teletougos

As others have pointed out, one motive for this kind of behaviour may be to attract attention to his channel. If that is so, it is not necessarily a case of him having a grudge against a 'particular' manufacturer - sounds more like the strategy would be to find any popular target, then just to be as loudly contrary as possible.

Yup. It sounds like it. But I was interested in it as it's a whole type of commentary/ culture I've never seen in this hobby. I don't watch much Youtube, and I thought it would be useful to see at least one bit of it, to know what's going on.

Is it viewable anywhere ? I know that's playing into his game, but for me it's likely to be the first and last time I watch his content . . .

No. NWSL did enough wheel sizes to where it was in theory possible to adapt a standard from P87. German small-scale manufacturer Art & Detail milled some finescale-ish wheelsets too. Probably more of an experiment. Tho, oddly, original HP Products wheelsets at .070" profile, ie, from 1946, were fairly finescale looking. They were used by a number of American TT manufacturers over the years. HP must have manufactured thousands of them. Probably nothing in TT since then, has approached that wheel profile.

Interesting. Hadn't considered Piko. Historically, they have been prepared to start at the low end pricewise too, at least for a time. I wonder how that would play considering that's also part of Hornby's strategy too.

Oh, I see. One downfall of Tillig tho, as a scratchbuilder (may not bother many) is that it's impossible to get their wheels off the axles, if you wanted to use finer ones or to mill the flanges. They have a plastic centre & the axle is embedded into it. Piko are better there.

What do you mean by template here?

I think the Berliner Bahnen one does, as you can move axles easily. And tap the worm along the drive shaft. If you're careful. But it's a bit ancient.

I speed-read it. It concerns Russia.

That's basically what I'm getting at. I was not the first to have said it. The initial comment about the issue with modern era OO was on RMWeb (can't find it now). It reasoned that a layout, as a minimum ought give a train three times its length to run in, plus space for a fiddle yard - which needs to be as long as the train. A 66 and three ferrywagons takes 4'. So a 16' shelf layout is needed to run that. 12' in view + 4' fiddle yard. That's why I think TT will have a niche with contemporary modellers, especially the ones modelling the highly detailed branch or industrial -often urban - settings that represent a lot of the great OO layouts I see at exhibitions. Wagons & locos have gotten so big. And contemporary flats and houses don't necessarily have a wall 16' long. I'm told by Americans living in urban areas, that this is an issue for them too now. Mainline HO locos are about the same length as an OO 66'. Or longer - an ES44 is 53' between truck centres. A huge model. Popular wagons like auto racks are 89'. The standard train set 33' hopper or 40' boxcar is gone from American railroads. We're talking about a prototype where each wagon is twice as long as it was. That's got to add up. You can't imagine space out of thin air. N really isn't the scale for that kind of detail, doesn't have the 'presence', nor as I have seen, is it that good for shunting. That said, I have seen really detailed N layouts which attained this, but they're kind of like when Tom Cruise comes into a room. It's logistical ; it doesn't just happen. They need to be high up, stacked heels ha (!) and it all needs very good lighting to in order to ensure 'presence.' The best N layout I saw was in a kind of 'lightbox' and designed to be viewed at eye level. It was really good, but doing all that must be hard work. This is why I think TT is the smallest practicable size.

I am not seeing how you come to that. I would have thought the ability to fit more and longer wagons on a layout (if there is a maximum size the layout can be) would make a smaller scale more attractive than a larger one.

That is for HO. I think that modeller lives on the 'Big Island' where they tend to prefer HO. 4mm is still the thing among Tas modellers so far as I know, with some even building to 14mm gauge. The prototype was a very British railway, and they're blissfully unbothered by much chance of RTR models. ********** Modern image seems the niche where TT makes most logical sense. To me anyway. And physical impossibility can usher people toward radical choices ? I don't know the UK proto scene enough to be able to scope how many 4-wh wagons are left, or even shortish bogie ones. I live beside a 1:1 railway and everything going past looks pretty big.

The externality which is not negotiable and says TT has a future, is room sizes in contemporary UK houses and flats. Even for many current American modellers, an HO layout using the standard diesel loco of the past 50 years, the SD40-2, is out. It's too long. A class 66 IRL is as long as an SD40-2, even longer in OO. About a foot long. To justify it on a layout, you need wagons, increasingly long, bogie ones, and you need a few of them. In OO, such a layout no longer fits along a standard bedroom wall. So even if Hornby fail, this alone would surely make someone else try TT. T.I.N.A.

I think you have to lengthen the leading bogie, may invalidate warranty ?

Think someone's already sized up the Pacific chassis for the 3'6" Tasmanian M class out of Robert Stephenson & Hawthorn, 1952. However the downfall would be the SCOA-P driving wheels.

I'm sure any current TT layout could be better if only it was built to use 9mm track and use N gauge stock. Errrr, but wait . . .

Well, given MTB's range of interests - a Class 58 would provide a chassis that could be used to do US EMDs - SD7 / SD9 / SD18 / SD24 A&B / SD35 / SD28 / SDP35 / SD40X. Never say never :-) Not many of them in Canada tho.

Where do I sign on for the Guangzhou School of Spanish Dancing ?

Reasonable question. I think there is such a crowd, having looked in on a few TT120 forums. Don't know the percentage tho. Thinking generally, we're in an era where, when things are there, they're fantastic; endless possibility, sky's the limit . . . and then just as suddenly, they're not there. That usually indicates a big risk has been taken. But the business model used, is doubtless inured to that. Guess the big risk here is that the manufacturing occurs in a place where Hornby has little ability to influence externalities. Unknown to me : do they have a backup strategy if delays start to see the train-set crowd fritter away ? Beyond a certain point, it all comes down to faith.

I go to a well-heeled county town in China sometimes. It's in a river valley west of Hangzhou. The county was pushed by the provincial government to invest in precision manufacturing, in addition to a bit of bio-tech. The factories are on the edge of town; I walk around them a lot when I'm there because I prefer to stay in a local village nearby, rather than in the empty Hilton or other vanity-project hotels by the river. They are stupid and depressing, and you cannot buy the noodles I like there. The precision tech factory buildings are a ghost town. They had two good years before the pandemic but never really re-opened. One is finally being fitted out to produce fake cashmere scarves. The sort of low-end stuff that's all many consumers can now afford. I got drunk with the boys who are putting the machinery in. Mostly it's automated. Chinese buildings and urban environments mainly look neat, and certainly they're newer and less rubbish-looking than in England, but do not be fooled; China is as sick as the West. The town had a World Trade Centre. It was only open for three years and now creepers are enveloping its upper stories. Another 30-storey building next to it was finished in the early stage of the pandemic. Never been occupied. It is going to be demolished. That tells me a lot. Chinese employers are inherently predatory and snaky to deal with. Skilled workers became more choosy in covid time. And as older, dexterous, skilled women - the ideal cohort for fitting fiddly bits to model trains - leave the market, that employer attitude has come home to roost. It met its match in the 'Tang Ping' movement - 'lying flat' - a passive aggressive resistance to social pressure to overwork / overachieve which has spread like wildfire among people in their 20s, and its darker sister, 'bai lan' or 'let it rot'. The prospective workers who could make the Hornbys, and the precision stuff I go to China for, are fine working ten hours a week, eating the good noodles, and reading Bukowski, Diogenes, even Camus. It's really hard to get them to care.

The UK's longstanding TT shop is much the same ; half will deal with them, half did once & never will again.

I am sorry to hear that. But thank you for the heads-up.

Not this one. The etch was a bit off when folded up, particularly round the cab, and didn't sell so well. He didn't do more stuff. But it showed what could be done.

Not a bad idea. An outfit in Ukraine called RailTT did a steel boxcar and a wood sided one for TT scale. Unfortunately they were a bit overscale, and as the wood sided one was a copy of an HO one which I guess he had handy, it turned out the prototype was only useful for Canada. But the masters and molding itself was pretty reasonable. A Russian outfit also did an etched SD45.

Sounds like they need more control over the manufacturing.