HonestTom

I once tried hot glue and, well, it didn't turn out so great. Still, I'll be following this series with interest. I think model railways can be quite an intimidating subject for beginners, so anything that makes the hobby accessible is fine in my book.

Funny, I found a bunch of my old Railway Series books while I was sorting my shelves the other day. I remember when I was a kid, I thought I'd love to create an epic Sodor layout with all the important locations, a narrow gauge section, the mountain railway - how I'd have fitted that on a 6x4 board I don't know...

This is the basic mod Something worth bearing in mind with the Warhammer model is that their shops are a loss leader for the company. Only a handful actually turn a profit, but that's all worked into the business model. The real idea behind the shops is to get people hooked on to the hobby - sure, they catch the eye, they carry supplies, but the real money comes from mail order. Games Workshop is all about vertical integration. They produce the miniatures, they publish the books and magazines, they sell paints, glue and tools, they run the shops. The whole hobby is based on that. Their painting guides, for instance, will specify the Citadel Miniatures paints (another brand owned by GW) that you can use to replicate the effects. So there's no risk that someone will come in, get into the hobby, then spend their money somewhere cheaper. That's not to say that this kind of shop couldn't be imitated, but I think you'd need someone big behind it. My thought would be Hattons, who have a strong presence, stock more-or-less everything and can sell things cheaply. Or Hornby, whose direct sales aren't cheaper than the box-shifters, but who have brand recognition and produce just about everything you need to get started. You'd also need very good salespeople. At the risk of sounding cold-blooded, you need a way to convince people to spend money here, or at least with us.

It looks to me a bit like what you'd get if the LSWR tried to do Aerolite, or a larger version of the C14. Very neat!

Many thanks @BlueLightning, you've got me reconsidering my position on getting these. I guess I could have two rakes... EDIT: Uh-oh, just ordered three coaches and grab handles.

Aww, I was hoping I could use mine across eras. Maybe I'll just give the underframe some very heavy weathering...

I have to say, those do look the part, even if they're not accurate Stroudleys. No doubt an expert could point out a hundred reasons why I'm wrong, but they're not bad for what they are. I'd be quite tempted, except I'm working on a rake of repainted Bachmann Red Coaches that I started some time around June.

The museum coaches sound interesting. Given that they're brown and white, and given that the TV series only featured a brake coach in that livery, I wonder if this is Bachmann's devious way of selling LBSC coaches without actually selling LBSC coaches, as it were.

Here's my attempt at the mineral wagon in cruel close-up.

That, and also things like track geometry. Again, these are things that could be improved upon. I admit it's perhaps a little unfair to say, "The trouble with this is there's not much available. Now with my fictional range in which everything is available, on the other hand..."

Being realistic, I probably wouldn't introduce anything outside of the most established scales, for the simple reason that they didn't succeed the first time around. However, assuming I was so rich that it didn't matter, some possibilities do spring to mind. I like the idea of a modern-day Big Big range and I also think British HO would be worth a shot, concentrating first on prototypes seen in both the UK and abroad to generate international sales. But if we're sticking to our own ideas, I'd go with a range of Z gauge. In modern houses, space is at a premium. T gauge is nice, but the limited range, poor reliability and fiddly nature of the stock limits its usefulness. I'd also say that it's too small to create any kind of satisfying layout other than "trains in the landscape." At that size, detail just isn't visible. Z gauge is a step down from N, but it still allows a certain amount of detail. I'd probably start with something with international potential - a Class 66, some container wagons, some kind of passenger train that's seen in both the UK and abroad. Next would be a shunting locomotive, e.g. a class 08, and some short wheelbase wagons, ideal for a micro-layout. Assuming these were successful, I'd move definitively into the steam era - let's say an Austerity tank, a big engine (an A3?) and some Mk 1 coaches. And take it from there.

I paint the coach interiors and add passengers. I did for a while go the whole hog - using high quality figures, adding things like mirrors and adverts inside the carriage as appropriate, but I realised that these were completely invisible when the coaches were running. But I do think painting the interiors gives the coach "depth" at normal viewing distance and greatly improves the appearance of even older, cheaper coaches. I find passengers are visible, but sharp detail isn't. I tend to model urban environments, so an empty passenger train would be a worrying sign for the railway. As others have, I buy those bulk packs of Chinese-made HO figures. They tend to come in fairly psychedelic colour schemes, so I do give them a basic repaint to at least make it look like they're ordinary people in the 50s and 60s, plus a quick dark wash to bring out what little relief there is. I put them in the window seats because that's where they'll be visible at normal viewing distance.

Got bored, picked up a toy digger at my local pound shop, gave it a repaint.

I'd say the one on the left, but if you're worried, you might try adding a thin wash of dark brown or dark brown weathering powder (or whatever colour the soil is in your setting). A coating of dirt hides a multitude of sins.

It's linked at the bottom of every post I make. It's a combination of model railway videos, real life railway videos (particularly focusing on the Underground) and videos on the history of London (with a particular focus on twentieth century architecture). Nothing particularly mainstream. I personally believe model railway videos are still a largely untapped market. There are plenty of hobbyists who do manage to make YouTube pay. Really, all you need is a personable presenter, a space to film and some basic camera equipment. Everything else you can learn. You don't even need to be an expert - many YouTube crafters make a point of showing you their thought process and the mistakes they make along the way. It makes them more relatable. There's a gap in the market for decently made model railway tutorial videos aimed at beginners. I'll admit that this is probably true, although I do still maintain that calling someone "an ar$ehole," "a prat" and comments like, "We have terms for people like him in Yorkshire, repeating even the milder ones would garner me a lifetime ban on here" and "kindergarten carpet trainset" go far beyond reasonable criticism, and I am not being over-sensitive in saying that. If someone called you any of those things, even from behind the safety of an anonymous RMweb handle, you would rightfully be offended. As I said before, I believe that if that kind of vitriol had been applied to, say, Simon Kohler or any other representative of a major company, it would not be regarded as acceptable and the thread would probably have been pruned if not locked. What I'm finding quite frustrating here is that I am a YouTuber (not an influencer), I make a substantial amount of my income from my channel and I'm seeing quite a few people on this thread spouting absolute nonsense based on nothing more than their own prejudices. I'm not asking for people to bow down to my expertise, but I feel like I at least have a valid opinion. I know exactly how much work goes into a YouTube channel, how YouTube operates and how to make a channel pay. It is very hard work, especially if you're a one-man band working another job alongside. When I see someone tell me that I don't know what clickbait is or how advertising works, it's all I can do not to say, "And you are...?" Generally, I feel in this hobby that there's a strong reactionary element that views anything favoured by young people as something that's just going to go away once people accept the wisdom of their elders and in the meantime, you can dismiss young people as morons. It's been a major sticking point when I try to introduce new people to the hobby. And it's what I see when I see the personal abuse being levelled at someone who is into model railways and who has successfully engaged with young people and social media.

Right, and are you saying Sam is an influencer?

So why mention it at all?

I'm basing that on what I get paid by sponsors for my channel, which has approximately 9000 fewer subscribers than Sam's. As I'm in the middle of negotiations with a sponsor at present, I'm afraid I can't go into precise details. I'll admit it's an estimate. To be honest, though, I'm probably lowballing, given some of the viewing figures Sam gets. There are several guides as to what advertisers should be paying available online. Basically it comes down to your average viewing figures. In the past 24 hours, Sam has been compared to Trump inciting a coup, antivax campaigners and a cult leader. You know this is just a guy on YouTube, right? A guy who runs model trains?

That site is kind of narrow in terms of what it measures, i.e. advertising revenue. It’s also pretty broad - there’s a big difference between a video in the hundreds and the thousands. It doesn’t account for sponsorship or donations. I don’t know how much Sam gets in terms of sponsorship (I only recall seeing one sponsored video, but I don’t watch his channel religiously), but for a channel that size you’d be looking at around £500 per video. Donations can also be quite substantial, but I have no idea what they’d be. It is also worth bearing in mind that not every video is going to cost £150. A lot of his videos feature second-hand or bargain locos, and many of them don’t centre on showcasing a locomotive at all. For instance, the top 10 video that started all this would probably have cost virtually nothing. A video on manufacturers’ announcements would likely get high viewing figures at low cost.

But didn’t you hear? He runs his locomotives on the carpet! The carpet, I tell you! And he tries to attract viewers to his channel! He’s history’s greatest monster!

This, 100%. Nobody is above criticism, but there’s a big difference between legitimate criticism and the kind of abuse being doled out on this thread. If that kind of attack were being made against a retailer or manufacturer, this thread would have been locked by now. It’s a really bad look, especially given that RMweb is itself affiliated with a YouTube channel.

I don’t really know what to say to you. I have a YouTube channel, I am very familiar with how YouTube works and everything I have said can be confirmed on a quick search. I really can’t do any more. If this is that important to you, then fine, yes, despite my extensive criticism of Sam in this very thread, despite the fact that it is not in my professional interest to do so, I worship him and treat him like a guru. Your definition of clickbait is the correct one. Your understanding of how YouTube works is immeasurably superior to mine. You’ve got me bang to rights. It’s a fair cop guv. You win.

It's not clickbait because that's not what clickbait is. Clickbait is a link given a tantalising or misleading description in order to make you click on it. So here's an example. This is clickbait. It's designed to make you curious. The website it is sending you to is nothing to do with the photo or its description. It is bait to deceive you into clicking on a website you would otherwise not visit. The Sam's Trains link is not clickbait. If that link took you to something that wasn't a video of Sam unboxing a Somerset and Dorset Railway train set, then yes, it would be clickbait. If the thumbnail implied that the video was something more exciting than an unboxing video for this Somerset and Dorset Railway train set, that would also be clickbait. And again, even if it was clickbait, its appearance in your feed is nothing to do with that. Sam does not decide which videos show up in your feed. YouTube decides what to show you based on what you've searched for recently, what you've searched for in the past and what other people who have searched for the same things have watched. If anything, it's the opposite of clickbait, because it's trying to show you a video it thinks you would enjoy. It has no way of knowing that you don't want to see that, unless you specifically tell it by marking the video as something you're not interested in. YouTube is actually weighted against clickbait, because it not only monitors what videos you watch, but how long you watched them for. So if a video is misleadingly titled, lots of people click on it and immediately stop watching, YouTube learns that that's not a video it should be recommending to those people. As to why you now have the top 10 worst trains video, it's because it knows you came here, where that video is linked. It knows you didn't watch that video, but you are clearly interested in the subject matter. And it knows you linked another Sam's Trains video here.

I love Midwives on Ice! Gets a bit messy when the waters break though.

Yeah, I thought it might be. It's a shame the Sony Minidisc never really took off...