woodenhead

My B/G sleepers on B4 bogies have just gone back into their boxes. Not happy on any curve (3rd and 4th radius) and couplings a bit high for my Dapol locos, my other MK1s are fine runners. As they don't strictly fit my new layout then for the time being they are going out of sight, 4 Dapol MK3s with buffers joining them as I no longer want a push pull set.

If they are going to the effort of getting the power cars right then at the very least the catering vehicles should be accurate and not generic.

But they are still paying for the 66s and they have more than enough of them so I guess it is financially preferable not to have them sat idle whereas a 60 is owned outright.

No news then as that was the position at Warley. Could still slip further but I hope not.

I doubt it, the Dapol version is well advanced, enough for Farish to see it is a viable model. This isn't OO where firms can profit even with duplicates.

As long as it is 'one' collectors set and it has the right/same livery across the whole set.

That's the card reader for the new rent a loco option from Hornby. You put your contactless credit card near the railway and each time the loco passes you get charged, no pay, no play!! They reckon one child with a simply roundy roundy will repay the overdraft to the bank in a year if they use it daily at full throttle.

I don't think we are at an imminent point of collapse of model railways, there are still many people old enough to either have been lifelong modellers or returning to modelling and with a reasonably sized wallet to make purchases. The problem is the next generation of modellers, people need something to spark them into railways be it friends or relatives with an interest or working on the railway. Once being a trainspotter became an embarrassment then model railways lost its feeder. The crowds we see at stations today are not the crowds we use to see in the early 80s. People once thought compact disc was the future of storage and the suddenly it was streaming, cloud and wireless. Things can change very quickly in this world today and business can be caught napping. Hornby as a brand will get through this and I hope they continue with the high quality outputs we've seen recently but we shouldn't think it will last forever.

They were at the AGM, clearly not all of them as me a mere 48 year old was there. There was a mix but the proportion of older modellers made me wonder about where the market will be in a few years when already many OO models just wouldn't make it commercially in N.

There will always be those with an interest but not in the numbers there used to be and it's what is making it harder for the likes of Bachmann and Hornby - creating a product to satisfy enough people and making a profit. I went to an N gauge society AGM and was appalled at the average age of the people there, I left with a feeling I needed to get into OO again whilst I could. Still in N because I don't have the space for what I would want in OO and still concerned about the age profile.

And my two don't We cannot look at ourselves and they everything is alright - there will be plenty of families where there are no trains past Thomas and more and more of them as each year passes. We have to be realistic, we're a dying breed.

Children are still interested, but not as interested as in the period between the 60s and 80s - I would hazard that toy trains began to wane in popularity amongst children as the numbers of child trainspotters also tailed off. Wall Street Journal article, its not just a problem here: http://www.wsj.com/articles/end-of-the-line-for-model-trains-aging-hobbyists-trundle-on-1455157546?mod=e2fb

Not even Bernard Cribbins could turn this tide when it comes to getting youngsters interested in model railways.

That and people who pre-ordered then found that their model shop didn't receive their full quota leaving some people without models.

Looking at other threads I think we can lay any dreams of N gauge or a return of TT to bed for the foreseeable future. It's sad that Hornby is lurching from one disaster to another, perhaps a break up and a reestablishment of a railway company, it can still include the Euro brands but get out of kits, paint and novelties.

Also got to wonder if relying on a few massive generators is a national risk - if you have your energy production spread geographically as well as by source of fuel/renewable then you are less at risk.

It is very easy to look at this from the rail enthusiast perspective; Rugeley, Didcot, Fiddlers Ferry, Ferrybridge - all very iconic places and our past when watching MGR trains bouncing around the country. The old Carrington Power Station that used to be rail served but long demolished has had a gas power station just built on it's footprint and there are plenty of other similar new stations dotted about. There is still a concern about being beholden to other countries but another way to look at this is that we are sat on massive coal reserves. If one day there isn't an alternative we can always get our shovels out again.

Without wanting to get political, what have Labour said about the Government plans to abandon coal. If it was nothing or little then unless the lights start going out I think the coal powered power stations are on a route to oblivion and the Government's plans will come about quite quickly as contracts run out or investment is required on the remaining stations. It will also be no surprise to any of the generating companies and what is happening now is part of the medium term plan to rid the UK of coal fired stations.

Is he of the Jim Smith-Wright school of modelling, looks like it, that is a seriously good 31 he has made from a RR version.

I'll confess the first time I saw the thread I thought nah not interested but I've come back again and actually it is a really good model with a sound back story. It fits the small space without having to force unprototypical trains into it and the run down nature makes me think Lincolnshire (though in the model it is Nottinghamshire). I like it.

Welcome to the forum, if you want to see the master of resurrection on this site visit Coachmann's Ellesmere thread, he lifts and relays more track than Network Rail. I am sure there is a lot you can do to recover this model which looks perfect for your children.

I recall vans very similar to that passing along the Fallowfield loop in the 70's and Lima did some in N and HO gauge.

I think you missed a bit where she got an A4 boiler and things went a little awry with all that extra steam. It's certainly not a museum piece as per standard NRM policy and is probably more akin to Triggers broom but she is at least steaming and will attract headlines. Lets hope no more washouts with the weather affect her booked railtours.

Indeed it was, the Peaks were good out of Victoria but the 47s were really impressive sounding. Small change in engine tone, puff of exhaust, begins to roll forward, serck shutters open and then it all kicked in. I think I watched a lot of 47s out of Victoria, perhaps too many.

I don't recall there being class 50s on Newcastle - Liverpool services. In the early 70s they did go into Manchester Victoria on services from Glasgow. I think they might have operated alongside Deltics on the York to Wales parcels train which swapped traction at Stockport, but this ran only in the night and you would find the locomotive stabled centre road in Stockport around midnight awaiting it's reverse to York.