colin smith

Sam's Trains is interesting. I haven't watched a great deal and he is slightly irritating, very verbose, and doesn't really seem to get the idea that these are models of prototype locos that many owners will use in a prototype manner. For example, he completely dismisses the idea that the hauling power of a model loco should be proportionate to the hauling power of the prototype.

That said, a lot of the tone on this thread is... well.... a bit grumpy. No offence.

What hasn't been addressed (unless I've missed it) is an assumption in the OP.  As I see it, whether or not Youtubers are a positive (or negative) influence  on railway modelling largely depends on what each of us thinks railway modelling is (no, I'm not being dim) what we think it should be, and what we think it shouldn't be. 

For many here, I think the answers to those questions are, broadly, a realistic portrayal, albeit with compromises, of an identifiable historical period and location (usually British) featuring a railway, and the more realistic it is the better. But those aren't the only possible answers and there's nothing intrinsically unreasonable about running your trains on the carpet simply as a preference to creating a realistic setting, or creating an entirely fanciful setting.

Personally, I'd love to get into Youtube as a way of sharing my novel writing, but I'm aware it's a lot of work and I have a face for radio.

1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Heard of, seen the odd photo, but not read any of P.D. Hancock's articles.

Ah, that's not so bad. He has been dead a decade or more and I think the articles dried up in the late seventies. However, his locomotives and fragments of his layout are cherished like holy relics. In terms of his contribution to railway modelling I'd say he's not that far behind John Allen.

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Well, perhaps whimsy was too loaded a term, reflecting my perhaps too puritanical attitude to the question. To set a benchmark for my puritanism, I'll say that I find John Ahern's Madder Valley whimsical, but not Pendon. What I look for is credibility, in a freelance scheme as much as in a layout purporting to portray one of the pre-grouping companies. I'm happy to take your word that the Craig & Mertonford, with which I am not that familiar, the magazine articles having been before my time, fulfils that condition. @Edwardian's West Norfolk scheme inserts a fictional railway company into a "fold in the map", but aims to do so with the greatest attention to fidelity to the practices of his chosen period - "prototype literate" to use a phrase he coined in reference to the Hattons Genesis carriages; in other words, a railway that whilst being fictional, is not implausible. A great many pre-grouping layouts fit this mould, even when they represent real companies - fictional locations, "might-have-beens". But as others have contended, it can be easier to model a real location...

 

But each to his own taste; I'm merely stating my own.

Gosh. I'm a little surprised you haven't heard of the Craig and Mertonford. P. D. Hancock was a pioneer in both narrow-gauge modelling and in creating a fictional basis for his model railway, which included establishing a new Scottish county in the Firth of Forth. I mentioned him because I assumed he and his layout were a common-currency among all railway modellers.

John Allen was only whimsical in that he modelled mainly narrow-gauge prototypes running for mechanical convenience on a standard gauge model because at that time it was very difficult to do anything else. In other ways he was as realist as technology allowed. Pendon for many is the very opposite of whimsicality.

Yes, I think you have diagnosed your problem as a form of puritanism, but that is purely your preference and others will have different, yet equally valid, preferences. As you say, each to their own, but equally each without feeling a need to disparage the other.

As for believability, the ability of people to suspend disbelief is behind the success of fictions such as Game of Thrones, The Time Machine, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, Lord of the Rings, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Beowulf, and many other stories and should not be underestimated.

24 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Whimsey is a choice. But you wouldn't present a layout built on such principles as representing "the GN&SR in the Edwardian period" or whatever; you would make it clear that it was an ahistorical jeu d'esprit?

Who said 'whimsy'? Is P D Hancock's legendary Craig and Mertonford Railway whimsy? Whimsy is something like the Far Tottering and Oystermouth. Craig and Mertonford is realist fiction.

As I said, I admire model railways like Burntisland but it's not the only approach and not, to me, the most interesting approach. Put it this way, if I go to an art gallery I'd far rather see the work of artists who have reimagined and reshaped reality in their own style than those who have merely copied it. 

Personally, I wouldn't present a model railway as anything other than my model railway in the same way I wouldn't present any of my novels as non-fiction. One takes elements of real history and real places and hopefully recombines them into an entertaining and believable whole.

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Yes, of course there are compromises in any model of a railway. It's the points on which one doesn't have to compromise that matter: truth to place and period. 

I'm not sure I even see it as compromise. My main interest is narrow-gauge with a leaning towards the exotic and I see the pre-grouping era as just offering more scope for the imagination. Much as I can admire a model like Burntisland I don't want to be restricted by geographic or historical reality. For me, self-expression is all that matters.

On 31/12/2021 at 19:13, Compound2632 said:

But if you put your handiwork before the paying public who will take it for an accurate representation of the past...

Really? Would anyone look at a modern image layout and think it's an accurate representation of the present?

I think most would acknowledge that a model is highly compressed and its creator very selective in terms of what he/she chooses to represent.

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Now, that's an interesting philosophical question. It seems to me, as a naive realist, that the locomotive in the film is Lion masquerading as Thunderbolt. The concept (Platonic ideal, if you like) of Thunderbolt exists only in the book/screenplay. Just as, for example, in Some Like it Hot, we see Marilyn Munroe masquerading as Sugar Kowalczyk; we don't see the "real" Sugar Kowalczyk, since she is a fiction. Or to take another example closer to the present discussion, consider a Lego minifigure of Indiana Jones. It has been stated that Harrison Ford is of all human beings the most widely represented as a 3D figure after Jesus Christ, thanks to all the collectibles from the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film franchises (there are Lego minifigures of Han Solo too, of course). For that claim to be true, the minifigures must be representations of Harrison Ford masquerading as Indie or Han - all anybody has ever seen is Ford masquerading as these characters; the characters themselves are fictions.

 

So, I conclude that if Hornby say they are producing a model of Lion masquerading as Thunderbolt, then they are doing nothing different to what Rapido are doing, producing a model of Lion masquerading as Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt itself is a pure literary fiction and could take whatever form best pleased the fancy of your mind's eye as you read the screenplay. The makers of the film have simply narrowed the field of imagination by inserting Lion as a stand-in for your idealised Thunderbolt, influencing my expectations; just as, say, my ideal mental image of Bobbie from The Railway Children, formed when I first read Edith Nesbit's text, has subsequently been irrevocably modified by seeing Jenny Agutter in the classic film version.

I would say that my mental image of Bobbie from The Railway Children was somewhat affected by seeing Jenny Agutter in Walkabout, but that's another issue.

Anyway, yes, it's a bizarre take on things and reminds me of this 

Am I reading this right? It's from Hornby's website: https://uk.Hornby.com/products/trains-film-seen-titfield-thunderbolt-train-pack-era-1-r30093

What it appears to say is that this is NOT a model of the Thunderbolt. Instead, it's actually a model of Lion masquerading as Thunderbolt. Now, my main interest is writing novels so I'm used to metafiction but I haven't seen metafiction applied to model railways before. Presumably, Hornby could take their GWR Hall, paint it red and stick on a nameplate and say it's a model of Olton Hall masquerading as the Hogwarts Express. 

NB. I'm currently taking courses in proofreading. I wonder if I could interest Hornby in my services.

Is anyone contemplating the possibilities of using Lion and the Hornby stock* as a basis for modelling the early railways of the 1830s, 40s and 50s? 

For me it's one of the more interesting eras in this country's railway development and very underrepresented on the modelling scene.

*I know the Hornby stock is something of an 'interpretation'.

28 minutes ago, jonhall said:

Any organisation will only have a finite amount of resource to invest in a project,

 

• Management capacity,
• Design capacity
• Manufacture capacity

 

If I was a Hornby shareholder (particularly if I was the main/majority shareholder which we know they have) I would be asking Hornby management if they really believe that focusing large amounts of all 3 on a project with relatively limited sales potential was really a good use of that time.

 

Management and design capacity are pretty much fixed if you sell one batch of 500, or 10 batches of 500, or many batches of 5000. I already thought that when I watched model world on TV and saw the effort put against the Dublo 'Channel Packet' for a run of just 500 loco's they were making some questionable decisions. Titfield Thunderbolt must be much the same - even if there wasn't another player in the field, there are plenty of other model candidates out there that have the potential to sell many runs in many liveries over more years.

 

The class 66 is a good example of this - totally ubiquitous all over the UK for the last 20 years, and probably for the next 20, in dozens of liveries already, having it in your line up means a batch or two a year with only the livery to adjust, its the sort of loco that Hornby need to have in their range as a staple.

 

A company like Hornby has significant fixed costs to divide across its range, whereas the likes of Rapido can probably get away with taking a more modest profit out of a single batch and then moving on.

 

Its not like Hornby are making such large profits that they can afford the odd vanity project that will only just wash its face (or lose). For Titfield there will inevitably be a drag on Hornby where the management have to focus on the IP issue (even if they believe their position is completely rock solid), and this will be at the expense of managing some other project that (the shareholders will hope) could be more profitable (or in fact those shareholders might just settle for actually profitable).

 

My shareholder would also be asking why Hornby management seem SO poor at determining what the right production quantity's of their runs, as this should really be a core competency and one which they have decades of experience in, yet as we have read all about, they seem totally unable to find the right balance between enough to satisfy demand without needing to move the excess at a discount, they seem utterly unable to find a happy balance.

 

Jon  

I'd have thought Titfield has every chance of being more popular than either the LNER W1 Hush-Hush or the LMS Turbomotive. 

4 hours ago, AY Mod said:

We are not promoting the film ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’,

is a very odd response. No one is accusing Hornby of promoting the film: the problem is they are using the film to promote their product.

I think with the very early railways accuracy is only a problem if you are trying to model a specific railway at a specific time. Otherwise, given the historical proliferation of small and distinct railway companies each with their own locos and stock you're in a similar position to that enjoyed by narrow-gauge modellers who customarily invent their own prototype with its own locos, stock, and history, and model that. 

1 hour ago, Coombe Vale said:

Nothing, I agree. I was simply making the point that nothing has a forgone conclusion.

Then I can't help thinking you chose a bad example. Some would call that verdict an aberration and others would call it justice. 

If Trains on Film is to be a range, I'll vote for "Empress of India" from North-West Frontier, starring Kenneth More and Lauren Bacall, and one of the gorgeous Chemins de fer de l'Est Series 11s 4-6-0 from The Train starring Burt Lancaster. 

Listening to Kvitravn by Wardruna who are Norwegian folk-metal. Before that I listened to the new album by Luana Carvalho who is Brazilian, sings in Portuguese, and her music is pop with a distinct Latin vibe. Before that is was Luthier by Ariel Marx which is a bit classical and a bit folky/electronic and he plays a lute. Yesterday it was Cosmorama by Beautiful Junkyards who are Portuguese, play trippy pop/folk but disappointingly sing in English.

I'm over-fond of saying I have music from every century from the twelfth to the twenty-first and from every inhabited continent.

7 minutes ago, RichD1 said:

Just discovered what it is. It lets you know when you violate the parameters you set up in the properties box when starting.

 

Richard

Yep. Almost certainly the radius is too tight, or too tight according to the parameters.

The program is quirky to say the least but easier to get started in than Anyrail.

Not to be controversial  but you do all know that within thirty years most modellers will be building virtual model-railways and collaborating with each other online to create whole networks covering hundreds of miles with multiple role-player options where individuals can be driver, fireman, signalman, stationmaster, shed-foreman, guard, or whatever, and the lumps of plastic and brass we care so much about will be as quaint to them as our grandmother's treadle sewing machines and antimacassars were to us.

I love the online world. It's liberating to have information, communication, and collaboration at my fingertips. My only regret is that at 59 I will only see the beginning of it and am already too old to make the most of what's here because my mind developed in the analogue world.   

On 16/01/2021 at 17:09, Andy Kirkham said:

I think the choice of rolling stock will be influenced by the back story of the railway. Any railway that opened from, say the 1880s onward, would be likely to have had bogie coaches and mainly six-coupled locos from the start. 

Not to be a contrarian, but the Glyn Valley converted to steam in the mid 1880s with 0-4-2 locomotives and small 4-wheel carriages. The Lynton & Barnstaple, Welshpool & Llanfair,  and Vale of Rheidol Railways do fit your description but they opened around 1900.

They're not cheap, but it's worth mentioning Fourdees OO9 locomotives if only for the size of the range 
https://www.fourdees.co.uk/locomotives They have some recently released 'tramway' locomotives which would suit a GVT style operation.

I'd also recommend taking a look at the https://ngrm-online.com/ site which is dedicated to narrow gauge modelling.

But I think the starting point would be to brush up on NG prototypes, assuming your knowledge of it is a bit sketchy. For example, the Clogher Valley Railway was a 3' gauge Irish tramway and might be a useful source of inspiration alongside the GVT. 

2 hours ago, No Decorum said:

I get very blinkered sometimes, thinking only of standard gauge and 00, if you understand what I’m trying to say.

S'okay. I think of anything but!

4 hours ago, No Decorum said:

That’s a great picture which shows off the compensation very well. I seem to recall a claim that Bellerophon was, at one stage, the oldest working steam locomotive in the world.

On the standard gauge, perhaps. The Ffestiniog Railway's George England locomotives and Dolgoch and Talyllyn of the Talyllyn Railway are about a decade older than Bellerophon.

On 11/01/2021 at 20:47, peteskitchen said:

It will be very interesting to see how the Stevenson Eccentric valvegear works on Bellerophon. Has this ever been done before in model form before, maybe a foreign outline model? and if so how successfully does it work?

Yes. Lilliput make this beautiful HO model of the Austrian Südbahn Class 23.

I'm wondering what that square of paving/cobbles in the last photo would be used for. That it's paved suggests it is used for something but there doesn't seem to be any access to it from the building.

1 hour ago, DLT said:

The Bachmann Baldwins look superb, and I REALLY like the SR green livery.  I've got no problem with freelance liveries, Narrow Gaugers have been doing it forever.

A question for the historians though, was the WHR Baldwin  lined like that?  I had always thought it was plain red.  Looks great though!

The lining has been the subject of a lot of discussion on the Narrow Gauge Enthusiasts Facebook Group. The consensus, with a few dissenters, after a lot of analysis of old photographs is that it was lined.

16 hours ago, SDJR7F88 said:

Was quoted by the Kato team the model is just to demonstrate the mechanism. The wheels and tender are from a Kato Japanese N Gauge donor. The body was quickly 3D printed, to give a rough feel toward the end product. Very early stages yet, but shows it will run well.

Ah. Thank you. When it said 'test the mechanism' I assume they meant the whole chassis was the finished article. Hopefully they'll have the right number of spokes in the wheels and much finer motion.