LaGrange

On 23/06/2021 at 13:43, rembrow said:

Emerging news today, a la Bloomberg, is that preliminary agreement has been reached between the vessel owners/cargo insurers and the Suez Canal authority on the level of compensation. This could lead to an early release of the vessel.

Until the containers are unloaded at their respective destinations I'd not be getting excited. 

4 hours ago, Markwj said:

I thought that sparked a memory too but looking on the Dapol site I can’t find it unless it’s dcc supplies site?

Was meant to be model rail, many years ago. Lets get the initial model to market first, fed up waiting now - The real ones took less time to be ordered, designed and built.....

4 hours ago, richscylla said:

Hatton's have just emailed saying Q4 2021. 

Ploy to build up their preoders, that they can honour of course for a change

16 hours ago, MGR Hooper! said:

Expected and still better value for money than some other OO gauge diesels and electrics out there.

They must have made a few changes in their operational department

12 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah 

 

Anyone else seeing it like the above at this rate. 17 paragraphs when 1 will do?

1 minute ago, richscylla said:

Either that or they are one of the growing number of people who think their opinion is equally as valid as an expert because all opinions are equal... 

All opinions are equal, except some are more equal than others judging by how much you type and not what you say.....

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Not So!

 

The biggest cost in model railways is the hours of design work to capture the accrete external appearance down to the last rivet plus subsequent Assembly and decoration of said external surfaces.

 

The chassis block is in fact the easiest (and cheapest) bit of the loco to produce. Think about it - in terms of the chassis or mechanics there is not a massive amount of difference between a 37 or a 69 apart form the dimensions - a designer can simply tweak the length of drive shafts, shorten / extended the body casting, etc with relatively little effort. By contrast  you cannot 'tweak' a class 37 bogie sideframe to look like a 69 one - it has to be a brand new design.

 

As such being able to 'reuse a Chassis block' is probably only going to save you around 10% of the cost of developing a new model.

 

You obviously are unaware of who Mr R Death is........

9 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Nice one.

The 3 monthly announcements are specific; running numbers liveries etc.

 

Making a good model takes a few years to design, prototype & correct.

They have been working on this for a while, they didnt just decide on the spur of the moment to do it today. Takes time to produce models, covid would have had no bearing on it

34 minutes ago, Trains4U said:

Sales volume will be one of the factors in determining tier levels along with the others listed (this much was hinted at in the original communication in January)

 

If Retailer sales volumes were plotted on a graph, the pattern would almost certainly have a hockey-stick shape, with lots of similar sized retailers, ramping up quickly to the biggest with some serious volumes 

 

We are probably somewhere on the lower half of the sharply upturning curve,  bigger than perhaps 80% of the other retailers out there, but still miles behind the biggest retailers who are in turn a good 20 x or more bigger than us.

 

 

And for the avoidance of doubt, T1 retailers do exist.   We are one of them (and we are by no means one of the biggest out there)

 

 

I guess a HAA and CDA isn’t a core Hornby model? 

57 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

The point is all three designs can be bought new from retailers and have not been retired by the manufacturers yet.

 

Yes you can also buy them on the 2nd hand market -if the particular livery isn't available new  or you are going to repaint it for a detailing project, but the general point is they are all current products - not something last sold* in 1990!

 

Good luck trying to buy a 20 year old Mondeo from a Ford dealer.

They are at 3 completely different levels , so you cant compare them equally aside from the fact they are 16.5mm OO scale 66's, all available and DCC ready - nothing more.

13 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

None of the above. Will the layout fit in it?

 Yeah, how fast does it go and how high is the score of its top trupms card

Just now, phil-b259 said:

 

Again a rather silly analogy.

 

Lets pick a current focus, a current Astra and current Toyota Corolla.

 

They are not all fresh designs are they? the basic body shapes and design can easily be serval years old, sometimes approaching the decade mark.

 

But the Hornby 66 dates back 20 years, the Bachmann one 10 years and the Hattons one is quite recent - which is the comparison you are making. Not me, you. Who was being silly again??

1 minute ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Why would you need a fresh model to test?

 

It would be perfectly possible to dust off a review of a Bachmann 66, a railroad 66 and the Hattons one for example and pick out the salient points from each.

 

Yes it would not mass muster in a scientific journal, but such a process would be perfectly acceptable in the context of a magazine article.

 

Whether the readership of the magazine would be interested is a very different question as to whether the concept would be possible.

 

Its not a problem to say yes its possible but its not something our particular readership would enjoy so we won't do it.

 

Ok so lets compare a 20 year old Ford Mondeo, a 10 year old Vauxhall Insignia and a brand new BMW 3 series....

Which one will the magazine think is the best one. They all fit on the track and pull a train ok, but after that where do you go. Seems people like both misery and going around in ever decreasing circles.......

6 hours ago, HonestTom said:

The YouTube rules demand that paid promotion is clearly stated within the video. They come down on you like a ton of bricks if they find out that you've accepted sponsorship without declaring it. Hence you'll often see YouTubers frantically explaining when they haven't been sponsored by a company they endorse.

So where do the youtubers that work for the company they 'influence' fit in?? 

1 hour ago, HonestTom said:

That's a little different from just outright asking for your layout to be funded by others. The YouTuber is producing something that other people consume. In principle, it's no different from an actor, writer, TV presenter or musician getting paid - it's just more direct. Hence my suggestion that a better way to e-beg is to produce something in return, e.g. a blog, a video, even something like an E-book. That way, other people can get something from your hobby. You might even say that you

 

The YouTube rules demand that paid promotion is clearly stated within the video. They come down on you like a ton of bricks if they find out that you've accepted sponsorship without declaring it. Hence you'll often see YouTubers frantically explaining when they haven't been sponsored by a company they endorse.

One in particular doesn't actually do any modelling or give tips, they go off the comments people are making on the live stream, nothing more, and yet people are happy to contribute financially. Playing trains and not model railways. Like a little commune, I'd rather pull my fingernails out with a pliers than engage again

The only time I've contributed directly to someone elses layout was for Market Deeping, but that was a totally different set of circumstances

Ye may well jest, but watch people willingly give money to the youtube 'celebrities/influencers'........

See it a lot with Motorsport, people looking for 'support/sponsorship' 

They should just put 'Please help me pay for my hobby which I can ill-afford'

Recently received some Accuraloads, if there was no bank holiday it would have been ordered Friday, delivered Monday.......

On 13/05/2021 at 06:21, MGR Hooper! said:

I'll add that with some reference images in the email.

Working for Dapol again, nice!!

3 hours ago, MGR Hooper! said:

 

The initial artwork seemed to have had that error. I've compiled a list of corrections and sent it to Neil and Joel.
 

Welcome back.........

Again - an email received, the Yeoman ones are in short supply - As Elvis would have sang - Its Now or Never

59 minutes ago, sulzer71 said:

Now that would be interesting but it's common knowledge that they are intending to do further runs of skinhead 24's at some point but they are currently concentrating on the headcode box variants and the 25's

Nothing to do with that, its just the fact that a much bigger manufacturer has had the bareface cheek to also make a 24

Excellent - plenty of money saved here.

Although I am now waiting for the response later today of another company that produces 24's in 1/76.2 scale............

Ordered and received items to Ireland from Accurascale in the UK with no extra charges - in 2021. It was slow initially for everyone but only took 6 days which is about right

Got an email this morning, these are now low on stock, again if you have not indulged, now is the time

So hard to choose the best Accurascale wagon, again these are up there