teletougos

Almost the defining bit of rolling stock in that timeframe was smooth sided, riveted or welded 50' boxcars. Not sure there is a 50 foot boxcar like that in TT at all. I mean, you can get away with the industrial scenario, but it looks kind of unusual without the key vehicle of the era. Can't recall if Possum Valley did one, but if he did, it'd be virtually unobtainable now.

It isn't really. The situation rarely alters. One loco (done twice by MTB, and once years ago, as an etched kit), a couple of other locos shells, a couple of hoppers and the odd 3-D printed item does not amount to much. Some are oddballs resized from artwork for other scales. The little available, covers eras from the 1920s to the 2000s. It is not possible to prototypically model US outline without a lot of scratchbuilding.

US forums recommend a degreaser called 'Bestine' for Shapeways prints. Bestine is not available here so far as I know. I am wondering what UK modellers use to clean up Shapeways prints in particular ? (was told that not all 3-D printing outfits leave the same kinds of residues , so the most suitable cleaning agent can vary.)

For a minute I thought Westedge had done that boxcar in TT. I'd have taken five.

I'm not going to say I knew you were going to do that, but . . .

Good post. I think people ignore the mid-range market, in places like this anyway. The ever-increasing-detail route suits the mindset of forums devoted to oneupmanship & pursuing specificity vis-a-vis tiny details, that no-one much notices if you don't tell them. I've started to admire some of the fantastic 'cheats' done by model companies in the past. The model that broke open American N gauge as a viable scale, is wrong, if you want to think about it. But seeing as it was such a good runner, and took tooling to a different level, no one noticed. As for Hornby, if they see TT as a way of not having to go down the superdetail road, due to the smaller size, and the fact of high speed requiring more space, in an era where houses are getting smaller, that's good too. And I guess high speed trains, since they have to be kinda sleek, have less tetchy detail bits on them anyway. I haven't seen a Southern Pacific-style headlight arrangement on too many Chinese high speed trains ;-)

Am I right in thinking that Hornby as well as Bachmann inherited some Lima tooling? This list gives that impression, apologies if my interpretation wrong.

If as someone stated, Hornby want to be 'mass market', rather than like an expensive hifi supplier, are they ceasing to go there ? Or was it never their intention to go to that end of the diesel market anyway?

Adding a larger cab to 3mm-ise the Plymouth may actually be more prototypical as the Lima hood is too fat anyway.

Thanks. I suspected it probably was. As others noted, Ravenser sets out a path of reasoning why a person may sanely speculate that way. I acknowledge that and take it on board. But given my lack of tolerance for Hornby's quantum of communication, and that their tone doesn't make me want to click and read their bumpf, I thought I might have missed some kind of an actual smoking gun.

[Sorry, I'm not Ixion.] Even in the bad old days of N, it was very rare for an N model to be as big as 1:120. I think the Lima Plymouth was one of the few. Possum Valley (a long gone TT manufacturer) did a kit for a 12mm gauge chassis for it. Lima British 4 wheel underframes were very high to allow for the pizza cutter wheels. They could even look okay with Ian Osborn 8mm finescale wheels but they aren't anywhere near as long as a TT chassis, and took a bit of lengthening to be used in TTn3.5. Even then it was for very tiny wagons - ancient Queensland Railways ballast trucks and so on.

One thing I don't understand with this discussion is the occasional assertion that Hornby's 4mm range is missing out because of the introduction of TT. Is there any hard evidence that this is true ? Concrete examples and so forth ?

I wonder. May just demote them to Spam for now. That gets deleted after 30 days and it'll be entertaining to see Hornby there beside 'Naughty Isla shaves her _____.' and so on.

Oh well, guess I should just stay here, and then note on my account when the promised payment is hoovered up by Hornby. Hornby's emails have a peculiarly bumptious tone, like a guy spruiking outside a Harry Ramsden's. I would really rather not see another ever again. Now that their TT stuff is in shops, on the off-chance that they make something else of interest, I am sure I will notice.

I do wish Hornby would send me my paid-for 66 so I can put the block in place and never get another email from them again :)

5'3" gauge TT modelling, then?

I see the Peco wagons have shallower flanges than the Hornby. Or at least it looks that way in the review comparing the wagons. I hope that becomes the default. Spoked Peco wheels would be nice tho.

In one way, isn't everyone a new entrant into British 1:120 ?

Lack of 'heft' or presence. That's what makes TT special, smallest size where that quality is present. Shows up most notably in the Hungarian guy's pictures and videos :

With these kinds of conversion, the scale is kicking off. It enters an ingenious phase, possible because of reasonably available RTR stuff, that people are not scared to take the knife to. If you destroy it, you can buy another. TT in the US never got to that, because each individual thing you'd buy would end up being a collectors' item. Sometimes quite an awful one, but you knew someone would pay over the odds for it!!

Thank you

Not far, but it feels like it's longer, since she is such a short baby.

Sounds about right for NEM. My Piko and Tillig are .094" (2.39mm) Not that far off. NWSL and other .088" are nicer looking because they tend to be blackened, and due to the shallower flange.

Unless you want spoked wheels. There aren't any of the right diameter - 7.6mm The only ones ever made, were for narrow gauge HO, by Steam Era Models and NWSL, code 88 (.088") profile.

That is interesting, I didn't know that. I should add a caveat that I was of course only thinking of the British model railway market . . . Hornby's selling point on scale/ gauge being meaningless in most other places. Although not all places, as you've shown.