The Engine Shed

[jjb1970]

I don't think the hobby will ever die, but I do think we will see a major adjustment in a few years due to the demographic factors noted in this thread and that the boom we've enjoyed in recent years of ever more releases at breakneck pace will not be sustainable. I think those with an interest in supplying models are making hay while the sun shines now (that is not a criticism, it is just sensible business) but it cannot last.

[Clearwater]

Though, ironically, picking up on comments on other threads, eg Tony Wright's in kit and scratch building, 'older' modelling skills may again come into vogue as modellers will need to become more adept at meeting their own needs and adapting products designed for other purposes to railway modelling

 

However, the counter argument is a) the time and space required for modelling favours those who've retired b) if you'd told a scratch builder 10 never mind 40 years ago that you'd be able to design and print components directly on a computer they'd have been amazed. How this technology develops over the next twenty years could be transformational. Who knows what will happen.

[The Stationmaster]

I don't think the hobby will ever die, but I do think we will see a major adjustment in a few years due to the demographic factors noted in this thread and that the boom we've enjoyed in recent years of ever more releases at breakneck pace will not be sustainable. I think those with an interest in supplying models are making hay while the sun shines now (that is not a criticism, it is just sensible business) but it cannot last.

I do wonder about that.  I'm sure the market will change - that is as inevitable in the future just as it has been in the past.  But the interesting, and for some testing, thing will be how it changes.  The vast majority of people today who acquire any sort of familiarity with the real railway in its broadest sense are either commuters or other travellers or those who visit preservation sites/heritage/tourist railways and the latter introduce them to a pastiche of yesteryear but still something which is attractive and can encourage interest - and many such railways sell railway models although hardly a mass market.

 

I suspect the appeal of the trainset will diminish to some extent and it would depend very much on who the buyers area at present - are they grandparents as is so often assumed or is the market wider?   The collectors - albeit a relatively small market in itself probably won't go away but their numbers are hardly likely to sustain any r-t-r models on their own.  So that eaves the very broad church of 'railway modellers' and that area will also no doubt change as much in the next 50 years as it has in the past 50 years but one interesting feature of it is that many seem to come to railway modelling with little or no previous interest in or knowledge of the real thing - and that too could well influence how things go in the future.

 

But if it follows various other hobbies what will happen is that the hobby will shrink and maybe even - as Clearwater has suggested - return to the form it had in the past where outside trainset land the 'modellers' were a very self-sufficient bunch who made their models instead of buying them.  I think there will still be a space for r-t-r but it might take a very different form in terms of numbers made (of each model) from the way things are today or rather perhaps I should say from the way it was for Hornby in the past with production in tens of thousands already a distant dream and the multiple of 1,000 for a new model already shrinking (which will of course put up prices).

[jjb1970]

One of the things I find interesting is that there is a theory that people model the things they are familiar with and that there is a tendency to look back at what was perceived to be a golden era of their youth. That is true to a degree for me as I model BR corporate blue going into sectorisation as one of my interests and it is pretty much because those were the trains I grew up spotting. However given that there are now a lot of people of an age where they probably have a bit of disposable income and perhaps a bit more time to model who would also have lived through the BR blue era you'd expect a lot more model releases for that era if the theory held. At the same time many people model steam eras that ended before they were born, another of my interests is the late Southern between Bulleid taking over as CME and nationalisation as well as an interest in the re-built Bulleid pacifics yet all of that had gone before I was born. To date, there has been very limited manufacturer interest in the modern EMU/DMU scene despite such trains representing the overwhelming majority of UK passenger trains and most train movements on the lines most people normally see.

I think the potential of 3D printing is huge, it offers the potential to de-couple individual interests from what manufacturers are willing to offer without needing the sort of scratch building skills traditionally needed to go solo or even the kit building skills. In the future the market may end up selling the files to print off bodies along with modular chassis systems to facilitate putting the mechanicals together and detail parts for the stuff outside of printing. There will still be the traditional skills of painting and finishing but I think 3D printing could fundamentally change modelling. That could well see a return to the past where the model supply trade has a lot of specialist outfits supplying detailing accessories and such like to help people detail printed shells.

I think there will always be RTR, but I do think that prices will rise as production numbers fall and that the releases will be less prolific.

[Andy Hayter]

I cannot disagree with the sentiments of the last few posts.  I do wonder however what will be the future impact of the current models.  By this I mean, as the current baby boomers move off this mortal coil, their models will generally appear on the second hand market.  So the market will be slowly filled up (perhaps even flooded) with high quality second hand models and I will suggest that prices will fall significantly.  What will this do to the prices on new models?  Certainly it will make the selling environment more difficult for the likes of Hornby, Bachmann et al. 

 

It will also make it more challenging for the manufacturer to find prototypes that the market will want in sufficient numbers to be profitable.  The days of re-releasing say the Flying Scotsman as a more accurate version I think are rapidly diminishing as the quality of many recent models is at a level where improvement is hard to envisage.   .

[The Stationmaster]

I cannot disagree with the sentiments of the last few posts.  I do wonder however what will be the future impact of the current models.  By this I mean, as the current baby boomers move off this mortal coil, their models will generally appear on the second hand market.  So the market will be slowly filled up (perhaps even flooded) with high quality second hand models and I will suggest that prices will fall significantly.  What will this do to the prices on new models?  Certainly it will make the selling environment more difficult for the likes of Hornby, Bachmann et al. 

 

It will also make it more challenging for the manufacturer to find prototypes that the market will want in sufficient numbers to be profitable.  The days of re-releasing say the Flying Scotsman as a more accurate version I think are rapidly diminishing as the quality of many recent models is at a level where improvement is hard to envisage.   .

I think that is inevitable - the appearance of gluts of material is happening in other hobby areas (especially printed ephemera at the moment) although it works in an interesting way which might well apply to model railway items in the future.  As a generalisation really good quality rarer items tend to hold their price in the resale market while lower quality and common items have nosedived.  There are some really good Edwardian railway postcards coming onto the market in considerable numbers but the best ones are skyrocketing in price whereas the once common issues can be picked up fairly cheaply.

 

Model railways are not quite the same but I think a similar thing is likely - Lawrence/Goddard coaches seem to be about in increasing numbers but the prices are holding up (alas), good quality kits unbuilt are still climbing (alas) but kitbuilt locos to a good average standard are falling in price.  (Incidentally I'm talking about prices at auction - not the inflated area represented by EBay and some retailers). So the market for secondhand will, I think, continue to develop in that way.

 

As far as new r-t-r models are concerned I think we are more likely to see an even greater move towards niche models produce in relatively small runs of a couple of thousand or so and at a retail price commensurate with delivering a sustainable profit for whoever makes or commissions them - but that all depends on having a sustainable source of supply (and that might become another imponderable of course),  I think Hornby are already getting that sort of message at the top end of their market/range and it wouldn't surprise me if the same goes for Bachmann - I wonder if it might already be the situation where it is becoming unusual for the basic structure of any model for the UK market to be produced in quantities exceeding 5,000 on the first run (so 5,000 basic body shells, varying details and llveries to finish the product) but with occasional exceptions.  And of course small runs equal high prices - unavoidable.

[JSpencer]

Don,t forget block obsolescence.

 

When Lima first went bust or Dublo disappeared from the scene or Wrenn shut down, their models fetched a fortune. Now no one really wants them any more as the entire range has been replaced by more modern, more detailed equivalents.

 

We have been talking about the last generation doing model railways for the last 40 years, but to be honest, I think things have picked up a bit in the past 10 years.

[jjb1970]

I'm really not convinced obsolescence will be a factor for current models. If you compare some of the older models that people happily (or not so happily) replaced there was a very definite step change in quality. To take one of my favourites as an example, the class 47. In its day the Triang 47 was probably not a bad model, but the Lima 47 was in a different class. The Heljan model was a step change in terms of mechanism however the over wide body put some off. The Bachmann and ViTrains 47's were a major improvement over the Lima tooling and combined both a much better mechanism and much better body than the Lima model. The latest Bachmann model is another step forward. You can see big jumps forward from Triang to Lima and then from Lima to Bachmann/ViTrains. However the latest Bachmann tooling whilst an improvement is way more modest than the other cases. I think the models we have currently are at a point where I'm not sure I'll go out to replace them if new improved tooling comes out. I see this with most of my models. Would I replace my Bullied pacifics? I can see that somebody could improve the rebuilt MN and air smoothed light pacifics but in each case the Hornby models are still good models and I'm not sure I'd replace them. Although I would be up to buying additional models. In the case of the rebuilt light pacifics it is really rather hard to see anybody beating the Hornby tooling in a way which makes replacing older models seem attractive.

[Clearwater]

I think the first question is what is the spark that makes one want to create a model railway. It's clear that a trigger is the railway of our own youth though personally i don't find the blue diesel/sectorisation era I spotted in interesting to model. To date I've resisted large logo 50s or intercity liveried 47s. I had such models at the time and sold them. For others, the railway becomes a natural show case for their modelling skills, eg landscape and building modellers. Once that spark is ignited though, it tends to create the interest in other eras. For example, I'm sure Burntisland will be a big draw at warley though no-one will have seen the prototype... Equally, there's always interest in broad gauge layouts that by definition are prior to anyone's lifetime.

 

What would be interesting to see would be to take the show guides for say Warley, Manchester, Ally Pally and York and analyse whether since 1970 there are any discernible trends in layout eras. I suspect it will show the obvious that there is a time lag between current big railway practice and what's modelled plus a core of layouts being set several years prior. Also, I'd expect to see the range of layout era increasing with time with earlier shows being more concentrated in certain eras with recent shows having similar layouts spread over a larger time period.

 

Where 2045 modellers will be fortunate is that there is now both a wealth of source material to be able to access that is increasingly well archived and, from fora such as this, a treasure trove of oral history to access. That will never be the same as direct primary sources but will, I suspect be a darn sight better than anything we have on the 1895 railway.

 

David

[Ozexpatriate]

It's clear that a trigger is the railway of our own youth though personally i don't find the blue diesel/sectorisation era I spotted in interesting to model.

You are evidently not the only person to feel this way and to a very large extent to me it debunks the notion that "we model what we remember when we were young".

 

I do agree that some familiarity with railways at an early age is common to almost all of us. It is also true that there are a lot of people who desire to recreate in miniature the railway that inspired these memories (I think pretty much all of us give it at least some thought), but I remain unconvinced that the maxim that "we model what we remember when we were young" is necessary or central to the perpetuity of the hobby.

 

It's simply not bourne out in data.

 

I've posted the following analysis before.

 

Simply put, if "we model what we remember when we were young" there would be far less grouping and far more BR blue models that people admit to.  

 

This is also reflected in what the manufacturers produce. While accepting that the only RTR models people can purchase are those that are manufactured which introduces a 'chicken and egg' scenario, if we accept that by and large manufacturers produce what they believe people will purchase then the BR blue contribution is non-proportional.

 

If Andy Y does roll out a new survey sometime I would like to try to refresh this analysis.

 

Interestingly I recently heard something which indicates that a large section of part of the model railway buying market do not look at the 'net (or perhaps not this part of it?) and remain heavily influenced by what they read in magazines.

Mike, were I feeling wicked, I might joke that this is the sort of thing one might read in a magazine, nonetheless I agree and think it is accurate - even for me personally.  I get virtually all my information on British outline models from the web but do get information on US outline models from Model Railroader.

 

The question of course is 'how large is that "large section"?'  We've wrestled with that question here before. I have to think that over time it will erode.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Ozexpatriate

[jjb1970]

Something I noticed today at WH Smiths at Victoria station is that they are now selling the Airfix year book which appears to be the Airfix catalogue with a new name. Is this another part of Hornby's marketing, to by-pass model shops with their catalogues and sell them via normal news agents? So far I've only noticed the Airfix catalogue but I wonder if they'll push the Hornby one into regular book stands?

On Airfix it is great to see a new HP Victor and an Armstrong Whitworth coming.

[JSpencer]

I'm really not convinced obsolescence will be a factor for current models. If you compare some of the older models that people happily (or not so happily) replaced there was a very definite step change in quality. To take one of my favourites as an example, the class 47. In its day the Triang 47 was probably not a bad model, but the Lima 47 was in a different class. The Heljan model was a step change in terms of mechanism however the over wide body put some off. The Bachmann and ViTrains 47's were a major improvement over the Lima tooling and combined both a much better mechanism and much better body than the Lima model. The latest Bachmann model is another step forward. You can see big jumps forward from Triang to Lima and then from Lima to Bachmann/ViTrains. However the latest Bachmann tooling whilst an improvement is way more modest than the other cases. I think the models we have currently are at a point where I'm not sure I'll go out to replace them if new improved tooling comes out. I see this with most of my models. Would I replace my Bullied pacifics? I can see that somebody could improve the rebuilt MN and air smoothed light pacifics but in each case the Hornby models are still good models and I'm not sure I'd replace them. Although I would be up to buying additional models. In the case of the rebuilt light pacifics it is really rather hard to see anybody beating the Hornby tooling in a way which makes replacing older models seem attractive.

Future technology will be able to go a lot finer yet. Carbon nanotubes and nano 3D printers will be perfectly capable of producing exact scale replica right down to every single internal and external component. Imagine rolling stock with scale wall thicknesses ? Robustness will be retained by using carbon nanotubes. You could whack the model with a hammer....

[jjb1970]

I'm not saying their won't be improvements, I'm just saying the models I have now are good enough that it is hard to see myself replacing them with new versions of the same really. Yes, no doubt there will be a better class 47 in the future, but in all honesty is it really going to look any better than the current Bachmann one on a layout? Ditto the Hornby re-built BoB/WC, Britannia, Brighton Belle etc etc.

[Vistisen]

Future technology will be able to go a lot finer yet. Carbon nanotubes and nano 3D printers will be perfectly capable of producing exact scale replica right down to every single internal and external component. Imagine rolling stock with scale wall thicknesses ? Robustness will be retained by using carbon nanotubes. You could whack the model with a hammer....

As long as they don't cost more than £100

[ruggedpeak]

Something I noticed today at WH Smiths at Victoria station is that they are now selling the Airfix year book which appears to be the Airfix catalogue with a new name. Is this another part of Hornby's marketing, to by-pass model shops with their catalogues and sell them via normal news agents? So far I've only noticed the Airfix catalogue but I wonder if they'll push the Hornby one into regular book stands?

On Airfix it is great to see a new HP Victor and an Armstrong Whitworth coming.

Aaaaargh, why do people have to be so negative?

 

This is a magazine by Key Publishing (of Airfix Model World and Hornby mag fame) http://www.airfix.com/uk-en/airfix-yearbook-2016.html- surely it is great news for Airfix/Hornby that Key have confidence to produce another title in the run up to Xmas that could well drive interest towards Airfix models and therefore model shops. Smiths don't have a big range of Airfix kits last time I looked. This will hopefully expand the market, so everyone gains.

 

Even if it is a glorified catalogue I doubt many model shops rely on Airfix cat sales to keep their shops open, and will be delighted models are getting more mainstream coverage.

[jjb1970]

I didn't consider it to be negative really, it was an observation that what is to all intents and purposes a catalogue is on sale in Smiths whereas at one time you'd expect to go to a model shop for a similar publication.

[ruggedpeak]

I didn't consider it to be negative really, it was an observation that what is to all intents and purposes a catalogue is on sale in Smiths whereas at one time you'd expect to go to a model shop for a similar publication.

Apologies then, I took the "by-pass model shops" to be criticism of Hornby after negative responses to their selling direct etc. Anything that broadens the market is a good thing in my view, and catalogues into WHS is great.

[jjb1970]

The days when every town of any size had a good plastic model kit shop and when many department stores had model kit sections not far behind some model shops are long gone. If anything good model kit shops are harder to find than model train shops in my experience. So for Airfix to develop a direct sales model and push their wares through new channels (such as selling their catalogue with marketing for their direct sales channels) makes good sense I think.

[Legend]

Something I noticed today at WH Smiths at Victoria station is that they are now selling the Airfix year book which appears to be the Airfix catalogue with a new name. Is this another part of Hornby's marketing, to by-pass model shops with their catalogues and sell them via normal news agents? So far I've only noticed the Airfix catalogue but I wonder if they'll push the Hornby one into regular book stands?On Airfix it is great to see a new HP Victor and an Armstrong Whitworth coming.

Actually it is a year book, although the 2016 range is listed. So like you I'm wondering if they will bother with a catalogue for Airfix this year. I think the equivalent Is the Hornby Magazine Year book, although there is no mention of the Hornby 2016 range there.As has been pointed out both are by Key publishing.

 

I've collected Hornby catalogues since 1965, but it wouldn't surprise me if they come to an end, or are replaced with something like a proper year book with articles on modelling etc. certainly I've found the last 3 or 4 to be pretty boring and buy them only because they complete the collection. We could do with something new this year. I would have thought Hornby will announce next years new liveries in an Engine Shed in near future, perhaps with a new model as a headliner.

[Clearwater]

Future technology will be able to go a lot finer yet. Carbon nanotubes and nano 3D printers will be perfectly capable of producing exact scale replica right down to every single internal and external component. Imagine rolling stock with scale wall thicknesses ? Robustness will be retained by using carbon nanotubes. You could whack the model with a hammer....

Or a link to a 3-d printer from that wonderful little programme from GWS on how to design your own GWR style engine... Would transform the imaginary locos thread!

[toboldlygo]

Last Engine Shed blog entry of the year is up:

 

http://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/news/the-engine-shed/7301/

 

And of course there's a spoiler of something they're measuring...

[4069]

94xx. Boring.

[Froxfield2012]

I don't usually participate in the guessing games that result!  But...does that look like the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and 9466?  I am sure I will be corrected

4096 just beat me to it!

[Bulwell Hall]

Last Engine Shed blog entry of the year is up:

 

http://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/news/the-engine-shed/7301/

 

And of course there's a spoiler of something they're measuring...

 

94xx - not my cup of tea!  But I hope they measured up that Toad in the background - that realy would be very welcome indeed!  And maybe when they finished at Quainton they went on to Didcot and measured up the 53xx - you never know!

[Graham_Muz]

There are a number of pictures in today's Engine shed blog only one of which is actually stated as being a teaser for something from the 2017 range...