murphaph

Maroon is considered by some (including web developers) to be a shade of brown, which is itself a really weird colour as it's arguably not a colour of its own but a very dark shade of orange. Here's a great video I watched a while back that popped into my head as I was reading this discussion:

1 hour ago, Vistisen said:

In the 'old' days before Brexit. I expect there were a lot of EU customers who, like me, used Hattons as the one stop 'supermarket' for buying both large and small items for modelling British railways abroad. But Brexit put a stop to that. That is not a political  opinion, it is simply a fact. As Hattons themselves mention. I am really sorry for all the people who have lost their livelihoods today. Thanks for all the times you have given us great service.

Yeah, I am in Germany and used to buy a lot more. It was so convenient and did indeed function as a supermarket with very reasonably delivery charges. I only ordered a handful of times from Hattons post Brexit. It was a lottery as to whether the parcel would arrive DDP as promised or if I'd have to pay VAT and handling charges and then contact Hattons for a refund of said fees (which they always honoured but that must have cost them dearly). It's not even speculation, Hattons at least partially blame Brexit for what has now happened. I wish the very best of luck to the staff and management in their future lives. I suspect the announcement was delayed to at least allow the staff to enjoy Christmas.

2 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

The blurb says :-

 

"This is a description of a Class A3 steam express locomotive with a tender, specifically the version used as a museum locomotive, 60103. The locomotive has been restored to its 1963 appearance, complete with a Corridor tender and smoke deflectors, and is currently operational and based at the National Railway Museum in York, England."

 

Given the vagaries of translation maybe that actually means that it's modelled as per today's build standard, which is meant to represent 1963 condition.

That's exactly the meaning in the German text. Modelled on the current preserved loco condition, which itself represents the 1963 condition with the corridor tender and smoke deflectors.

This seems an odd era to model for me as it is not the condition the loco was in when it actually visited H0 markets like the US and Australia. I really don't know who this loco is aimed at, beautiful as it is likely to be. I hope Märklin hasn't made a massive mistake with this. It's expensive even by German standards.

The 2600 and 2800 are very alike, both being built by Tokyu. I would be surprised if IRM aren't at least considering a Tokyu 2600 (there was a much earlier AEC 2600 Class railcar/DMU) at some stage as they have had a long life in many liveries and are the railcar that appeared during what many consider a sweet spot in modelling, that period around 1994/5 when the A Class was still in service but the 201's were starting to appear and along with them the new IE plug and socket logo. Anyway it's great that this 22000 Class model is making you switch to Irish outline. 

I caved and pre-ordered all the green ones. The B&T one is too late for me. If I can't easily regauge them to 21mm I will sell most of them on and I suspect without too much difficulty if the run is small and the demand high (the interest in Irish stuff seems to be growing so I reckon high demand is a given).

Perhaps more recent pics of the Irish panelled coaches would help identify where the dirt accumulated. I believe CIE did try to keep coaching stock clean even if the locos were filthy. @jhb171achil would know for sure though.

Folks I have been paying very little attention to this topic as I model irish outline in 21mm but now Hattons have gone and announced a series of Genesis 6 wheelers in CIE liveries from the 50's & 60's. The big question for me is, has anyone regauged these to EM or P4 yet? They look like they might actually be doable (3d printing some replacement axle box units) but I am only going by pics of the undersides of the engineering samples. I would appreciate any information any current owners have on regauging.

Did 6 wheelers ever run behind diesel traction in GB I wonder? 

Being a 21mm modeller I can't justify the whole set but I will certainly be taking a few for the display case. Great to see Irish railways featuring ever more prominently. 

22 hours ago, Paul the painter said:

Oh I do hope so do all these nice coaches and leave out a vital vehicle the Dutch van!!???, would put me off buying a rake,like many people I have to rely on silver fox models for the generator vans which need a hell of a lot of kit bashing to get them anywhere near a decent standard to run behind accurately detailed coaches,and where's the Spanish arrows and 2700 s??, I know you're 22000 class look fabulous,  but gents start at the beginning not the end eh??

Spreading announcements around the eras makes sense though. If IRM had announced these mk2's AND say the Tokyu 2600 at the same time, difficult decisions would have had to have been made by me at least. This way I can order all the mk2's that suit my chosen era (ca. 1994-1995) and then patiently wait for the 2600 which I am sure will be along in time. In a way it is a blessing that IRM is the only RTR manufacturer of note in Irish outline, because the lads can plan out a road map with a fairly high degree of certainty that "other manufacturers" won't try to gazump them. That means as long as one is patient, the goodies will follow. There is much more competition in the GB market, so what competitors are up to plays a far greater role I suspect. In Ireland that is not the case so IRM can release stuff to market in a calm and considered way that is unlikely to force modellers into making tough decisions between this or that. The brilliant partially option helps spread the financial burden further. And bank holiday weekend customer support at 10pm is no problem for these guys as I experienced myself on Monday :-) Legends.

Limerick would make a nice terminus station and with a bit of compression you could accommodate the wagon works and justify displaying wagons from all over the network. Also you could run (when they become available) a mk 3 suburban push pull set with a 121 at the helm. Limerick also had the immediately adjacent bus depot to display a few Bus Eireann models. Container terminal too, right beside the station. All in a fairly compact space. 

59 minutes ago, Weeny Works said:

Oh boy. The 3 car might tempt me into a small Irish terminus layout! 😀

Variety is the spice of life!

1 hour ago, finelines said:

Two questions. Is there room for cottage industries? Where can I get the 8mm wheels and samples of those ghastly couplings? If it’s Germany what do I ask for?

In German wheel sets are called Radsätze (pronounced rahd-zetze) and couplings are called Kupplungen (pronounced cup-lung-en, cup like a northerner would say it, cup, not cap ;-) )

Here is one of Germany's biggest online retailers sites. Currently 18 pages of 00 GB items listed from several manufacturers:

https://www.modellbahnunion.com/Spur-H0-00.htm?a=catalog&p=802&filter=k3274g3332p3428

There is clearly demand in Germany for GB stuff or this shop wouldn't stock it. 

10 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

And TT is almost the smallest of the 5 commercial scales on the Continent (ahead of Z but far behind N and even O )

 

In western Europe, beyond Germany, TT is highly niche to the point of non-existence but in eastern Europe including the former GDR, TT is a major player, rivalling H0. The figures are a little out of date but things won't have changed radically:

https://modelleisenbahn.info/marktanteile-der-spuren

It's in German but the graphs for GDR and for Russia in 2004 show what the picture is broadly like in the former communist bloc.

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

The big question, which nobody can yet answer with any confidence, is how Hornby TT:120 may (or may not) match continental expectations on detail, performance and quality.

 

John

 

I'm not sure they have to. They definitely don't have to match top quality stuff because the German market at least also has room for less detailed ranges (see the Piko "Hobby" range). They obviously can't offer tat to the market and they had better watch the QC process very carefully at the beginning, lest they get a name for selling rubbish. A bad name at the start would be very hard to shake later.

3 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Hornby evidently has a corporate problem with their diminishing status/dominance in the OO market. Being the biggest isn't enough for them, ego demands they be bigger than all the rest combined.

 

Personally, I'd think it healthier if they had no more than a 50% market share, which is probably something they can see on the horizon but take a very different view of.

 

They clearly see TT:120 as a segment in which they can achieve the position of near hegemony which they once occupied in OO. However, the scenery has changed drastically in the 5 years (or thereabouts) since they dreamt up this idea and the minimum of three that they must have spent turning it into reality. 

 

My fear is that, unless the new scale takes off pretty big and pretty fast, without significantly cannibalising their own OO sales, it could take them down altogether.

 

In any event, even a successful start for TT:120 isn't going to build sufficient volume to allow Hornby to let OO "wither on the vine" in the foreseeable future.

 

John

 

 

It would be a really foolish strategy to assume they could dominate a different scale, just because they were the first to bring a large number of models in that scale to market. There is nothing intrinsically different to 1:120 that would prevent any other company from making models in that scale, should the demand arise. Hornby's competitors in 00 make models in other scales already. Why would they not cater to the TT market should it prove popular? Hornby is going to have to live with the fact that it is just one manufacturer among several. They do seem to struggle with that idea though!

13 minutes ago, JohnR said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the incompatible scales we use have put off people fo9rm modelling British outline stuff. 

This is almost certainly true. To many Europeans the very idea of having one scale for the rolling stock and another for the track is well, mad. We all know how it came about but that doesn't change the fact that it is off-putting for many (many in GB too, hence EM etc.). Hornby doesn't need to dominate a huge market like Germany to make good money either. They will be happy with a small slice of the big pie and TT is very popular in the former communist bloc too, where there are many people with connections to the UK these days. Lots of people I worked with in Ireland have since returned home to Poland anyway, and I suspect the same is true of many who went to the UK 20 years ago too.

15 hours ago, Stefen1988 said:

Here is germany, we have two forums where this topic is "hot" and a big breaking news.

 

Yep, I've read through the TT120 thread myself (I also live in Germany, Hi!)

Hornby is not missing a trick here. TT expanded out from its "home turf" in the GDR into western Germany after the fall of the wall. Germany has the largest or second largest model railway market in the world (can't remember if the US is larger). There is a lot of interest in this announcement over here and the prices for "express steam engines" are a lot lower than those being asked here, and British steam engines are colourful by comparison to most continental ones. 

I've pulled a good few axle boxes off the ends of IRM axles (you have to remove them to regauge with the wheel puller I have) and you really need to pull hard to get them to separate. I can't see them falling off by accident.

4 hours ago, Alycidon said:

 

I did see somewhere within this thread that Accurascale are planning on selling non-sound ESU decoders programmed specifically for the Deltic's, so if you're planning on swapping out your Zimo ones it might be worthwhile waiting on these, that's my plan at least.

 

I don't see why they wouldn't. They did for the A Class. But it was also mentioned on the IRM forum that ESU were giving priority to manufacturing the higher margin sound chips over the non-sound ones. Could take a while basically.

On 03/01/2022 at 18:15, Dogmatix said:

As for wagons: some ferry wagons would be good, continental ones as well as the BR "Through to the Continent by British Rail" ones. The Hornby one is rather dated.

I was chatting to my "O gauge" friend here in Germany today and he says there is literally nothing available ferry van wise in O gauge either in GB or any continental outline and that if Accurascale made BR ones they would be able to sell them to continental O gauge modellers too, even given the scale difference as due to the smaller loading gauge of BR stock, they would look similar in size to continental wagons and not be obviously wrong. Food for thought maybe and sure if Accurascale were thinking about dipping their toe in the continental market it would be a way of doing it without really doing it, so to speak.

For what it's worth, the Irish mk3 coaches all had automatic plug doors from new. They never had slam doors except for the galley access I believe. I think the window may be ever so slightly smaller though, despite it being of the same sash type, but that could be the black seals simply being painted over giving that impression:

12 hours ago, Nile said:

I would suggest if there is one still in stock on the EU site that you want to ask to have it transferred to the UK site. I get the impression from the IRM forum that the two sites/shops have separate stock.

They didn't used to, but well, something happened to change all that.

1 hour ago, philg said:

It’s only extortion if somebody makes you pay it. If people are happy to pay over the odds, then that’s the true value and the rest of us got a bargain. Maybe useful to share with domestic authorities?

Although I was only having a laugh, you're right so I'll rephrase....let the over the odds paying commence. I wouldn't advise sharing anything with the domestic authorities around here anyway. I suspect her definition of a bargain differs significantly from mine.