Pteremy

The 'big steamers' were the stars of their day - crack engines on crack express trains. The trains you would stand in awe at on the platform of a large station, or when they passed at speed through a station or in the middle of the countryside. Running such trains with appropriate stock round even the most rudimentary roundy roundy can connect with that sense of awe. The modern equivalent is the colourfully liveried/branded high speed loco hauled trains or multiple units of the 2023 Railway network. The trains you would see today standing on a platform or as they flash by in open country. So why oh why is Hornby prioritising the past? For example, when is the casual observer going to see an 08 shunting anything, let alone wagons that ceased to be used decades ago? Something does not add up.

Things have moved on. With Hornby focussed on TT120 a revised (i.e. shortcomings fixed) EFE branded 14xx might be a way for Bachmann to reinstate a more positive business relationship with Hattons? Maybe the 66 could also feature somehow? Then again maybe Rapido have designs on the 14xx.

Thanks. For once Google is proving particularly unhelpful as I cannot yet find a set of official photos. I have though noticed that the later 'double arrow' branded version has XP in a box at the other end of the vehicle. This does look to have larger size letters. So my guess is that the factory mistakenly also used the the larger size on the earlier version - although that is assuming that they were genuinely larger when boxed and it is not just an optical illusion. Worth stressing that these models are stunning - when looking at mine for the first time yesterday I almost wished I could justify a full trains worth instead of one (one, that is, already rather unlikely).

Looks fantastic - and you must have started within in minutes of the postie dropping it off! Out of interest do we know that the XP is too large (from photographic evidence) or are we assuming that to be the case compared to the application on other vehicles? So far the only relevant photos I have seen so far have an open door so the 'XP' is not visible.

Salvage for Victory is WWII surely? (See late GWR monogram). But I have one as well - for a (fictional) late 1950s commemorative event - and a 'Reading Sand Van' - for (fictionally) rebranding 'Barnstaple' and leaving at the end of a siding in 'seen better days' condition. Every layout should have one (or two). There is no excuse not to.

I think so, although I had the mechanism/electronics primarily in mind. See the exchanges from 2018, a few posts back, for other views. If you have one you cherish then fine, no reason for you to stop doing so, even if a better one appears.

Another model ripe for bringing up today's standards, at least in terms of control/mechanism. Someone must have it in their sights.

Very curious - the only offers I get are 70% off.

A couple more GWR/WR examples. In the Huxtable Series on the Taunton Barnstaple line there is a good photo of a set at Barnstaple Victoria (v2, p385). The set number is visible - Set 138. The caption dates this as 1930's but as there appears to be a loco in the loco shed with a smokebox door numberplate early post nationalisation is possibly more likely (prior to closure of the shed in 1951). The set appears to be being pulled tender first by a 43xx suggesting it is an ex Taunton service leaving en route to Barnstaple Junction. In Model Railway Journal 277 (p65) there is a 1930s picture of a set with Large Prairie 6163 on a Reading to Basingstoke local service.

And if they need help executing it right better to get that help now, while they can, rather than risk significant disappointment with the final product.

Although completely smooth isn't right either - fortunately I try not to worry about these things. I happen to have a Heljan Class 128 and GWR Railcar on the layout at the moment and I would say that in both cases the roof detail is very good in terms of scale - feint ribs on the first and feint rivet lines on the second. I don't know how prototypically accurate the detail is in either case but it shows that it can be done.

There is photographic evidence of sets on the Barnstaple Victoria - Taunton line in the early 1950s. These would probably have originated at Torrington, as an unadvertised trough working (see Trains Illustrated 1951, p11). For example there is a photo of one of the 'sliding door' sets, passing through Wiveliscombe bound for Taunton, the loco being 2251 2266. (The photo, on p121 Maggs, Branch lines of Somerset, is dated as c1958, but must be several years earlier than that.)

Would it be helpful to have a diagonal line (indent) where the plates are meant to go rather than nothing at all?

It may not confer 'prototypical accuracy' but it can increase the enjoyment of running a loco in any setting, whatever compromises your layout makes to being prototypically accurate - so including a table top train set. It is just another context in which the acceptability or otherwise of a particular compromise is in the eyes - or ears - of the modeller.

Is anyone else surprised that the TT120 Class 08 has been deemed too small for a sound decoder? (See the Bluetooth etc thread.) I had assumed that the push behind TT120 was, in effect, to provide for 21st century table top train sets - small, but to scale and with all the technical whizzbangs that DCC can provide. I can see why that would be a very attractive proposition. But if small TT120 locos are not so whizzbang how do you achieve anything approaching prototypical accuracy - unless you primarily focus on the railway as it is now, in 2023?

There was an article in Model Rail a few months ago by Chris Leigh, who was dismayed to find that his T9 (or possibly more than one) had succumbed.

Have I missed something? Surely this is a website dedicated to, in effect, discretionary spend on model railways, rather than something more life critical?

For the avoidance of doubt I take it you would still like us to pay for our Manors around the end of this month, even if there could be a slight delay in delivery. (Although I am not sure if there is a risk of delay or not?) Given that I have already budgeted for this, that is what I am planning to do.

Providing you can find one without Mazak rot?? An obvious target for retooling, if someone does not beat Hornby to it.

I thought that the international release looked interesting, although as I don't normally get to see them the novelty factor may be skewing things. Even so, if I wanted a dabble in something different I think i would be more likely develop some sort of European theme, rather than the familiar UK stuff but in a different scale.

As far as I can see from Jenkinson and Essery they all appeared in BR Crimson and Cream from new.

Sorry to disagree with you, but visually they are not much of an improvement over a simple fixed coupling. Hopefully they work as intended. But the context here is the increasingly high 'realism' bar set by Accurascale.

Interesting - but not very realistic.

Magnetic that looks a like the appropriate coupling style - surely the 'chains' you refer to are for the chaldrons? So a higher fidelity 'Hunt' - in appearance - I guess? Or maybe you don't think that the existing offerings can be improved.

Will you be doing something similar for steam era coaches etc., e.g. the Siphons and Mk1 Suburbans??