Nova Scotian

There's a difference between a company that maintained a level of domestic production and has reinvested in the machinery and equipment to continue some production - and the situation for UK companies manufacturing/order complex models where the entire thing has been offshored and outsourced. It is much harder to bring back, because of supply chains, the level of capital investment, the skills required in the workforce etc, than it is to maintain production. There's a great video someone's shared before of Marklin manufacturing - imagine now trying to do something like that starting from scratch and the challenge you'd have.

Adelantes too… though maybe not to be discussed re. Reliability!

You go where the supply chain is if you have a heavy component that's a large portion of the value of the product... UK needs to ramp up battery manufacturing.

My father had an HO model of a V80 - always really liked them as a result! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DB_Class_V_80

So in the Southern Pacific hydraulics the Maybach MD870 ended up pushing 2000hp. With some tweaks to the engine and transmission you could have seen a new batch of Hymeks with more than 1700bhp. With the Westerns even moving from 1350hp to 1500hp per engine would have made them even more competitive at the time. It does seem the limiting factors was the hydraulic transmissions being unable to keep pace with the development of engine power - particularly doing so within the loading gauge. New batches of any of the existing hydraulics, particularly the Hymeks and Westerns, could have hit a critical mass to ensure their longevity (but for ETH...) - and mirror the development of diesel-electrics. A 47 put out more than a 45, and was lighter - there's no reason to think that engine developments for hydraulics would not have taken a similar path. A more efficient hydraulic transmission (4 speed, or maybe just revised ratio) and a power bump on the Westerns could have made all the difference to their running.

One of the great myths is around trade balance - particularly focused on goods. The UK can not support itself, it must import - and by importing where local production is not competitive it frees up capital for spending on other goods and services. Services and the knowledge industries are core to the UK - and ignoring the services in Brexit has cost the country dear. Instead of sneering at financial services, recognizing the massive GDP impact from that industry and ensuring it continues to be strong in the UK is far more important to the economy than the marginal gains that were "attempted" by brexit and similar industrial policy. The US, Europe and their allies are clearly now trying to mitigate the impact of supply chains from China - we're seeing massive reshoring efforts. This recognizes the impact of COVID, of China's growing muscle around the world, and disruptions that could be caused around Taiwan... But trying to reshore model railway making is.... pointless.... in the scheme of things. Semi-conductors, critical minerals, battery manufacturing - things that our industries depend on, rather than are discretionary. Our core industries can not be held hostage by the interests of another. Check out what the US is doing in this regard. Far more important we have secured semi-conductor supply chains than model trains. And factories pumping out those semi-conductors are far less focused on manual assembly, and far more capital intensive - and thus more suited for reshoring.

What has happened over the last 40 years means the stereotype of someone able bodied and choosing to not work, but having a life that isn't miserable is no longer applicable. The sell-off of council houses and refusal to build enough replacements fast enough means accommodations are incredibly tenuous. You'll get 77 quid a week, if you can prove that you're actively seeking work. If you can't that gets cut - over the last decade of universal credit they've turned the screws - making double amputees attend in person to prove they're unable to work. The categories of welfare spending in the graph below are 33% of govn expenditures (wait until you hear how much pensions cost the government!), and you can see what a small sliver of the total unemployment is: All this to say - there's not a large population in the UK capable of work, seeking work, and sitting about on unemployment. The pool to draw from for training would be relatively limited - although there are regional pockets of concentrations (seaside towns...). As per someone else's comment - why would one reshore? Many of us on this thread think that the industry trend for complex builds will continue to be to seek out a lower wage jurisdiction, likely one with a supply chain in place. I can't see a UK product being "better" than a product from China, the current quality of our models is fantastic. I'd pay maybe a 10% premium to support British, not a 100-500% premium.

I don’t understand all these comments about work ethic. Worry that people see “Britannia Unchained” as non-fiction rather than where it belongs in offensive fiction. I also often find those making the comment haven’t worked themselves in a least a decade and are looking back with rose tinted glasses. (In them days we were glad to have the price of a cup of tea, aye a cup of cold tea, without milk or sugar, or tea!) Labour should be compensated for its production. It should be compensated to a level that one’s labour can provide for a quality of life that’s reasonable. If labour won’t work your job for wages offered, either make the job better or pay more.

Watching your build with interest though! COVID and a house flood (burst pipe, under high pressure!) this week - so once again any progress on my hobby is pushed out 3+ weeks from the hassle, and god knows how many weeks from the insurance deductible hit on my credit card...

In all of this I can’t help feeling the Hymeks got a raw deal

None, I’m ashamed to say. Life continues to get in my way.

This is amazing. Thank you for such a detailed answer. I knew north British had gone out of business, and the changes coming at swindon and so had wondered if part of it was just running out of suitable and interested manufacturers.

If this belongs somewhere else (Wheeltappers?) please let me know or move. Question is as simple as the title - as a fan the diesel hydraulics (who doesn't like a bantam weight underdog?), I hadn't thought about what the next technological step would be? Did any of the manufacturers have plans to follow-on from the Warships, Hymek and Westerns with another product? Something to rival the deltic? Another type4 to replace some of the warships and take on the Class 47? Obviously provision for ETH would have been needed Or had development stopped? If there were no more proposals, no more design and engineering - you can how it would add to the decision to end the western region experiment. I've looked around, I've dug into the depths of my memory - I remember something about a "super-western", but might be making that up? Possibly confusing the original design with the engines the other way around? I couldn't find anything on the google machine.

So yes, I do believe we're close to that level of sophistication in robotics, or at least could be within a few years. Look to the use of robotics in medical device manufacturing - these are small batch, sometimes even individually customised, using (expensive) off-the-shelf robotics that can manipulate in multiple ways and axes. Where you're correct is the cost of implementing such a thing, as compared to manual assembly in a lower wage jurisdiction. Additionally the skillset required not just in the CAD, but the RPA behind that robot manipulating the product to perform its tasks. Manually coding each move just means you're racking up the wages of software engineers, rather than an assembly technician. It's amazing what manual tasks you can do away with - think sorting parts - massive chunk of parts pushed out of sprues - machine vision and a robot can quickly pick and sort into the correct bins. It can be taught to hold a piece and manually advance each time a command is given - eg by a worker who is attaching smaller details, and after each one the piece is reoriented and the worker has both hands available etc etc. When a manufacturer told me about a six axis machine they were installing I started counting the axes I knew (having wrapped my head around 5-axis CNC a few years back) - I got it wrong by the way, I missed the tilt, or the wrist turn or something. And a 7th axis is easy to add (moves in one direction along the floor). AGVs are now common in warehouses, simplifying material handling. So, no, I don't see reshoring from automation - the technology is getting closer but the capital expense versus the other options (manufacture and assemble in a low wage jurisdiction) just don't seem to make sense to me.

I think about this topic often, and think there are a few other things to highlight. The assembly of the model is only part of the cost of the model when you purchase. The focus on "British manufacturing" ignores the main cost inputs into the price you pay. Various manufacturers have chimed in from time to time on this, as have a couple of the retailers. However, if you were to think about how to drive the price down for development, engineering, sourcing, manufacturing, assembling, distributing and selling a model railway locomotive "made in the UK" a few thoughts: - A major cost input is the molds for injection molded pieces, and many on here have discussed 3d printing. There's clearly a cut-off point in volume where it makes sense to create molds for a cheap variable part cost for injection molding (high fixed cost), and a higher variable cost for 3d printed. Advances in 3d printing may drive this down, but its still constrained by the quality of the product, and by the fact you're paying for machine hours. Machine hours is going to be key when we start thinking automation. If you can avoid the milling of molds you can reduce the development cost by ~100k. - Assembly costs and skills is an issue - perhaps you can reduce the part count, but the market has spoken on molded handrails etc. So what options are there? Greater automated milling/machining and drilling of major parts (if metal) may reduce the prep work and help bridge a skills gap. 3d printing will allow complex shapes to reduce part numbers, but it's not going to be a solution to very fine parts. In both cases the more minutes each body or part spends on the machine the higher the cost from that automation, as compared to someone hand assembling - which may be mating two plastic pieces from injection molding designed to fit together in a repetitive task. - Supply chains has already been mentioned - if you're planning on doing more than just assembling you're going to have to either rebuild a supply chain here or manufacture your own everything. If you're shipping all the components here from China for just final assembly is that what was intended? So, PCB printing isn't too hard, there are small batch outfits. Speaker manufacturing harder for low price commodity cube speaker stuff. Motor, can't think of anyone existing. Carbon brushes? etc etc. So there's a soft cost in setting up that procurement, or you're spending big fixed capital on equipment to manufacture your own. Look at how much loco wheels cost for a hobbiest in the UK... - Can you save money on design engineering? Possibly - take back some control over various stages and re-engineer PCBs etc to use domestic parts, you could also try and simplify production. Try and produce a small number of skus of say, motors and flywheels, now you're owning the final EP. But, your engineering staff are more expensive than the contract manufacturer overseas... Also, your attempt to cut back on SKUs can only be inside the product, because customers are demanding many different skus for each product. How often do we hear "I saw D1234 at Old Oak Common in 1964 in green with small yellow panels and the new pattern grille and NO MANUFACTURER HAS EVER SERVED ME"? Look at the variation in minor tooling to run all these different loco numbers, eras etc. Your customer skus are going to balloon and your internal ones will have to follow to some extend because the detail changes and artwork will drive that. - Shipping - yep, saving there - but although container prices (and air) have been bad, this is still just a container or two, for batches it's even just LTL - it's a pain, its thousands on a batch, but it's not doubling the production cost. - Retail channels - you could do direct selling and cut out the retailer - many do that already though and you can do it without reshoring production. - Marketing - do you need to put money there? Hard costs in promotion etc, but even just having a CEO take videos is a commitment of time with an opportunity cost elsewhere in the business. - It's also worth pointing out that any reshoring is going to be a large capital expenditure. That's going to have to be financed, probably through both debt and equity (given the scale of it) - which is going to be expensive. That capex will depreciate. You have to make it work, you have to push volume through it, and you have to be able to get a product margin greater than you did outsourced (either charge more, or it costs you less to produce). - The labour thing is probably a bit of a mixed bag. It's not likely to be well paid - so people won't move for those jobs. However, it's not like you can't find people who can not be trained for this nature of work. I've been in aerospace plants watching a final paint finish on a delicate component be done by hand by someone - painstaking work, doing hundreds of them a day. Look at the place mending your iphone screen etc. The dexterity is there, you just have to know where to find them, how to train them (and how to set up your production line), and then how to keep them. It's not impossible, industries get built from scratch all the time somewhere in the world, but it's a commitment of time and money. So, ultimately, the enemies of reshoring are probably, in not particular order: - Customer demand for fidelity - Supply chains to any reshored industry - Technological challenges in automation for this nature of manufacturing - meeting customer quality expectations re. fidelity, paint finish, longevity. - Machine hours for automated lines - machining/milling/printing - Large upfront cap-ex - Availability of labour, training of said labour, skills gap.

So, yes in winter that's true, but that's problematic if you're not requiring space heating spring/summer/autumn. You're also heating the air close to the ceiling, as opposed to lower to the ground to create convection currents (think radiator placement).

Others have said it, but my first and immediate thought was an electric element in the water heater. Second thought was the submersible pump - how old? Newer variable displacement pumps can save big. Third was the tumble dryer - I was lazy, but now am using clothes horse far more. Finally - lighting - it does add up. Our kitchen had 50w spotlights, nine of them. As they burned out I installed 7w LEDs, same light output. So now 63W compared to 450W, in a room that's often and well used. Helps keep the temperature down in the summer too. I use 7800kwh last year - three bedroom terraced house, electric heat only (eeek!). Electric water heater. etc etc. Different pricing over here though, I pay about 6p-7p per kwh and it's not going up as much as UK prices. I keep the house cool (17ish, less if my kids aren't here), try to be good with the lights etc. I expect lower consumption this year as I had my windows replaced - they were so bad you could see daylight between the panes and the frames. I've noticed my fridge is a power hog. I try to be better with covering saucepans when cooking, turning them off with a couple of minutes to go, using on the water needed in the kettle etc. Dishwasher runs on an energy cycle. TV etc all off at the mains However it only goes so far against structural issues (eg. your electricity pricing is unsustainable).

Cost and availability of coal right now is an issue - likely to ease in the spring, but it's at least three times as much per tonne as pre-Russia.

Jamie is correct - impressive sized ships for a frigate class (nearly a destroyer). Canada is purchasing a design based on the Type 26 to be constructed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You'll have to come over for some ship and train spotting! Echo the lovely photos comment. If you like ships they'll be building the type 31 in Rosyth, and they also have some old submarines docked there. Your photos of the Firth of Forth reminded me.

Went there this summer - thought it was a great line. However, like you we had problems with the tickets. We decided to buy in person as we weren't sure on how long our travel would be to get there. Their online booking system was down and so they refused to sell us tickets. We offered to pay, in numerous ways, eg. upfront, at the terminus station, you name it - but they refused to take a credit card without their online ticket booking. So there was a lineup of more agitated people who weren't being allowed to buy tickets. We could see the train was 80% empty, and would be at least 50% empty, so it was very frustrating. Risked spoiling what was a great morning for us. I wish we'd had the River Irt like you did - though I particularly enjoyed watching them turn William Beck. Won't let me attach an MP4 unfortunately.

On distances - I had a panicked message from a family member last night, but Saskatchewan is 2500 miles away... Great Hobbies has stores in Oshawa and Ottawa. I was disappointed by their train selection when I went into their PEI one. However, if you have an interest in remote controlled, or plastic kits etc it might be interesting.

Grab a steamwhistle beer from the old roundhouse in Toronto.

That is not a solution that should be entertained. Look at where appeasement got us all in 1934, 1936 and 1938. Russia has carried out a chemical weapon attack on our soil. They have invaded another sovereign country in an effort to annex them and wipe out their culture. There is no scenario under which it should be okay to reverse the sanctions without Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine. If Russia's aggression is not checked, it's a false economy to save on gas bills this year while one watches half of eastern europe get picked off one by one (as if we're prepared to bend to Russia's will this time, what's to say NATO countries would stand behind article 5?). UK's corporate tax rate is 19% - so you would see a flatline increase in tax revenues against those profits. A windfall tax, or potentially a more progressive tax regime, you could see a sliding scale, where those making excessive/egregious profits would pay at a higher rate. Lots of way to measure that - for an example operating revenue / operating expensive gives you an operating profit margin. As long as you have built in the ability for firms to reinvest those earnings (rather than share buybacks etc) you could see an IRR calculation for a firm change on just pocketing billions (the cost of production hasn't changed, but what they can charge for it has), and so reducing the tax rate by investing in a renewables project would create future revenues. At the same time, those not reinvesting earnings, well, that's where the windfall tax returns it to government pocket to assist those that can not afford bills.

I might be reading too much into signs that may or may not mean something… but it has stood out to me that some of the major box shifters have a lot of used inventory (a LOT!) and have started doing sweeping discounts. Rather than perhaps going through and reducing some skus based on age, or those they had a good margin on originally, they’re using quite blunt tools to shift stock. More so in used than new. I reckon we’re going to see some lean times in the hobby. I’d even have thought the APT-E would have sold out its second run, but “rule 1” only means so much when you’re looking at month of utilities. Think this could forbear a return to sales being concentrated in locos, rather than DMUs/EMUs etc. I did make an unexpected buy recently. Getting something for my father in here was a lovely Bachman J72 I got for sixteen quid. Couldn’t be happier with that!

It’s not hyperbole - and you’re are absolutely correct to highlight nutrition and exercise as a major determinant of long term health outcomes. By forcing families to choose between food and heat we are going to be causing problems. We know exactly what impacts life expectancy and how it improved in the past, with a real life example in the US of when you ignore what’s needed. And when you look at the median income of a family, and the increase in energy prices, it’s not hyperbole on how many people this will impact. I can not find another two hundred quid a month, three hundred quid a month. My entire “discretionary spend” on things like my internet bill, my purchasing etc was just under 200 - and really we should be at the point that internet is not seen as discretionary. And I’m above median incomes (but locked in with higher outgoings, eg. Child support from divorce). We don’t need to rely on “personal experience”, we have statistics. A stagnation and now decline in real income unmatched since WWII. Hospital waiting lists are now about four times longer than they were in 2010. The UK’s capital spend on healthcare and education as a % of GDP is much lower than European neighbours. More Britons are paying out of pocket for healthcare than ever before (as a percentage of GDP). And I’ll say it once more. This is a 500% increase (ish). For a service/utility that is essential for the preservation and quality of human life.