2750Papyrus

I'd have to vote for Didsbury.  In 1965 I lived nearby and caught a local train into Central to get to Uni in Salford.  It also had through expresses and a goods yard, and is being beautifully modelled by a forum member.

Potters Bar (Spotty Bra) is a good shout.

4 hours ago, great northern said:

You get the wilful misunderstanding prize again Clive.  Next time, if there is one, the prize will be to be locked in a room with a person of my choice for two hours. I won't say who, but just be afraid, be very afraid.

Will the identity form the subject of a poll?

Another vote for Melton Constable.

A railway town constructed in the middle of (getting on for)  nowhere - like a modeller's scenario to justify the unlikely!

Another vote for Hawill.

That would make an unusual model rake!

Cambridge - a junction in its own right, served by a number of pre-grouping companies.  Attractive station building and bi-directional platform.

I'm afraid that I have stopped giving feedback for two reasons.  Firstly, everybody selling goods by mail order now follows up with an email requesting feedback and it has become too time demanding to respond.  Secondly, I heard somewhere that Ebay counted a 4 star award as a failure by a seller, and viewed any constructive criticism in the same light.   

'Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."'

I didn't want to drink there anyway.....

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

We don't know what, if any, modifications have been made to fit the new motorised chassis. There's not much potential saving to be made if you have to buy the chassis and interior. I'd guess that while you might be happy modifying your model, lots wouldn't, and dealing with customers who have broken either the body or new chassis would be quite an overhead. It might make sense if they did direct sales, but producing a large batch of chassis to feed out through the trade probably make it uneconomic.

 

Given the choice, I suspect that many people will send their unpowered sets to eBay and happily stump up for a RTR model, even with moulded handrails.

I could well be one of those as my EFE Northern Line set has been sitting in its boxes for some year waiting for me to get a round tuit!  is there any information yet on the type of motor to be fitted?

On ‎31‎/‎07‎/‎2020 at 20:02, PMP said:

Just for info, that’s a standard wound Bachmann motor, not coreless.

Thanks for the clarification.  In the cold light of day I decided to save my money for items more appropriate to my time and era.

2 hours ago, John Harris said:

 

They have a new website.

 

jh

Thanks for this.  It would not open using my elderly Internet Explorer, but you prompted me to try Edge and it opened with no problems..

I can no longer find the Kingsway Models website and am a little fearful.  Plse can anyone advise?

My grandson would be thrilled!

Thanks for posting this, Robin.

I did send Bachmann a message on Thursday morning asking the question.  I had a reply at lunchtime from a collectors' club lady saying she had passed the question on to her technical colleagues, who would be in touch shortly.  I will post the response when received!

I will not be buying this model myself, but  Derails are showing an availability of 2 of the LT variant if anyone is looking.

1 hour ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Defects will never be completely eliminated. No matter how thorough designs & processes are, there will always be some returns/repairs.

They could try to achieve less defects, but at what cost? The last few points of perfection have always been the hardest & costliest to achieve, so a product which 99% are perfect may well cost double of 98%, but since you will need to employ after-sales staff anyway, the difference at this part may be minimal. The cost would therefore need to be passed on to the customer, so by chasing that extra 1% success, the purchase price may have nearly doubled. Since we are talking about Rocket, this could have made it a £300 model. Would this affect sales?

 

These are all factors which the manufacturer needs to weigh up for themselves & since they need to make money to exist, they need to work out what works for them.

 

Sorry, but don't expect perfect models any time soon.

Your point about cost is the reason I talked about culture.   It is easy to throw money at things but what we are looking for is an improvement in quality at low or zero cost by making everyone in the supply chain aware that quality matters.

The product designer will identify a number of different solutions to a given task (such as electrical connections between engine and tender).  To what extent does he make his choice based upon quality, reliability and maintainability? The same considerations may apply during process (including tooling) design: for example can a process be made self-checking?  The product may cost no more by including features preventing faulty assembly, for example, but these features will only be included if quality forms part of the design mind set. 

Many years ago during my student apprenticeship, I was told my a machine operator that it was his job to make things.  It was somebody else's job to check whether they were correct or not.  Let us hope that the inspector detected any faulty components, in which case the costs were those of her wages and of the scrap involved.  But inspection doubles the manpower requirement and may not work - inspectors see what they expect to see.  So the fault may not have come to light until assembly (stopping the process) or by the customer during installation or in-service failure. All additional costs incurred because the operator did not think he was responsible for the quality of his work.

Is there not a parallel with our Chinese-produced models?  Have the operators, assembly and packing operators been trained to believe that quality matters and that, if they see something that doesn't look quite right, they should flag it up?  Or is quality not part of the culture in which they work; their customer will expect and allow for quality problems, which will be identified by the end-user on the other side of the world.  I wonder which approach actually costs more? 

The quality and reliability of other consumer products has improved dramatically over the last fifty years.  In simple terms, I would suggest that the main reason is that consumer pressure has forced suppliers to address quality throughout their organisations. Costs may have increased somewhat but I don't think the costs of manufacture have rocketed.

Maybe we should be asking our favourite manufacturers about their approach to quality, and telling them that is as important as, for example, choice of prototype.

11 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I have made this point before but some people prefer to have a rant rather than take note.

Hornby should get what they ask for and Apple should get what they ask for. 

QC is there to provide a product that is to the desired standard.

It is there to provided an acceptable reject level not to create 100% compliance to the specification. Hornby must have in mind a certain level of rejects as being acceptable. They should by doing audits to check that this level is being adhered to. At a given price point of course. Apple set a higher standard but at a considerably higher price. Although it would appear that they do have a significantly higher profit margin. 

Bernard

The danger in this argument is that it establishes a culture which accepts failure rather than one which targets zero defects through product and process design and on the shop floor.

Logically Crewe or Rugby; local interest would suggest Bletchley but I will vote for Stockport Edgeley. 

In the late 60's, after electrification,  I used to travel back to Didsbury via Edgeley on Sunday nights when I had been home to London, transferring to a North Western Road Car no 80 to Barlow Moor Road.  (A long walk home from Wellington Road in the early hours of the morning if I'd seen my then girl friend home.)

Can anyone confirm the type of motor fitted?  The LT example is very appealing but I have already bought one Bachmann tank engine which is unusable on my layout as it has a coreless motor, and would not wish to repeat the mistake.

21 minutes ago, Woodcock29 said:

The photos aren't the best as its difficult to photograph because its so large. These were taken some years ago now.

 

The model of the station is fairly representative but a bit shorter and doesn't have the cross overs in the centre three tracks so more than one train can be held in the main platforms and released if necessary. All the bays are there and the goods loops around each outer edge where our mineral trains pass through. The white sections under the roof are parts of the footbridge which was under construction at the time. When this photo was taken quite a few LMS locos were being used prior to more LNER types being acquired by the owner. Once or twice I've run my Valour here but its not used regularly as I don't want graphite all over the wheels, as the owner uses graphite in significant quantities to reduce the need for track cleaning,

The main part of the layout is 40' x 20' but there's an extra part of the shed added on the side at one end which is 20' x 12' making it 32' wide at that end.

Andrew

 

 

 

That looks to be an amazing layout in size and content.  I would guess the owner had help from a group of friends, or is it a club?

38 minutes ago, Woodcock29 said:

Nottingham Vic for me.

 

By the way I've been operating there today, well the model of Nottingham Victoria here in Adelaide. Post war period. I had charge of the north end of the station.

 

Andrew

I would also back Nottingham Victoria.

Woodcock, plse have you pictures of the model?

1 hour ago, Clive Mortimore said:

There is only one choice. Bedford Midland Road.

From Flickr, photo by Kevin Lane

 

Hitchin to the left, London to the right.

Although most of my life has been spent close to the ECML, I did have some years in Didsbury (the station was still open when I first lived there), followed by some years in Luton and Bedford, so the Midland is not totally unknow to me. I was making a mug of tea before viewing RM web and thought "I wonder if Bedford would count - Hitchin branch off the Midland main line and crossing on the Bletchley line on the level".

Sitting down with tea, this was almost the first post I looked at, so I will also vote for Bedford Midland.

Perhaps GEL was referring to the removal of the boosters?

27 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Behind you.

 

Mike.

Oh no, it isn't!

I would second Finsbury Park.  Served by 3 different London termini and numerous goods stations, and junction for the Northern Heights branches. 

In earlier days served by the Norf London Railway and operators from sarf of the river in addition to the home team.  Also burrowing moles underground, and numerous bus and tram routes on three sides of the station.