billbedford

Except that at least 60% of the income will come from newly produced kits so whoever takes on the 'legacy' ranges will need all the mould making skills needed to produce new moulds. Of course if someone had the necessary skills and capital to invest they would be better off, in general, starting from scratch. With one or two exceptions old model ranges have been poisoned chalices to whoever has taken them over. Those exceptions have almost always depended on the seller being willing to offer the buyer resources and even training to ensure a satisfactory take over.

I thought that what this thread is all about.....

Except that anyone with the money to do this will get a better return by commissioning RTR model from Chinese factories, which is exactly what has been happening of the last few years.

I don't think that is what happened. As far as I can make out there was a deal where by both CC and Slater's were to produce there own mouldings but CC were to market the Slater's 4mm kits and Slater's market the CC 7mm kits. Unfortunately the deal fell through, presumably because CC couldn't supply the kits Slater's were expecting.

An end door wagon needs to have diagonal straps at the door end to support the pivot bar of the door. If you models don't have these then I would suggest that they don't represent any diagrams. If they have diagonal straps at the door end and vertical ones between the side doors and the fixed end, then the wagon are likely to be D. 351 as the vehicle straps seem to have been added to a number of wagons to strengthen the planking.

Body colour. I've just been through 'Wagons of the LNER, North British' and found that all the photos with black ironwork also have white wheel rims, i.e. these wagons have been specially prepared for the photographs.

One field of employment for women on the railways was as tracers in drawing offices. These were usually young girls and as with most female employment they were 'let go' as soon as they married. However at least one lady decided not to marry and was later promoted to draughtsman. This was at Swindon. The introduction of dyeline copying machines, meant that girl tracers became redundant.

It's on the list, but it will be S-scale first.

Perhaps, but only if the producer was willing/able to wholesale them. That's probably not something to be taken on by someone who has too many balls in the air.

Injection moulding is a volume game, and I suspect that anyone with enough money to invest in tooling would get a better return by commissioning RTR coaches from China than trying to produce the same prototype as kits. It's interesting that Slaters moved out of 4mm kits, some time ago, and licensed their tooling to Coopercraft, it suggests to me that, even then, the volumes of 4mm kits they were selling did not justify commissioning new tooling to extend their ranges.

I don't know. The problem with the toplights is that there were a lot of different coaches, and four different underframes, each built in quite small numbers. It then become a guessing game to choose which ones will have a hope of becoming viable projects.

I disagree. If a supplier fails, then this makes it possible for others to come in with updated products. While Coopercraft are still advertising their ranges, other manufacturers will be reluctant to invest in replacements.

The URL should work as expected now.

The A1/A3s were just as bad as implied. The A4s had an improved design of horn stays which alleviated most of the problems with cracked frames. Thompson was was a 'workshop' man, and was likely to take more notice of his workshop managers input than of anyone in the traffic department, especially when it can to costs. I can't help thinking that enthusiast's opinions of various classes of loco may well have been very different if they had had more inputs from the men who actually had to maintain them.

It was to solve a serious problem which, at the time, the cause was unknown. The P2s had a propensity to break crank axles and score the leading driving bearings. It was not until around 1945 when V2s started to derail was it6 realised that the Gresley design of swing link pony truck was defective and totally failed to lead the P2 driving wheels into curves. The V2s all had their pony trucks replaced by one based on the LMS 8F design, but by then it was too late for the P2s.

Roofs are available here, bogies I will be able to supply in the new year.

Looking through the diagram book there are several composited with this arrangement of top lights. The compartments in question are marked 'Smoking'. However later builds do not have this feature. Therefore I suspect that these toplights were actually fall back windows which allow extra ventilation in these compartments. Once it was decided to fit torpedo vent to the roofs such toplights were no longer fitted.

They were top lights and glazed.

Because they cost more than the 10p that Bachmann allegedly pay for their motors?

Why would there need to be lights i a CCT? it wasn't as if they carried passengers who wish to read at night.

You've left out the role of the City who have always seen exploiting people in far away countries e.g. selling opium to the Chinese, as more profitable than supporting home industries.

And nothing at all to do with the fact that the UK had an Empire big enough for the country to come to think that the world owed it a living.

Kader Industries is registered in Bermuda.

Well the 54' birdcages are available as etches....