stewartingram

Would be interesting if someone has this lined up! Though I'm not into model manufacture or design, could I add my tuppence worth on this old chestnut of commonality of parts and their relevance to models? I agree that in the world of the big railway, parts were (and indeed still are) shared. A LNER 100A boiler for instance, used on at least B1,B2,B17, & O1 locos. BUT this is of little consequence to the manufacture of locos from the likes of Hornby. In the old Triang days of design, there were 2 building blocks in the models - the chassis, andy the body. A lot of us still mentally think along those terms. There were stock parts in the stores inventory, used on many new introductions over the years, especially on the chassis side. On the bodies, it was really limited to the odd item such as buffer heads, as the bodies tended to be (almost) a one-piece assembly. End result was that we got "generic" models, often distorted to fit stock chassis parts. In the post move to China era, we now have models that are designed from scratch each time. The 2-part building block is redundant. An astute designer may well have previous CAD designs which could be easily stretched or shrunk to make a new model (part) thus saving on starting from scratch however The 100A boiler example could be an example of this in Hornby's case, but from a cursory glance of my models I strongly suspect it was not. After all, it was the (inner) boiler that was the same, not the outer boiler cladding; also on the model different space needs to be provided for motor & gears. Also I believe the design would also be contracted out to China, so quite possibly a different design team would be involved. So am I right in saying this idea of commonality, in general, can be put to one side? Stewart

All in 00:- Wickham 2-car dmu (also later used as departmental, then preserved) GER J15, N7, D16/3 M&GN 4-4-0 Stewart

Just remember this - it is only Toy Trains. If you don't like it, don't buy it, simple. And if Hornby has made an error of judgement, then they will fail. But, if they don't fail - have they therefore got it right.....? They are in business, to make money. Stewart

I've said this in passing before, and for what it is worth I will repeat it. My opinion only btw, I have no firm proof but only a strong feeling it is true. In days of yore -Triang-Hornby days no less - the company introduced a generic loco every now and again (2 in a year was a good time). When it appeared, you got a representation of a typical member of the class, often with "stores bin" components (wheels, cylinders, bogies for instance). Sometimes the result was pretty good; sometimes not. BUT the important thing here, it was now in the catalogue. And it kept on being produced year in, year out. They budgeted for a sale (to retailers, please note, NOT the general public) of a certain number in a given period, call this quantity X in period Y. Now, every company has R&D costs which have to be recouped, (X in Y covers this) before a profit is made. I'm not privvy to the figures, but I bet that the period Y was something like 2 years sales to the trade. And they still kept producing after that, with NO further redevelopment (no livery changes, no details altered, nor modifications of any sort) so from then on it was all profit after the build costs were taken out. Nowadays, many more locos are introduced, each one a detailed model of an individual loco. Generally a small batch (250 and 512 are figures often quoted) is produced, rarely after that is another batch done without modification. How many DIFFERENT A3 builds have Hornby done? Each one has incurred R&D costs. The point I am making, is that nowadays the R&D cost recovery is over the FULL (but short) run of the model (our quantity X again), with NO follow on of just-for-profit builds thereafter. Hence the increase in trade (and ultimately, retail) prices. I suspect our fad with wanting accuracy with each loco (not class of loco) has therefore driven the costs up so high. The move to low wage production in China originally helped to disguise this; now the bird is truly coming home to nest, with the better standards of living rapidly happenning over there. Stewart

My son up in Yorks just sent me this, don't know where he found it though: Stewart

My early D5512 succumbed some time ago. I even did a rebuild of the chassis, shown on RMWeb, but decided to contact Hornby a bit later on. I asked for a chassis block - just the metal bit - which I offered to rebuild back to a running condition with the rest of my broken chassis. Being an ex Hornby service engineer I expected no problems, and they duly sent me a chassis block. During the rebuild, I simplified the loco. All working lights were removed (totally unneccessary and unprototypical for a green loco); the fan drive was disconnected; I even threw away the pcb and just hard-wired it (as in the good old days). Result was a total success. However a bit later on I noticed I had lost a side grille; upon contacting Hornby they even sent me a couple of those from a scrap loco (wrong colour but I repainted it). All free of charge, great service for a loco long out of warrenty. Stewart

But surely all GWR locos are the same, they are supposed to be standardised aren't they?

Ooh....it takes me back! In fact I think I recognised myself on the end of the platform.... Stewart

I know people say the Police are slow in responding to calls nowadays, but that really takes the biscuit! Stewart

Hattons haved advised me that my Ribble Royal Tiger coach has been picked, been waiting for that for a while. Stewart

Looks like a nice model of the St.Ives mill there too? Later to become the home of Sinclair and the 1st electronic calculator of course. Stewart

Think of those Open Days the LNER & early BR used to have, with iconic locos on display. Cambridge & Norwich spring to mind....loco working to the show...kept as a "pet" in original condition...? Stewart

On the slow burner I'm doing the LUL version. I've taken the easy route (at the moment at least, as I haven't progressed very far yet) of saying that LU bought selected coaches from withdrawn 4-TC sets, ending up with a pair of driving cars, a BSK, and a TSO. Basically they did just get ta selection of individual cars, so Rule 1 applies! I'm going to keep an eye on your conversion, good luck. Never thought of the whitemetal ends, moght give that a go. Stewart

The reason being that Tesco will have run out of them by then, and be selling Easter eggs. Stewart

.....and all those GER & M&GNJR locos too. Stewart ((drooling over his newly acquired Bachby J15)

Not quite true. Depends on the savvy of the person dealing with the manufacturer and what he stipulates in his contract. A simple one-line contract (Produce me a better 33) would be the equivalent of your thinking. But write detailed specs as to what you want, with quality checks built in, and timescales, and YOU are in charge. It would be the manufacturer paying up for failing in the contract. Stewart

5000 feet across a parking lot! Rhat's getting on for 1 mile - a big parking lot! Stewart

Easy to tell it's a model.........2 buses on a bridge, would NEVER happen in real life. Stewart

Any car with a suffix letter (ie ABC123A) to the number is a new car! Come to think of it I should have said any with an ABC123 format are really the new ones, proper cars were registered in the AB1234 format weren't they? Stewart

Must be the vehicle that goes out at night just to polish the railhead, to make it nice and shiny? I've seen a guy with a rag doing it on the Underground... Stewart

Preservation huh? Says it is an empty stock working - but with a class B (local passenger) headcode? Stewart

And here was me thinking a class 30 was a Brush type 2 A1A-A1A...................... Stewart

Hailing from Cambridge, and sometimes trainspotting at Peterborough North, I certainly do remember dmus with vans. I'd like to think, if my memory is right, that Peterborough was more common than anywhere else on my patch, but can't be certain on that. Amongst my thousands of photos (not all mine!) I'm sure I've had pictures, if I find any I'll let you know. Different topic, but the late Teddy Boston, of Toby the Tram fame, often quoted at his slide shows, that the Peterborough North-Peterborough East trains were the slowest in the BR timetable, ever heard that? Stewart

I like the last one of the 9F, particularly as it shows one of those LNER platform trollies. Must get round to knocking some of those up, finding pics is a problem though. Stewart

I think Hamblings, going from memory. was nearer the Charing Cross Road end. Motor Books seems more towards the other end....but I could be wrong! Stewart