DutyDruid

Tuesday 5th Jan @ 1000. My suggestion is that - as usual - the site would either crash or become totally unresponsive so checking in at 1000 on the 6th is your best bet

https://sremg.org.uk/misc/dept01.html Middle of the page

Sorry, the bubblecar thing has been done already... I do have an MP4 of it running round on a part of Watt Estate but apparently MP4 is not an acceptable file type. Origin: My car found when we cleared my parents loft, donated to the Watt Estate crew (Club 09 Layout - That's 0 scale on 9mm gauge track) who motorised and repainted it.

I once saw a split screen Morris Minor that had had the 945 side valve engine surgically removed and a 1998 Dolomite Sprint engine transplanted under the hood. To be fair, if you looked at it end on you realised that something had been done to the suspension and it had somewhat fatter tyres - but at a quick glance it wasn't that obvious...

You would be surprised. One of my co-presenters from MRTV had a "thing" going at one time. He would buy wood, track and track mats and build "train sets" to order on boards that were just the right size for the track mat (just a bit bigger than 6 x 4), build the set up and sell it - not for children - but for adults in the 55+ age range who lacked the skills to do it themselves to go in their garden sheds or conservatories. Most of the sets he built had a RailRoad Flying Scot going one way and a RailRoad Mallard going the other, both with 3 mainline coaches... I used to go with him to deliver them because I had a suitable trailer to carry the things. When we would talk to the customer about maybe having a smaller engine and some trucks they usually said that they weren't interested because that wasn't a proper train set. As I said somewhere else in this frothfest, what pays Hornby's bills are the train sets and a seriously large number of their customers - event the adults - don't think about these things in the way that we on this forum do.

The platforms on the Meon Valley Line (opened 1903) were 600' long. The route was from Gosport to Waterloo and although built as a branch line was intended to become a secondary main line.

Sorry, that was sloppy thinking on my part, I really only understand stuff south of the Thames and preferably with pick-up shoes

But then a Midland 3F "Jinty" was always considered as Hornby's trademark territory - until Bachmann released one. I was there, I remember the howls of anguish it provoked.

you would be right there, and I have heard that Vietnam might be the new China for a number of companies

yes, they have done several locos using the generic chassis and a chip but as far as I am aware they are always soldered chips fitted during manufacturer, they haven't done one with a socket. Prime example is the DCC starter set with a generic 08 and the generic steam loco (currently R1236M). I had to take one of those to pieces on the counter one day and the chip was a solder job not a socket.

That's actually a staggeringly good idea @TomScrut, you would be staggered if you knew how many of those generic chassis and mechanisms are running around on freelance P4 and EM industrial layouts... (see my previous post in this thread about the RailRoad Schools)

This raises some interesting thoughts. When I made the transition from train set to model railway my interests lay very firmly with the "current scene" which at that point was various forms of WCML OHE traction and the early stages of containerisation of freight, all that was readily available RTR at that point. It wasn't until Hornby shifted production to China that I really got back into what I had grown up with - which was very definitely BR(S) 50s/60s - and I think that was about the launch of the Merchant Navy, but I was never really satisfied with my lot until I discovered kits of BR(S) EMUs and latterly both main manufacturers started producing units. Someone somewhere else in this thread has made the comment about the ubiquitous GWR branch line and the fact that the the stock for it was always fairly readily available, which was why for years the modelling press was flooded with that genre of layout - but GWR branch lines have never really floated my boat because I had very little experience of the real thing. My point here is that in that whole swath of the south coast from Kent through to Portsmouth and north to the West of England Mail Line and up to London CORS, BILs, HALs (and then latterly CEPs, CIGs, VEPs plus 2H/3H and the like) were mainly what we knew for passenger services and as several people have commented "we tend to like what we remember". I think the reason the Southern lobby started gaining traction with the likes of Hornby was that when - let's use the US term to describe them - electronic rail fanning groups got going the Southern group (SEmG, now SReMG) actually got organised far better than groups representing the other areas of the rail network and as a result were able to "engage" far more successfully. And that's the turning point, some cottage industry kit manufacturers recognised the hole in the market and started producing (DC Kits & Southern Pride to name what I think of as the best two), the big boys saw their success and jumped in. The problem is, of course, that the two manufacturers I have named have moved out of kit production, I gather on the grounds that they can no longer compete because their kits run out at about the same cost as an RTR unit; sadly the products of some of the cottage industry manufacturers left behind IMHO do leave something to be desired. So there it is, we Southern MU Modellers were "under represented" for a very long time and it was the dawn of the electronic railfanning groups which gave us our voice, which has for the most part has been listened to. The hope has to be that - having managed to shutdown the two successful kit manufacturers in this arena - the big two continue to support us. And if they don't? Well, I have a plan but it will require a lotto win to bring to fruition...

I think there might be an IPR issue as well. Wasn't the TC commissioned by Kernow? AIUI when Bachmann do a "commission" like that they make and retain the tools but Kernow have "exclusive rights to their use" for a certain number of years afterwards, so even if there is a crossover between a CIG and a TC (and yes, there is some in the sense that the bodies might look similar externally but the internal layouts would be very different) I don't think Bachmann could use any of the TC tooling to produce a CIG or BIG until the original agreement with Kernow expires. 4CIG/4BIG page on SREMG: https://sremg.org.uk/emu/class421.shtml - DTC - TSO/TBUF - MBSO - DTC 4TC page on SREMG: https://sremg.org.uk/gallery/class438_1.html DTSO - TFK - TBSK - DTSO Sadly, I'm in the middle of 2 house renovations and a house move so all my books (as well as the rest of my life like my Kernow TC and my unbuilt CIG kit) are in a shipping container on the lawn of the house we will eventually move into, so I'm afraid I can't check/verify any of these assertions beyond my rather ragged memories. Elliott

And both routes WAT -> PHM There is (was) a Southern Pride kit of a CIG but as stated further up the thread, despite being advertised that is not really an option any more. In fact, I have just noticed on their site that stocks of Mk1 roofs are nearly exhausted so that effectively kills off any more of these excecllent kits

Our big Club layout (Soberton) is 33' x 10', 00 with 8' platforms in the station (scale model of a Meon Valley station). One of the signature train formations is a 10 coach "boat train" with a Merchant Navy in charge; you can guess how long that is! However, the most common trains are 3-sets and 4-sets, sometimes 2 sets coupled together. Layouts this size are very much the exception and we are really lucky to be able to do this. The other Club layout that is set in the 50s/60s is Nictun Borrud (12' scenic + 4' FY - branch terminus) where we just about have room for a steam hauled 2-set. A trick we use there is to run 2 x 2BILs into the station, either to couple or uncouple. For both layouts we did (last year) a review of the insurance value and (particularly for Soberton) we gulped. So yes, you're right John, the big units ( in my case 4COR, 5WES et al) do have a very limited appeal/market and for a big layout at an exhibition the insurance value for a layout able to run the big trains is also going to be very off-putting for the organisers.

There is precedent: neither manufacturer looked at the idea of doing any SR units until they were actively being withdrawn, then all of a sudden we had te CEP/BEP, VEP, HAP and the 2H as a specially commissioned unit plus the already quoted "modern" units. Then came the BIL/HAL which is why I still think the COR might be a flyer, plus - isn't there a Bulleid SUB in the warehouse at Margate that has been scanned? AND: Looking for something earlier I came across an as-yet unbuilt 5WES kit from Hurst Models in a box. Knowing my luck a 5WES will be on the list of one or the other manufacturers.

Until I read this I had never heard of Mighty Express (or Chuggington come to that). All I can say is "Arghh... Underground Ernie on steroids"

Agree. I've built their kit of the Bulleid 10203 diesel (in fact I think I had the last one they prepped before the tool got damaged) and it - along with a rake of Southern Pride Bulleid coaches in Blood and Custard - formed the basis of a trio of programmes I made for Model Railway TV. The loco and rake still get rolled out when we take our big layout Soberton out to shows and get admiring comments. The trouble with the 74 is that it is actually a tad too late for the period I model (at least as far as exhibitable layouts are concerned). On the other hand, they do look rather nice, now, where did I put my modeller's licence...

DJM were supposed to have been doing one of those - they announced it at our show (Fareham) at about the time their 71 hit the streets. Anyone know what happened to it with the demise of DJM?

Sorry, that neither convinces me nor floats my boat I'm afraid. About the only convincing smoke system on a diesel I have ever seen was one Roger Murry of MIGO showed me about 25 years ago - way before DCC was as good as it is today. He had an analogue 0 Gauge HST power car and when you wound the power up to make it move it stood there for a second or so whilst the smoke unit built up a head of steam so-to-speak, a fan cut in and as it started to move forward there was a big whoosh of smoke out of the exhausts, and then the smoke cut out until the next time it moved off.

Yep, we have a Club member who went to an exhibition, saw a broad gauge kit (4mm scale) and hey presto - broad gauge layout...

If I win the lottery I'm tooling something that looks remarkably like Southern Pride Bulleid Coach kits (and the Mk 1 EMUs) but with Keen Close Coupling system built in! There, that's my claim staked...

Semi-common knowledge: until COVID rolled into town I used to do a weekly turn (sometimes more) as duty manager in my local model shop. With that in mind, and just to pick up on a couple of recurrent themes that keep surfacing here: 1. Hornby is the only game in town: Yes, that is a perception that in my experience is particularly common amongst the uninitiated. The number of times I have tried to sell a Bachmann set as a Christmas present only to be told, "No, I promised his mum I would buy him a Hornby". Sometimes this has been in the face of financial common sense; did you know that all Hornby sets have 3rd radius curves and Bachmann sets have 2nd radius curve? If you want to buy a double track train set the cheapest way to do it is to buy 1 x Hornby, 1 x Bachmann plus some points and odd lengths of track to give sidings and a cross over; you get 2 trains, a complete layout and 2 controllers for your money. On one occasion I remember particularly well a customer spent well over £100 more than she needed to have done because she was hung up on the fact that it had to be Hornby and she insisted that she had been told to buy separate track pieces rather than the track expansion packs. 2. You ask "The Guv" what pays his fixed overheads and he will tell you that it's the Christmas Train Set (and Scalextric set) rush, it is NOT people like me and other Club members who pop in to buy the odd pot of paint or container of glue. We can froth all we want here, the reality is that in order to have a local model shop to pop into for that tube of glue the most important decision that Hornby will make will be what next years sets will contain! 3. The debate about HiFi vs RailRoad: This might be heresy, but I can tell you that I know (because I know who bought them and they told me what they were going to do) of at least 2 RailRoad Schools class locos that have been regauged to EM and are regularly being run on exhibition layouts. Don't dis RailRoad, after all, it wasn't that long ago one of my stock exhibition demonstrations was carving up Lima Westerns and 73s and super detailing them, and if anything doing that is now easier than it was back then because with home 3d printing, and easy-access etching, making the parts is no longer an issue. Elliott

Sorry, couldn't resist....