained for ages that if the companies make models people will buy the new engines and following releases to make a new model. Part of the joy of the hobby is that you always add to it, even if it gives you the end result of tons of engines. So I imagine there are plenty of pleased modellers looking at these results, even if the top 10 is a somewhat unorthodox mix.

 

Im not sure what Bachmann would make of it. I think the possibility of the Duke is tempting as is the Western 2-8-0T.... perhaps they might try a Q6 or K1 though - by my looking at numbers they finished 12th and 11th respectively..... heres hoping!