Gerald Henriksen

Musk seems to think he can dramatically decrease the cost of tunneling, hence his creation of The Boring Company last year to solve LA traffic woes: https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/

The latest on Hyperloop: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888053175155949572

Well, a little bit of good news perhaps. At some point in the last month someone asked about figures in their North American stuff and the response was negative. So that rules out the cost of an animated driver figure. Not just Bill. Per the latest newsletter you can now try and also influence Gareth about British models. And while it may not be an Autocoach Rapido fans may like one of the comments Gareth makes in the latest UK newsletter (vol. 12).

The latest newsletter was released just over a week ago: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Rapido-News-Vol--12---Come-See-Rapido-in-Brummieland-.html?soid=1101318906379&aid=GUThiAUy3K8

The wish list polls, while I assume useful for the manufacturers, have the limitation that it is to a certain extent an arbitrary look at the hobby. The people running the polls have made decisions as to which prototypes to allow in the poll, and given the nature of the amount of work involved in creating and running the polls some of the decisions mean wanted models aren't available to vote for (*). It is also worth remembering that the polls are also limited by who actually bothers to vote, and so aren't necessarily an entirely accurate representation of the hobby and that is without considering the impulse purchases than can occur when some hobbyists are presented with a model that look really good. The advantage of a wish list is it presents the opportunity (that not everyone takes advantage of) to present a BRIEF justification as to why a person thinks a particular model might do well. * - circumstances mean my modelling is on indefinite hold, so this is entirely hypothetical. But the polls tend to use an arbitrary date cut off on models that doesn't take into account the quality / accuracy of the existing models. As such the polls don't allow me to vote for a new Class 50 or HST (in OO) as there are "new" models of those available even though to me the are either not as good as they could be or don't look quite right.

The Desiro was simply a matter of taking the tooling out of storage and putting it in the machines, a simple process that merely needs a production slot - and a process that can take advantage of a production slot opening up suddenly due to another project not making the deadline. As for your Apple example, it is actually somewhat accurate if you look at the entire Apple product line and not just the iDevices. While Apple has been churning out new iPhones and iPads on a regular schedule they have experienced problems / delays / neglect on the Mac side of the company.

The problem is that it then runs into the problem anyone has trying to service the centre of cities - getting the land both for the tubes and the station is very expensive - I believe their initial announcements on how they would be much cheaper in California conveniently had the terminal stations outside of LA and SF where land was still relatively cheap.

There are only 2 companies (so far) that are doing the crowd funding - Revolution Trains and DJM (for some product, other stuff is being done in the traditional way). Most of what is available, and in OO the only exceptions are the DJM Class 71, 74, 92 and the Revolution Trains TEA Tanker, are produced the "normal" way. Will there be more to come? Likely. Revolution Trains have indicated a willingness to consider more OO models once the TEA Tanker arrives and people can see actual product, and I am sure there are even in OO a number of prototype items that would be too risky for the traditional method. But most of the market will continue to be serviced using the normal method with the only possible change being a move to pre-order only - but note that pre-production samples are normally available prior to the order deadlines so you can judge the model.

First, worth noting that Bachmann is not unique in having production problems (I am sure they wish they could get these models to market in a timely fashion), and it isn't a problem unique to UK companies. It seems as though all the various model train companies around the world experience issues at various times (and even the real companies - Bombardier recently indicated the possibility of yet more delays to their Toronto streetcar order). Rapido also experienced production issues, but last fall opened a second factory that has allowed them to get through their backlog of announcements. I think you are mistaken. Rapido's normal(*) method of operation is to have the tooling done and pre-production samples available prior to the order book being closed - this means they have already spent the significant money on tooling prior to knowing how many models they will actually sell. I don't think many people would consider this a guaranteed return. * - the recently announced North American TurboTrain in N had it made clear that tooling would only commence with sufficient orders, though there was a 3D printed sample available. Again, not accurate. Rapido took on the risk for the APT-E (order deadline after pre-production sample available) and the upcoming Stirling Single. Yes, the Prototype HST is delayed, but it was by no means the only model they took a risk on. Crowd funding doesn't help if you can't get the item through the production issues in China, which appears to be Bachmann's problem.

The third party who make and maintain the driverless system (aka the driver) - there is after all still a driver, its just that it will be a computer, and somebody will have designed and implemented it.

I would think it would only happen in cases where the standard gauge wagon had been put on narrow gauge wheels - otherwise given that most (all?) dual gauge track used one common rail the couplers / buffers wouldn't line up. Now given you are doing a special industrial type setting there is no reason that the narrow gauge loco hasn't been modified in some way to handle both narrow and standard gauge wagons - justification perhaps being that the hoist could only handle the weight of a narrow gauge loco making it impossible to get a standard gauge loco down to the middle level.

I suspect that the 4+ years since announcement and the changes in the real world since then would have thrown retailer estimates out the window anyway.

It is also popular (I would assume) to be able to get a seat on the train and not have to stand for your journey, and that means putting as many seats as possible into each train or coach.

The HST is a train made up of coaches, the operator could remove unnecessary coaches and make a shorter train. They don't because it is too much operational hassle. Anyone want to guess how long before the class 800's stay as fixed formations for "operational reasons"?

That is simply how government (and many other) contracts work - the contract is tendered and anyone can then bid on said contract. But if you submit a bid that doesn't meet the contract, then you normally can't win the contract. Having said that, I am not sure what you mean by a better spec, but given that the contract includes (I believe) maintenance and reliability standards for the duration of the contract (about 30 years?) Hitachi and the other bidders won't have been cutting corners that would end up costing them money in the future. Nothing is stopping you, or anyone else, from starting up a company to design and build trains in the UK, assuming you can come up with the money. But you will find that in order to be successful that you can't survive just supplying the UK market, you will need sales outside the UK (aka you will need to be a multi-national) both to even out the order book and to spread out the research and design costs. The world has changed quite a lot since the class 60's were built, including technology, understanding design issues for efficiency, fuel prices, environmental concerns and safety. The result is that 30 year old equipment, despite the wishes of those nostalgic, is more often than not the right choice. Those class 68's and 70's will be cheaper to operate, due less damage to the environment, and many other improvements while likely being significantly more reliable in a large part thanks to modern design. The freight operators are strictly private operations, and the balance sheet is what matters. If the class 60's were the better choice they would use them.

There is a cost to the setting up and doing the painting and pad printing and the opinion for the last number of years seems to be that the factories will only consider it worthwhile to do starting at 500 units.

Rapido announcements today: HO - SW1200RS in both CN and CP, arrival early 2018, order deadline Sept. 15 2017 4 different CN paint schemes, 6 different CP paint schemes http://rapidotrains.com/ho-gmd-sw1200rs/ N - New Haven 8600 series coaches -order deadline October 31 2017 http://rapidotrains.com/n-nh-8600-coaches/ N - TurboTrain http://rapidotrains.com/dealer-event-2017/

I believe the Cornwall issue has been dealt with on RMweb in the past - essentially tilt gains you nothing because the speeds can't be increased even with it. But it is also worth considering that a lot of people don't like the tilting trains due to the decrease in interior space required when building to the tilt profile, so building a train with the compromises for tilt - there is also extra complexity and maintenance - for limited benefit would actually be short sighted.

I believe maybe mentioned before, but near the end of this article in the Plymouth Herald it says (Mr. Golton being from GWR): "Mr Golton said Hitachi had built a testing facility where it is "throwing salt water at the trains" to ensure that their braking and electrical systems can cope with stormy conditions along the Dawlish sea wall." http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/revealed-the-brand-new-high-speed-trains-coming-to-plymouth/story-30353612-detail/story.html

Wikipedia also links to a Siemens pdf file, Siemens claims 100mph.

Don't know it that it would qualify as a cameo, but an interesting idea for how to expand possibilities within the general idea of a cameo: https://fillmoreavenueroundhouse.wordpress.com/2017/05/14/c2ps/ edit: It has the possible added benefit of pleasing both the adults and the kids in terms of height.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_lounge

In slippery condition, usually bad snow, it can happen but the design of the bus limits how far they can bend. But it is a very rare occurrence. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-Y13I3IgAAABJ-.jpg

Hornby's "design clever" wasn't really about ease of manufacture but rather attempting to use the same model to server both the railroad and high detail markets, and was doomed to failure because you ended up with a model that had compromises from both markets. I am guessing anyone involved in actually making model trains is getting a good laugh if they are reading this because I really don't think they go out of their way to make manufacturing difficult. The biggest costs (in China) for our models are the molds and assembly. With a "basic" model where you either leave details off entirely or mold them on you obviously get savings on the assembly labour, but once you get into the highly detailed models that most of us want there is no way to get around a (relatively) high labour cost. You simply can't get around the time it takes for an employee to put all those details on to the model, the multiple passes required for accurate liveries, etc. Look, our hobby is small, and we are talking about production runs in the thousands not hundreds of thousands. This rules out a lot of the automation that is transforming a lot of manufacturing because it simply isn't cost effective (if at all possible) for the small production runs. As for moving production back to North America or Europe, it's not just the high labour costs but the lack of the "infrastructure" - the motor / paint / packaging / etc suppliers - who are all close by making sourcing of required inputs easy.

That isn't what Jason said. To quote from the newsletter: In other words, in order to make the cheaper price point one of the things done was to reduce the $ amount of profit per unit sold compared to a normal model. Now that can work if the increased sales mean you overall make more money, but in this case sales increased only enough so that the model will make the same profit as a regular model. So in summary, yes the model was cheaper to produce and sell. However, it didn't result in increased profits. [edited: - for those unaware the current prices are (non-DCC) $225 for a regular model and $160 for the "basic" model]