BRM MAY 2015 ISSUE with FREE DVD!

[t-b-g]

I am intrigued as to whose opinion the Tail lamp feature is.

 

To me, it is one of the most biased, opinionated (as opposed to factual), unprofessional bits of writing I have seen in any model railway magazine.

 

Is it now official BRM policy that Bachmann is good and Hornby is bad? That is the way it is presented.

 

I can only assume (as the author did not dare to put their name to their words - very understandable) that it was written by somebody with a big axe to grind or a vested interest.

 

The DCC concepts point build review/article is also poor. If I was DCC concepts I would be furious that a magazine has presented my components as producing a point like that!

 

If the idea of building your own points is to improve on ready to lay track, then that one falls short by a country mile and a Peco one looks much better straight out of the box.

 

I built my first point from balsa sleepers and flat bottom rail glued to them when I was about 11 years old. I had no plan and had to draw my own. The resulting point was (still is - in the attic somewhere) miles ahead of the one in the magazine in technique, understanding of real points, and appearance.

 

Very poor, must try harder.

 

Tony

[2ManySpams]

Yes, that was mine. It was tricky becasue it's only about an inch deep so it fools the eye,

 

Peter

Yes, I noticed the slight of hand with the roof etc but you got away with it in all but one of the photos - very well done. Do you mind if I ask what reference material you used to base the build on - I'm planning to build something based on it and haven't found a great deal and those are mostly background shots. Any pointers would be appreciated.

[kirtleypete]

There wasn't a lot, it was just published photo's in books and it was usually well into the background. It was a case of just going with what we had; if you wait for that one picture to appear you can end up waiting for ever, and lets face it, if there are no clear pictures no one can say it's wrong! It seems to have caught the character of the building which is the important thing. 

Peter

[2ManySpams]

There wasn't a lot, it was just published photo's in books and it was usually well into the background. It was a case of just going with what we had; if you wait for that one picture to appear you can end up waiting for ever, and lets face it, if there are no clear pictures no one can say it's wrong! It seems to have caught the character of the building which is the important thing. 

Peter

Worth asking just in case you sourced plans or that illusive photo! I've lost count on the number of times key plans and photos have turned up after a build has been completed. Your model certainly captures the feel and character of the grain store.

[Phil Parker]

While I'm always happy to take any feedback on sometime I've written, even when it says it's rubbish, can I pick up some of the point article comments. (Quoting isn't working for me today)

 

There are loads of reasons to build track - being able to have the formation you want, cost and even, because it's fun to do.

 

I'm not sure how a Peco point can look better than the one built to the DCC plan as the RTR sleepers are too short, too narrow and too close together. My experience tells me that running layouts with correct sleepers makes people think OO is EM when looking from the side.

 

My brief here was to test the DCC concepts point system and also (this is the important bit) to persuade people to have a go. What DCC have done is upgrade the traditional copper-clad system with sleepers that don't need gapping and providing something flexile enough to produce a variety of turnouts. The idea is you download a plan from the website and then use the numbered sleepers shown on this to get the length/radius required. From that point of view, it does the job and is very clever.

 

Building track is a HUGE step for most modellers. Say you have to start with a full read of either the Iain Rice book on the subject of the brilliant 2mm Society treatise, and newbies will be scared off. The sort of construction this kit and SMP products allows let's people get stuck in without all the theory. Yes, if you have a good understanding of the theory you will produce a better point but being able to experiment lets the beginner build a working point, even if not a perfect one.

 

Maybe only perfect, beautiful track should be allowed - I'll settle for something that everything runs over reasonably smoothly and doesn't fall off. The DCC Concepts system allowed me to do that and I think will work for many other people too. It's only one way of achieving nice track though so the modeller can pick the path that suits them.

[The Stationmaster]

I am intrigued as to whose opinion the Tail lamp feature is.

 

To me, it is one of the most biased, opinionated (as opposed to factual), unprofessional bits of writing I have seen in any model railway magazine.

 

Is it now official BRM policy that Bachmann is good and Hornby is bad? That is the way it is presented.

 

I can only assume (as the author did not dare to put their name to their words - very understandable) that it was written by somebody with a big axe to grind or a vested interest.

 

Tony

Actually I found that it expressed the situation rather well.  Bachmann have a team who give the company a very professional 'public face' - they seem to understand the market they are aiming at and they court it and recognise some of its foibles and they do what they say when it comes to the retail trade.  In sharp contrast I find it at times very difficult to reconcile what Hornby says with what it does - especially in relation to the retailers and, at times, its relationship with our part of the market - I remain of the view that managerially it is very fixated on £ signs and as a consequence has lost sight of various other things.  But fortunately its development guys are right on tune with what many of us are looking for.

[t-b-g]

While I'm always happy to take any feedback on sometime I've written, even when it says it's rubbish, can I pick up some of the point article comments. (Quoting isn't working for me today)

 

There are loads of reasons to build track - being able to have the formation you want, cost and even, because it's fun to do.

 

I'm not sure how a Peco point can look better than the one built to the DCC plan as the RTR sleepers are too short, too narrow and too close together. My experience tells me that running layouts with correct sleepers makes people think OO is EM when looking from the side.

 

My brief here was to test the DCC concepts point system and also (this is the important bit) to persuade people to have a go. What DCC have done is upgrade the traditional copper-clad system with sleepers that don't need gapping and providing something flexile enough to produce a variety of turnouts. The idea is you download a plan from the website and then use the numbered sleepers shown on this to get the length/radius required. From that point of view, it does the job and is very clever.

 

Building track is a HUGE step for most modellers. Say you have to start with a full read of either the Iain Rice book on the subject of the brilliant 2mm Society treatise, and newbies will be scared off. The sort of construction this kit and SMP products allows let's people get stuck in without all the theory. Yes, if you have a good understanding of the theory you will produce a better point but being able to experiment lets the beginner build a working point, even if not a perfect one.

 

Maybe only perfect, beautiful track should be allowed - I'll settle for something that everything runs over reasonably smoothly and doesn't fall off. The DCC Concepts system allowed me to do that and I think will work for many other people too. It's only one way of achieving nice track though so the modeller can pick the path that suits them.

 

I agree 100% that people should be encouraged to build their own track and that if early efforts are not perfect then people shouldn't be put off.

 

If the tactic is to deliberately show beginners that they can put a point together badly and be happy with their efforts then that concept baffles me! 

 

The problem comes when it is an article that is part constructional and part review.

 

The problems with the point in the article are very basic. The wing rails and check rails are cut to the wrong length (which isn't the same length as the plan). At the heel end of the point, where the two lines split up, I cannot recall seeing a point where the wing rails and check rails all end in different places.

 

The rather untidy soldering and the poorly formed and blunt crossing nose are fairly typical beginners errors and are things that you can probably get away with, although they could be much better.

 

The wing rail/check rail lengths spoil it completely and showing a beginner that  is how to put them on a point is encouraging sloppy work.

 

Even for the most inexperienced beginner, a photo of a real point and a comment about "Look where the check rails end, cut them to the right length according to the plan" would suffice.

 

And the message that "You too could make a point like this from DCC concepts parts" does DCC Concepts parts no favours at all! 

 

The posting above really just makes the article appear worse than it already was.

 

It seems that we now have a policy of deliberately showing people how to do things badly.

 

If that isn't "dumbing down" at its absolute worst, what is?

 

What a mess.

[t-b-g]

Actually I found that it expressed the situation rather well.  Bachmann have a team who give the company a very professional 'public face' - they seem to understand the market they are aiming at and they court it and recognise some of its foibles and they do what they say when it comes to the retail trade.  In sharp contrast I find it at times very difficult to reconcile what Hornby says with what it does - especially in relation to the retailers and, at times, its relationship with our part of the market - I remain of the view that managerially it is very fixated on £ signs and as a consequence has lost sight of various other things.  But fortunately its development guys are right on tune with what many of us are looking for.

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not defending the current Hornby marketing policy. I can understand it in view of the dreadful few years the company has had but I am not sure their policy is helpful for the future.

 

I just have a problem when a supposedly neutral publisher takes such a hard swipe at one manufacturer while praising another to the rafters, when they both produce products to a very similar standard.

 

It is as if a teddy has been well and truly chucked out of a pram somewhere.

 

Where will we stand when it comes to reviews from now on. Will every fault on a Hornby model get highlighted and every fault on a Bachmann one glossed over as being "minor and insignificant"?

 

I just think that a major magazine adopting what seems like a very strong position against a major manufacturer, is a dangerous step and not one that I want to see.

 

If it had been presented as the view of a particular individual, I could happily accept that the person might be showing some personal bias but to have it as BRM policy is just plain wrong.

[Andy Y]

Nobody's presenting it as BRM policy; it is an opinion piece.

[iamjamie]

I feel like the Tail Lamp feature could probably have addressed the same points without targeting two manufacturers specifically (I'm sure most of us could have worked out who they were talking about anyway!). Product choices, manufacturing issues, and marketing are all things that affect companies large and small. 

 

I'm not sure if the Tail Lamp feature is supposed to represent the views of BRM or just the writer. But it might be a little concern that the appearance of impartiality towards manufacturers is disappearing. We depend on magazines to give us an honest review of products, and now we might be second guessing results because of pre-conceived ideas about any one company. 

 

I often see in theatre reviews now, that whilst the major newspapers still give a fairly honest critique (of course always heavily biased towards to their readership) whilst lots of smaller bloggers and magazines consistently give five star reviews regardless because they know they'll keep getting free tickets to any show that wants a five star review!

 

Edit: As Andy addressed the fact that it's not BRM opinion, but the writers...

 

BRM do have to stand by what they publish of course, even if it isn't BRM policy.

 

Whilst Tail Lamp has the potential to be a great feature because, apart from the Editors' letters, you don't often get opinion pieces in railway magazines. I don't want it to end up being a page of bad writing where someone with an axe to grind can be given a soapbox safe in the knowledge that they are writing with the safety of anonymity. 

[t-b-g]

Nobody's presenting it as BRM policy; it is an opinion piece.

 

Do we get any clues as to whose opinion it might be?

 

Reading the article it is signed off "BRM" so it looks like it is the view of the magazine.

[The Stationmaster]

This is an interesting area of journalism and while there are undoubtedly some bear traps surely it might help us, the readers, to hear views based on fact (which I believe it is) regarding those in the manufacturing trade which we like to think serves us (although we are but part of their market in Hornby's case).  So I don't might someone telling it like it is, or like they see it, and I certainly don't construe as reflecting the magazine's policy.

 

The practice of an 'opinion piece' or 'personal column' - albeit sometimes unattributed - is a relatively new departure in model railway journalism although it is long established in the national press and of course Chris Leigh's excellent 'Backscene' (which is not quite the same thing I fully realise) has been running on 'Model Rail' for long time.  We now also have Simon Kohler's approach featuring on the 'net via Hornby's webpages - and he is now employed by someone else (the Science Museum) very firmly in the model railway business as a commissioner.

 

I think the approach is perhaps something which reflects in the printed media what has grown up on websites and forums such as this.  An interesting change in model railway publishing but not at all unique in BRM's case.  And no doubt it will at times be a bit contentious.

[The Stationmaster]

Do we get any clues as to whose opinion it might be?

 

Reading the article it is signed off "BRM" so it looks like it is the view of the magazine.

Good point.  It might not necessarily need a name but possibly a disclaimer to the effect that it is 'an opinion' and not a matter of editorial policy?

[Ryde-on-time]

I am intrigued as to whose opinion the Tail lamp feature is.

 

To me, it is one of the most biased, opinionated (as opposed to factual), unprofessional bits of writing I have seen in any model railway magazine.

 

Is it now official BRM policy that Bachmann is good and Hornby is bad? That is the way it is presented.

 

I wholehearted agree and totally at odds with articles such as the interview with Bachmann’s new European Sales & Marketing Director David Haarhaus interesting and informative (and similarly the piece by Jason Shron in this months Model Rail)

 

​There are such inconsistencies in how the writer has compared Bachmann and Hornby in Tail piece that to me it makes the writer a joke.

[Scottish Modeller]

Hi all,

 

Very pleased with the May edition of the mag...

 

Particular 'likes'...

 

Eastfield 'White Stripe' Class 37 article (only to be expected)

 

London Road and Elveden Road layout article.

 

Most appreciated article...

 

'Hybrid Highs'

 

To present this all in one issue has to be a major undertaking - but what a 'plus point' as well!

 

All too often articles of this sort get split between different issues of magazines (all of them - not just BRM).

 

Now - I know I've been gathering bits for this model - now have to find them as no excuse for not getting them built!

 

Thanks

[Harry Lime]

Finally got hold of a copy of the May BRM yesterday - was wondering what had happened to Andy Y's photos that he took of James' petrol station...at Stafford!

[2ManySpams]

Why are there two BRM May threads? Could they be merged?