Wright writes.....

[micklner]

Good luck to you as you know you device , personally a big no no to give as advice to others, who may not read the full details before putting a can in a hot oven !!

 

Aerosol cans are a potential bomb, hence the warning on the cans ( I am not trying to sound dramatic).

 

Edited October 19, 2019 by micklner

[The Stationmaster]

23 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

No, no, no, no, no !!!!

 

WHY would the market be far more limited? The potential purchasers don't (apparently) care what the model resembles (or doesn't). Why would potential purchasers be deterred if the model actually looked like a real coach - apparently, they wouldn't know the difference anyway !

 

Please - let's have some logic here. As no-one can - apparently - put forward a case for the 'generic' coach, I must conclude that muddled thinking was indeed behind this project.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

I suspect - and am happy to be corrected by them - that Hattons thinking was very straightforward.  Generic vehicles of types most people are unfamiliar with but which have 'a look' of something from the period they are meant to represent and which are aided in achieving 'identity' by a particular colour scheme will sell in sufficient quantities to cover the tooling costs and turn a profit for Hattons.    Anybody is free to research, design, and bring to market through whatever form of manufacturing process they like whichever coaches they like.  But if the market area is limited it is a lot more difficult to put together a positive business case,   However for all of those who are convinced it can be done there is absolutely nothing to stop them doing so - all you need is some time for research and design and some money, lots of money, to get the things manufactured and marketed, it's free market.

 

and let's not really overlook who these coaches will appeal to.  Pre-group livery locos are popular and in most recent instances have sold on the back of versions in other liveries for more recent periods.  Thus the locos reach a wider market which reduces the cost per unit.  For many, if not all, of these locos we can go out and see the real thing - that's part of the reason why they sell because I very much doubt if many of them go to modellers of the relevant Pre-Group company.   getting a bit more on track for this thread the newly announced Rails/NRM SE&CR D will sell in the fancy SE&CR livery because people g can go and see it - so they know it and soon they'll find they can buy it.  But many of the people buying these locos are hardly likely to be either able to see the relevant coaches or to go out and look for them if they exist, although I bet they might like something that looks sufficiently right in the right colour (if they know that much?) for their pretty engine to pull.  That's where Hattons have seen and intend to exploit a gap in the market - that's what business is about.

[uax6]

11 minutes ago, micklner said:

Good luck to you as you know you device , personally a big no no to give as advice to others, who may not read the full details before putting a can in a hot oven !!

 

Aerosol cans are a potential bomb, hence the warning on the cans ( I am not trying to sound dramatic).

 

 

Putting them in boiling water can raise the temp more than the constant temp in my warming oven, and more rapidly, which is where the explosion risk comes from, as you are compressing the gas quickly. . Realistically the safest way is to put the can somewhere in your moderately warm house for an hour or so.

 

Andy G

[t-b-g]

3 hours ago, Anglian said:

Can you tell me a bit more about Manchester EM – it sounds interesting. 

 

Way back, when EM first appeared in the 1940s, a group of very good modellers based in the Manchester club, invented their own standards. These included Alex Jackson and Sid Stubbs amongst others. They exhibited a layout called Presson, which appeared in the Railway Modeller.

 

They initially tried an exact scale wheel profile on an 18mm (not 18.2mm) gauge but experiment and experience led them to use a slightly modified wheel profile based on a prototype worn wheel, with a slightly deeper flange. The wheel details were published and on record but the track standards have been more elusive. I have built a crossing nose using 18mm gauge and a 0.8mm flange gap, based on a standard in Templot and I was delighted to see that not only do the Manchester profile wheels run superbly through it but so do modern EM wheels at a 16.5mm back to back. Proper old school wheels with thick flanges are not good, so old fashioned Romfords and opened up RTR wheels are out but as I said above, I don't really do RTR.

 

The thing that really did amaze me was when I tried a 6 wheeled carriage, with a scratchbuilt Cleminson arrangement, through some less than perfect track on Buckingham, it sailed through points, better than some of the Buckingham stock with various wheel profiles and dimensions. I fully expected it to fall off every where but it didn't.

 

When I first saw the wheels I thought they must be P4 until I checked the gauge and back to back. The construction of the wagons and carraiges, especially in the underframes/axles, is stunning. No variation, all wheels identical, true running and absolutely spot on to gauge. Everything flat and square. They used their own axles too, with a long slim extension to the outside, running in parallel bearings and the solebars attached by screws to allow for assembly and dismantling. Proper engineers those guys were!

 

I have done the maths and I believe that I could make the check gaps slightly smaller still and the Manchester wheels would go through but Ultrascales and Gibsons, which have wider flanges than the Manchester wheels, might struggle. With the 0.8mm gap and 18mm gauge, they all run perfectly and the track looks better than conventional EM.

 

I am not advocating that anybody else should follow these standards but I would like to have a go as it is always nice to try something different. When I created the Templot plan I was told by Martin Wynne that I was the first person to use them.  

[westerner]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

I suspect - and am happy to be corrected by them - that Hattons thinking was very straightforward.  Generic vehicles of types most people are unfamiliar with but which have 'a look' of something from the period they are meant to represent and which are aided in achieving 'identity' by a particular colour scheme will sell in sufficient quantities to cover the tooling costs and turn a profit for Hattons.    Anybody is free to research, design, and bring to market through whatever form of manufacturing process they like whichever coaches they like.  But if the market area is limited it is a lot more difficult to put together a positive business case,   However for all of those who are convinced it can be done there is absolutely nothing to stop them doing so - all you need is some time for research and design and some money, lots of money, to get the things manufactured and marketed, it's free market.

 

and let's not really overlook who these coaches will appeal to.  Pre-group livery locos are popular and in most recent instances have sold on the back of versions in other liveries for more recent periods.  Thus the locos reach a wider market which reduces the cost per unit.  For many, if not all, of these locos we can go out and see the real thing - that's part of the reason why they sell because I very much doubt if many of them go to modellers of the relevant Pre-Group company.   getting a bit more on track for this thread the newly announced Rails/NRM SE&CR D will sell in the fancy SE&CR livery because people g can go and see it - so they know it and soon they'll find they can buy it.  But many of the people buying these locos are hardly likely to be either able to see the relevant coaches or to go out and look for them if they exist, although I bet they might like something that looks sufficiently right in the right colour (if they know that much?) for their pretty engine to pull.  That's where Hattons have seen and intend to exploit a gap in the market - that's what business is about.

Good to see somebody writing some sense about these coaches.

[TheSignalEngineer]

1 hour ago, uax6 said:

 

Putting them in boiling water can raise the temp more than the constant temp in my warming oven, and more rapidly, which is where the explosion risk comes from, as you are compressing the gas quickly. . Realistically the safest way is to put the can somewhere in your moderately warm house for an hour or so.

 

Andy G

No need for ovens or boiling water. If the cans have come in from a cold place and time is short  I find that a jug of water about hand hot for a couple of minutes is usually warm enough. Plenty of shaking seems much more important for rattle cans especially as your hand will slightly warm them.

[PMP]

30 minutes ago, westerner said:

Good to see somebody writing some sense about these coaches.

Absolutely! And if they do as well as I think they will, the same commercial logic would apply to a future range of bogie stock.

[Headstock]

34 minutes ago, westerner said:

Good to see somebody writing some sense about these coaches.

 

1 minute ago, PMP said:

Absolutely! And if they do as well as I think they will, the same commercial logic would apply to a future range of bogie stock.

 

Sense? Profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic. It seems to me that Railway modellers have lost control of their own hobby, reduced to mere consumers of products.

[CF MRC]

56 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

 

Way back, when EM first appeared in the 1940s, a group of very good modellers based in the Manchester club, invented their own standards. These included Alex Jackson and Sid Stubbs amongst others. They exhibited a layout called Presson, which appeared in the Railway Modeller.

 

They initially tried an exact scale wheel profile on an 18mm (not 18.2mm) gauge but experiment and experience led them to use a slightly modified wheel profile based on a prototype worn wheel, with a slightly deeper flange. The wheel details were published and on record but the track standards have been more elusive. I have built a crossing nose using 18mm gauge and a 0.8mm flange gap, based on a standard in Templot and I was delighted to see that not only do the Manchester profile wheels run superbly through it but so do modern EM wheels at a 16.5mm back to back. Proper old school wheels with thick flanges are not good, so old fashioned Romfords and opened up RTR wheels are out but as I said above, I don't really do RTR.

 

The thing that really did amaze me was when I tried a 6 wheeled carriage, with a scratchbuilt Cleminson arrangement, through some less than perfect track on Buckingham, it sailed through points, better than some of the Buckingham stock with various wheel profiles and dimensions. I fully expected it to fall off every where but it didn't.

 

When I first saw the wheels I thought they must be P4 until I checked the gauge and back to back. The construction of the wagons and carraiges, especially in the underframes/axles, is stunning. No variation, all wheels identical, true running and absolutely spot on to gauge. Everything flat and square. They used their own axles too, with a long slim extension to the outside, running in parallel bearings and the solebars attached by screws to allow for assembly and dismantling. Proper engineers those guys were!

 

I have done the maths and I believe that I could make the check gaps slightly smaller still and the Manchester wheels would go through but Ultrascales and Gibsons, which have wider flanges than the Manchester wheels, might struggle. With the 0.8mm gap and 18mm gauge, they all run perfectly and the track looks better than conventional EM.

 

I am not advocating that anybody else should follow these standards but I would like to have a go as it is always nice to try something different. When I created the Templot plan I was told by Martin Wynne that I was the first person to use them.  

I learnt a great deal from talking with Sid Stubbs & John Langdon in the MMRS - true gentlemen.  In the MRC we had the likes of Alan Cruikshank & Stan Garlick working in S gauge and Denys Brownlee in 2mm scale. It’s great that you are keeping some of Sid’s stuff going Tony.  I think that this generation’s models are still mechanically superior to many of our more recent efforts. Standards that I aspire to.

 

Tim

Edited October 19, 2019 by CF MRC

[DougN]

For Anglican's request on painting, what I tend to do is leave the model and the rattle can on top of my central heating duct similar to the heating panels to bring them up to a good temperature. This is warm to the touch. This does a couple of things, the paint is made more reactive as the thinner volatiles in the paint are more excited so react and evaporate more quickly. The model being the same temperature also reduces slightly the humidity around it, the warmer the air the less water it can hold, which is why cold weather doesn't feel humid... but hot weather at the same humidity does. Also a heating panel runs at about 45 to 50 degrees from memory so it will bring the items up in temperature without risking whitemetal solder or a can explosion. The other reason why I do it this way is the can isn't covered in water... with the risk of flicking water around while you do the 2 minutes of shaking.. also it gets rid of any wet towels etc which could add water to the area. 

[PMP]

35 minutes ago, Headstock said:

It seems to me that Railway modellers have lost control of their own hobby, reduced to mere consumers of products.

You’re predominantly correct. Even the kit builders and scratch builders are consumers of products unless they’re making their own motors, cutting gears, and turning their own wheels...  

 

How much someone uses RTR products of course varies on each modellers requirements. On Grantham there’s RTR products, not many as a percentage but they’re there. My own layouts have a far higher percentage of RTR products, but I use kits, they’re there.
 

Today at Lincoln most of the layouts (D&E show) used RTR, and it makes sense they do. There are precious few kits for D&E locomotives for example, and those that are out there, many are very poor indeed. The Hattons range of generic coaches aren’t going to ‘break the hobby’, they’ll just be another consumer product to be bought or left on the shelf. Hattons to their credit aren’t claiming the coaches to be anything but generic, and are clearly marketing them as such. 
Relax, they’re not the end of the hobby.

[St Enodoc]

18 minutes ago, DougN said:

my central heating duct

Dearie me Doug, it's not so long ago that you berated me for using an electric blanket!

[Andy Hayter]

On 18/10/2019 at 22:16, cctransuk said:

 

You're correct - that does not make a scap of sense !

 

Generic stock can only appeal to purchasers who don't know - or don't care - what their chosen locos should be pulling. So long as the livery of the coaches is co-ordinated with the livery of the locos, they don't care. The fact that the coach - under it's incorrect livery - is an model of something that existed is equally of no consequence to them. They will still buy the model, and modellers of the railway that did own the coach may well do so as well.

 

Argue it as you will - with or without logic; generic = lost sales.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

 

Well as someone who actually operates commercially within the sector, my challenge to you.

 

If you are so sure that the Hattons offering is so, so wrong, with your contacts within the industry go out and offer us some proper  coaches.  If you get the pre-group company right (for me) I will be delighted to support the effort and perhaps substantially.  If wrong then I will buy as many of yours as I will Hattons.  

 

It's time to put your money where the pen is.

[The Stationmaster]

31 minutes ago, Headstock said:

 

 

Sense? Profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic. It seems to me that Railway modellers have lost control of their own hobby, reduced to mere consumers of products.

I would think that railway modellers are getting on for 90-100% in control of their hobby.  This thread centres very much on railway modelling,  There are plenty of other threads on RMweb about offerings - be they good, bad or indifferent - from what we might call the 'commercial' part of the hobby - which was originally why I was a little dismayed to see ever increasing discussion in this thread about Hattons generic coaches when they were already being done to death the nth degree in a more relevant thread.  But if we are going to talk about a very commercial part of our hobby then it inevitably will be about business cases and marketing because if those things aren't present or taken into account the commercial part, which still can introduce new blood to the hobby, won't exist.

 

The hobby is a broad church, in fact judging by a small show I visited today in Didcot it is a very broad church with a considerable variety of small layouts in various scales and gauges and, as is common at shows, of varying degrees of modelling competence, realism, and operational reliability.  One layout used home printed sides on proprietary mechanisms to model an Italian narrow gauge rack railway, another showed an imaginary GWR branchline using a mixture of r-t-r and kitbuilt/adapted/scractchbuilt stock, another looked like  2mmFS but was actually N gauge with superbly weathered stock.   And so on but even including an imaginary Australian narrow gauge line using r-t-r locos but with scratchbuilt buildings that matched exactly the sort of thing you can still see in the Australian state in which it was supposedly set.  Broad church - definitely.

 

Yesterday some of us from RMweb visited Pendon and of course saw John Ahern's 'Madder Valley' - very much 'handbuilt' he even wound his own motor armatures, but he made some use of commercially produced brick paper in which somebody had invested time and money in order to bring it to the market.    Do you build you own locos, or stock or whatever?   Well if you do you will probably be using wheels which are made by somebody who has invested their money to make them and they'll only keep on making them if their business is profitable - the same with kits, motors, track, rail or any of the myriad things we use to build our railways.  

 

I bet that there are very few modellers, if any in most of the usual scales and gauges, who don't buy in something to help create their models and their railways.  The only difference really is the scale of the concern producing what we buy and the size of the financial base on which they have to work but undeniably it is still 'our' hobby because we are 100% in control of what we buy, 'borrow', or adapt from other use.   And if we don't want it we are not forced to buy it, simple as that.  Time to get back to railway modelling perhaps?

[cctransuk]

10 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

Well as someone who actually operates commercially within the sector, my challenge to you.

 

If you are so sure that the Hattons offering is so, so wrong, with your contacts within the industry go out and offer us some proper  coaches.  If you get the pre-group company right (for me) I will be delighted to support the effort and perhaps substantially.  If wrong then I will buy as many of yours as I will Hattons.  

 

It's time to put your money where the pen is.

 

Andy,

 

I'm not sure what you refer to as my ".... contacts within the industry .... "; I am a one-man transfer producer, Cambridge Custom Transfers comprises a couple of desk-top printers the size of a large electric toaster, sitting alongside my PC in our hall! Beyond that, my ".... contacts within the industry .... " are non-existent.

 

I have neither the time, inclination nor finance to produce rolling stock of any kind; but as a member of this e-group I choose to exercise my right to express a personal view concerning a commercial project, which has been publicised within the group.

 

I do not choose to accept challenges from you; not do I recognise your right to issue them in response to my expression of personal views. Clearly there is some expressed demand for these coaches; market forces indicate whether those expressions are translated into purchases, and whether the commissioners have made a wise decision or not.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

Edited October 20, 2019 by cctransuk

[t-b-g]

59 minutes ago, CF MRC said:

I learnt a great deal from talking with Sid Stubbs & John Langdon in the MMRS - true gentlemen.  In the MRC we had the likes of Alan Cruikshank & Stan Garlick working in S gauge and Denys Brownlee in 2mm scale. It’s great that you are keeping some of Sid’s stuff going Tony.  I think that this generation’s models are still mechanically superior to many of our more recent efforts. Standards that I aspire to.

 

Tim

 

Thanks Tim. I know what you mean. I look at some of the modelling and dream of being half that good. There are some wagons that I took to be Slaters Midland Kits but an ancient glued joint came apart on a couple to reveal that they are scratchbuilt from plastic sheet, so neatly that you just can't look at it and tell. Some of the earlier vehicles, made from wood in the 1940s, haven't stood the test of time quite as well but there are more recent models that I would put against the very best that anybody is doing today and wonder if we have really progressed. I don't know who painted and lined the Midland carriages (mostly Ratio sides converted to 6 wheelers with scratchbuilt underframes) but whoever it was, they were very, very good!

 

It is lovely to have them and it will be nice to exhibit them on a working layout one day. I don't have any of the original locos, which ran with 24V home made motors but I do have enough Midland locos of my own to go with them. I just hope I can raise my game on my painting and lining so I don't get shown up too much! 

[Northmoor]

58 minutes ago, Headstock said:

Sense? Profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic. It seems to me that Railway modellers have lost control of their own hobby, reduced to mere consumers of products.

Wow. Talk about taking 2+2 and making about seventy-something.  It's just some cheap and simple coaches; the world isn't going to end.

 

Hornby didn't kill off the hobby of railway modelling all those years ago when they introduced clockwork tinplate trains which looked nothing like any prototype.  As for when they brought out the (very freelance) Caley Pug in the 1980s, with all the iffy liveries its had since, they weren't responsible for the death of the hobby we're all a part of.

 

There isn't a manufacturer in the model railway sphere  - no matter how specialist - that doesn't consider profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic.  At least, not one that stays in business for very long.

[Headstock]

40 minutes ago, PMP said:

You’re predominantly correct. Even the kit builders and scratch builders are consumers of products unless they’re making their own motors, cutting gears, and turning their own wheels...  

 

How much someone uses RTR products of course varies on each modellers requirements. On Grantham there’s RTR products, not many as a percentage but they’re there. My own layouts have a far higher percentage of RTR products, but I use kits, they’re there.
 

Today at Lincoln most of the layouts (D&E show) used RTR, and it makes sense they do. There are precious few kits for D&E locomotives for example, and those that are out there, many are very poor indeed. The Hattons range of generic coaches aren’t going to ‘break the hobby’, they’ll just be another consumer product to be bought or left on the shelf. Hattons to their credit aren’t claiming the coaches to be anything but generic, and are clearly marketing them as such. 
Relax, they’re not the end of the hobby.

 

Evening PMP,

 

That's not the point that I am making, The product isn't aimed at me. My concerns are that large businesses now have to much power and influence within the hobby. Obviously the clock can not be put back. However, I don't see it as a healthy development for this reason. The nature of the carriages that you mention are being dictated by commercial concerns that are not the concern of the traditional model railway cottage industry. I would go on to say that these products are the kind of thing that only a large business could produce. The cottage industry approach is of more value to me as a member of the community as well as a consumer. I have concerns about the continued effect on those cottage industries because of the power and influence of these large businesses.

[Headstock]

12 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

Wow. Talk about taking 2+2 and making about seventy-something.  It's just some cheap and simple coaches; the world isn't going to end.

 

Hornby didn't kill off the hobby of railway modelling all those years ago when they introduced clockwork tinplate trains which looked nothing like any prototype.  As for when they brought out the (very freelance) Caley Pug in the 1980s, with all the iffy liveries its had since, they weren't responsible for the death of the hobby we're all a part of.

 

There isn't a manufacturer in the model railway sphere  - no matter how specialist - that doesn't consider profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic.  At least, not one that stays in business for very long.

 

Who said anything about the death of the hobby?

[Headstock]

19 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

There isn't a manufacturer in the model railway sphere  - no matter how specialist - that doesn't consider profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic.  At least, not one that stays in business for very long.

 

I would add, a lot of these people were not even businesses, just people being creative.

[Chamby]

1 hour ago, Headstock said:

 

 

Sense? Profit margins, positive business cases, market area, commercial logic. It seems to me that Railway modellers have lost control of their own hobby, reduced to mere consumers of products.

 

I am a consumer and collectively we have great power - we are the market force that creates business opportunity.... or can crush it.  Meet the consumers need, and you can profit well from it. Get it wrong, and you’ll soon be discounting hard.

 

Hattons see a niche opportunity and have decided to go for it.  Time will tell how quickly they fly off the shelves, or otherwise.

[Headstock]

26 minutes ago, Chamby said:

 

I am a consumer and collectively we have great power - we are the market force that creates business opportunity.... or can crush it.  Meet the consumers need, and you can profit well from it. Get it wrong, and you’ll soon be discounting hard.

 

Hattons see a niche opportunity and have decided to go for it.  Time will tell how quickly they fly off the shelves, or otherwise.

 

 You have the great power to demand generic carriages but you are weak if you want specific ones. From my point of view, your strength is not a strength at all.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Headstock
to clarify a point

[Craigw]

9 minutes ago, Headstock said:

 

 You have the great power to demand generic carriages but you are weak if you want specific ones. From my point of view, your strength is not a strength at all.

 

To me, the introduction of a range of freelance 4 and 6 wheel coaches will reduce the likelihood of any mass release of prototypically correct models. The notion that people will buy these and somehow replace them if an accurate model comes on the market is folly. We are talking coaches with an estimated RRP of around 30 GBP here. Many people who buy them will be spending a large sum of money. They will not discard them. They are just as likely to decide "I have LNWR coaches already"

 

Now, we see people talking about a range of generic bogie coaches too. I build kits and scratch build, so I am alright thanks. I simply do not think that dumbing down the hobby is a good thing - and this does dumb it down. 

 

The suppliers are simply relying on the fact that these coaches are "out of memory" for people.

 

Craig W

[PMP]

1 hour ago, Headstock said:

 

 You have the great power to demand generic carriages but you are weak if you want specific ones. From my point of view, your strength is not a strength at all.

Crucially the market didn’t demand generic carriages. The manufacturer offered them, (tooling not been cut yet),  and indications are the customers are saying yes please. The single prototype company model is for mass production too niche, appears too weak as you say for economic production. Therefore something for every man works by being non specific. These vehicles aren’t for me either, and I doubt they’ll have a significant impact on the carriage cottage industry. A purchaser of a Roxey or London Road etched kit isn’t likely to be buying into these, literally or figuratively in a big way.

 

(I’ll respond to your earlier thoughts re company dominance in a later posting if I may)

Edited October 19, 2019 by PMP

[Headstock]

12 minutes ago, PMP said:

Crucially the market didn’t demand generic carriages. The manufacturer offered them, (tooling not been cut yet),  and indications are the customers are saying yes please.

 

A wonderful example of the power a large business can have on forming the needs and wants of a consumer group?