justin1985

More signs of post-Dave malaise! This seems like yet another card tumbling from the tower they'd built themselves by announcing so many new models. Seems very foolish of Dapol to have evidently relied so heavily on one member of staff.

Predictably lots of pipe dreams here, but I would imagine you want to carve yourself out a bit of a niche in the market. E.g. Heljan with prototypes, Hornsby with SR etc.

The obvious gaps in the market, which several people have hit upon, and which present a progression from your J94 are industrials and small LNER locos.

To make a realistic suggestion: the Gresley J50 0-6-0 tank. Originated as a GNR design and survived for ages having been adopted as an LNER standard. So you get liveries from pre-grouping through to BR, AND wider geographical scope than any of the other pre-grouping designs people have suggested. Additionally its a charismatic looking loco, and the only previous RTR model I'm aware of was the ancient Lima effort.

I'd love a J15 and other small LNER types but I think the J50 would be most viable commercially.

I don't know much about industrial types, but the breadth of operation (or at least plausibility) should guarantee good sales!

There is a difference between a compromise (e.g. Mk3/Mk3a roof) and an avoidable error, and this is definitely the latter. I know in the past with e.g. cl. 73s they've produced new body shells to correct livery errors (InterCity with light grey roof I think) and then sold the bodies as spares. Can't imagine it would be worth it with coaches (the assembly\disassembly being labour intensive relative to value). I would sincerely hope these get recalled from the general range, and sold at exhibitions etc as NQP, or retailers are offered a credit to sell them at a discount. Its fine to say its little work to correct them, but that should be reflected in the price! 

But, how easy would it be for the manufacturer to change the plastic they use for the glazing from clear to a slight tint? 

i can perhaps predict problems in that the door droplights werent not from memory tinted and i dont think the glazing would be in say 3 parts ie; two ends in clear and the main central section in tint so as a compromise i could live with the whole coach being tinted given that the tinted windows are in the majority.

 

I wonder if anyone has tried removing the window moulding on a Dapol Mk.3 and airbrushing it with Tamiya "smoke" paint, which is designed for the tint on aircraft glazing? Don't know if this would work better on the inside face (safer) or the outside (more realistic)? I tried this on the inside of an old Poole Farish clear Mk.2 to get it to match the later BachFar Mk2s that were made from tinted plastic - the result was OK

The answer strictly speaking should be yes, but it will be hardly discernible in 'N'

These look really good, and despite being a million miles (well, several hundred) from my main modelling interests, I'm very tempted to get some - I've always had a soft spot for this livery! 

However, I really would say you do need to insist on the cantrail lining on this. The lining features on all the other Dapol mk.3 releases I've seen so far, so not only would I say it is not "hardly discernible", it is in fact conspicuous by its absence! 

I am intrigued by the mention of some German stuff being left, so tried to go and have a look on Saturday. Despite arriving just before 5, when they advertise closing at 5.30 on Saturday, the shop was closed and dark. Still displaying "Last two weeks" signs, and visibly intact though, rather than looking like they've started to pack up. 

Does anyone know if they are still opening, and if so, what the hours are? They advertise being open until 6pm weekdays, but I don't want to waste my time after work if they will have closed already!

Some pictures from 2004, on or about the date that Anglia and fGE were merged to become "one", and I took my camera out to get some shots of the old liveries before they were gone!

150 217 at Marks Tey, March 2004

360 121 at Colchester, freshly de-branded of fGE livery elements, March 2004

360 105 at Colchester, still with first Group branding, March 2004

86 215 "The Round Tabler" at Colchester, same date in March 2004

86 260 at Colchester, with a Mk2 still in Intercity livery, just as Anglia becomes "one", March 2004

170 203 and 360 177 (de-branded) pass at Colchester, March 2004

If you release lots of models at once you have to have the capital up front to pay for all the tooling.

Very true, but I'm sure Bachmann realise more income from their approach of drip feeding liveries on new models, usually coordinated between locos and coaches, for example, than Dapol do by releasing a new tooling in umpteen different liveries at the same time, which are then either remaindered (as many people who might want several cl.86s can't afford to buy them all at once), OR they are impossible to find when the matching coaches appear. 

Hence my comments on Bachmann's financial position giving them the flexibility to take this approach. I suspect Dapol could probably actually make more profit, and enjoy better relationships with more retailers, with fewer new toolings, but more intelligent release schedules and supply chain management. (i.e. more of their models could be sold at closer to RRP). Of course, this requires them to be able to amortize the cost of the toolings over much longer periods - not easy for a small business - but perhaps healthier in the long term.

I completely agree with Mike W that the Farish 90, and undoubtedly the 91, can scrub up nicely with some work - I have a part finished 90 with the TPM detail kit already applied, waiting for me to get around to tackling the PHD light clusters. However, I suspect the proportion of modellers willing to do this kind of work, that needs a repaint, is very small indeed! 

Also, I'm with red death on the Dapol Mk 3s. I can't help thinking that Dapol just haven't got the hang of supply chain planning to account for the lack of control they clearly have over manufacturing slots. Perhaps their batches are so small they have to wait for many models to be completed to justify shipping a container worth? Either way the long lead times combined with small batches make it almost impossible to put together coherent trains from their releases. And look at the debacle of the HST trailer liveries with non-matching roofs and text positions. DVTs in Intercity or Virgin are like hens teeth, and it still hasn't been possible to get a Mk3 buffet in any of the earlier liveries - meanwhile Intercity and Virgin cl.86s are getting reduced to clear as they're sitting around without anyone buying them - I wonder why! I can only imagine this will get worse with Dave's departure.

C&M's commission of the Scotrail Mk.3s to go with the Farish 47/7 is inspired, but I hope it turns up on time! I sincerely hope Dapol are sensible enough to release some more 86s to coincide with the release of the Farish Mk 2 aircons!

If manufacturers have had poor sales from electrics then I hardly think it makes much sense to request re-tools of existing models....

I think this is kind of the distinction between a dumb business, which just follows the market, and one that has the foresight to see how they might be able grow their business in the future. Just making more of what people are buying now, in almost all businesses, leads to eventual stagnation, and/or commoditization of your product. It often seems that most stock market listed retailers suffer from this, their risk adverse-ness becomes their biggest risk. 

Bachmann seem quite good at coming up with coherent groups of products that support the sale of each other, and ultimately grow the market - Mk2 a coaches and class 85s etc. Dapol were clearly trying to follow this strategy too, with the Mk 3 + DVT + cl.86, catenary etc but I imagine got cold feet when sales didn't grow quickly enough. I suspect they simply don't have deep enough pockets to play the long game in the way that Bachmann can as part of an international corporation, which doesn't have the direct scrutiny of jittery stock market investors every year, like Hornby does.

You can see this on a small scale with Kernow's special commissions - individually a radial tank would be quite an esoteric model, but as part of a coherent range with clay hoods, suddenly people start thinking about building a layout of a Cornish china clay branch, and you can sell more of both models. Suddenly the china clay layout is the new MPD.

So Dapol were on the right lines, with the catenary plus 86, but unfortunately for them, I suspect the area of electrics is too big to catalyse in this way. Give people a good 86, and they think they'd need a good cl.90 to make a decent layout; give them single track catenary, and they might think "oh, I might build a layout when there is double track catenary". Also, I suspect pre-announcing the Pendolino, cl.92 made some people think they'd wait to see what those were like, before buying the 86s.

We just aren't used to having models with catenary in the UK, in the way that most continental modellers almost take it for granted. I think it is very much a chicken and egg situation, people won't be interested in modelling electrics at all unless there is a supply of high quality models. In both OO and N the majority of electric models were quite ropey until quite recently, so thats a lot of layouts already in existence built without electrics in mind. Now there are many better models, it will still be a long slow process for enough layouts to be out there that suit them ...

I would still put money on an all singing, all dancing cl.90 (in either scale) selling more units than a Fell, or whatever other esoteric transition era nonsense people froth over! 

Lavenham is a station I've long flirted with modelling as a long term project in 2FS (I think Clare will be more likely in the end). Chris Turnbull's answer is pretty much what I came up with when researching it too. 

The sugar beet factory wasn't that far away, but was never rail connected, while the gas works were quite a distance away on Water Lane (which makes no sense at all really!) the rather ornate gas holder is still there, and I believe is a listed building. The grand house, Highfield, appears to have had quite a range of outbuildings, but was largely screened from the station by high trees. Further up the hill to the north was a windmill, which would make a nice feature on a backscene.

I think the map on old-maps is the 1900 edition, but looking at the 1880s edition on EDINA Digimap, the furthest south-west building in the range was actually connected by a diagonal siding to the wagon turntable at the end of the goods shed spur, which joined the other sidings which lead from the east towards the west. The middle building is shown with a slightly different plan, with an open section to the east end - probably the staithes mentioned. The furthest east building is shown only in outline, rather than shaded, implying it was only open staithes, maybe?

Is there no chance the shop will stock Dapol? Considering the Signal Box used to, it would be nice to be able to get hold of Dapol stuff locally. 

Living in Croydon, this will probably be my new "local" shop, now that Modelzone is closing. 

That 170 weathering looks great Simon! Shows how good the model can look, despite not being all bells and whistles like the 150 etc. 

The other simple mod I've been planning to do is print a destination label in reverse on clear decal film, i.e. a black block with "white" text. That said, I have seen Bombardier units with faulty customer information screens that default to solid yellow\orange, as Bachmann seem to like to depict! 

Justin

Rather than use grey primer, why not use white primer?  I'm looking forward to seeing it finished... Good luck!

 

I just used white primer on the first two coaches, and the number of coats needed to obliterate the remains of the blue were ridiculous. I had to use a fibreglass brush to try and smooth down the ridges that had built up alongside all the masking! I'm thinking a grey basecoat would even out the remains of blue\white more easily, before then putting a coat of white on top, might actually end up being fewer coats, and less depth of paint!

I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to go back to this project, its been packed away for now. I'm hoping to fit some lights too, when I do though!

Cheers

Justin 

Great looking PCAs there Simon! 

Can you elaborate on the Shawplan cl.37 grille painting? I've got a set of etches from Brian to put an a new generation Farish 37 that I've already renumbered. You say really thinned down paint - enamel or acrylic, and sprayed, or brush painted (or dunked or something?).

Good luck with the 170 repaint! I started on repainting a 168 into Anglia white and green, which hasn't been a fun experience at all. Masking the windows while attempting to strip the dark blue, then paint over with white hasn't been fun at all. In fact the project ground to a halt on the 2nd carriage. For the third I might try grey primer first, followed by the white. The original intention was then for a combination of home printed decals on white for the doors, and clear with the green gradient on the body sides. Lord knows if I'll ever finish it though!

Justin

don't forget the Mausell's are cutting metal at this moment, and they will have our flexible corridor connectors if you want to have them on too (they will be a pair in a box), and light bar ready.

Hi Dave,

It's good to hear that the flexible corridor connections are back! It all went quiet after the class 156. Weren't they announced as an separate accessory pack to retrofit to older models? Any chance of that idea being resurrected?

Justin

Haha - interesting point, and it seems to apply on this forum generally - "as long as the face is OK, not bothered about the body" !

I agree that 1-Bo-Bo-1 with a hidden coupler pocket is definitely preferable to a true Co-Co! Looking really good, and I'll certainly be buying one in revised NSE when they appear, the idea of building an LSWR themed module is becoming irresistible !

Having tried virtually all the brands, now I really try to avoid buying anything but Vallejo acrylics - they brush well, airbrush well, can be thinned and cleaned with water, and come in a sensible bottle that avoids spillage and allows you to measure drops out carefully for mixing. I've never had a problem with adhesion, or reaction with any variety of varnish over the top. Humbrol are in the dark ages in comparison! 

Thanks for the details Nick - that paper sounds tricky but clearly worth the effort! The GER livery was (for the immediate pre-grouping period anyway) quite different from the LNER lettering - much more like the LMS loco numbering used above. 

http://www.lner.info/co/GER/coaches.shtml

Great looking archaic coaches there Nick! The 3rd class door lettering looks particularly good - were these home printed, and if so, on clear or white decal paper? I've got a pile of etches from Bill Bedford and David Eveleigh for GER coaches, and one of the excuses I've had in mind for not building them so far is not knowing how to do the lettering - I had imagined yellow or "gold" from a homemade decal wouldn't show up very well over a dark bodyside.

What is the prototype for the bogie coach? 

I've resisted the urge to collect the Southern as well, but with this I'm sorely tempted! 

My first thought was that the smokebox door looked a bit too "coned". Looking at pictures of the real thing, it does definitely come to a cone shape in the middle, but the images above give the impression it might be a bit too prominent? Or is that just a result of the render in grey?

Either way, looking great!

After the inspiration of helping to operate Copenhagen Fields the other weekend, over this weekend I've finally got my Association Jinty chassis working well (if not perfectly) and have fitted the sandboxes and brake rigging.

It did run pretty much perfectly before I painted it, but on re-attaching the body, it then seemed the worm was having trouble meshing. A bit of fettling of the gearbox assembly has got it running perfectly in one direction, if less so in the other. It seems that in the "forward" direction the worm is getting much more thrust forward from the motor than in reverse, which I think is one the things people were saving when cautioning against fitting worms directly to coreless motors. I'm loathed to tinker too much more, but perhaps a good amount of running in will sort it. (i'm also avoiding soldering on washers to retain the connecting rods - hence the cable sleeve. Any advice on this?

Either way, the Jinty was just a practice piece really - at least its given me the confidence to make a fresh start on the Bob Jones J72 that I mangeled before!

Justin

 

The new metric worm/wheel sets should have both 1mm and 1.5mm bore worms supplied with them, so the problems of sleeving to different motor shafts should be reduced.  The specification I worked out with our Polish manufacturer included both bore sizes, and I expect the shop is sticking with that specification.

Hi Nigel, I don't suppose frame bushes with a 1mm ID are also in the works to go with these? 

Justin