andyman7

I will speak as both a collector and a modeller which I guess condemns me as a heretic of the highest order, but I think it is important to remind everyone that we are a broad church, and that for every purist collector that wants the tapes still sealed and the shrinkwrap still on there are many others that are happy with running, or used, or modified items. Any modern superdetail item which has had detail parts applied and/or sensitive improvements made is still absolutely saleable; it just might find a different buyer than the purist collector. So I say unto you, if you want to leave it as made - fine; if you want to make changes - also fine. But unless you dip it in Hammerite you won't 'ruin' the resale value.

Many of the modern models have an outer card cover for dealer deliveries, it's not really part of the actual packaging as such and more often tends to be included for mail order items. The old Tri-ang 'slip cover' was rather similar and I suspect was quite often discarded by the dealer before the model left the shops - I've only got them for about 2/3rd of my Triang locos and that's after 30 years of trying to find them. Quite a few have grafitti on them such as scribbled about repairs or old prices.....

I flushglazed a secondhand LIma GWR Railcar with my son - we used SE Flushglaze for everything but the saloon toplights which were done with glue'n'glaze being so small - we were happy with the result.

1967 (Victoria Line) - all over silver 1972 Mk1 (Northern Line) - all over silver 1972 Mk2 (Bakerloo/Jubilee) - silver/red doors Later all survivors were painted in corporate LU livery - white, red front, blue lower bodyside. The small red panel livery wasn't ever carried by these, that was used on the 1973 (Piccadilly Line) stock which whilst visually similar uses longer vehicles with bigger door standbacks for Airport luggage.

Well the title says it all, I have quite a few modern superdetail locos but admit to enjoying detailing/improving Lima/Hornby diesels/electrics from the 80s and 90s for a fraction of the cost. I tend to leave superdetail models as they are as I don't like messing around with £150 models but something picked up for £20 - no worries!

Late BR Blue version now out!

It is an exquisite model and package

Failed bids are not simply a case of the 'winner' bidding too much In all cases, the DfT has accepted bids predicated on the delivery of enhanced infrastructure and/or new trains, in many cases the responsibility of (nationalised) Network Rail. Any deviation from the promised ehancements damages the revenue base on which the franchise bid was costed, and once the baseline deviates below the proejcted income, it is virtually impossible to meet the relevant financial obligations. Yes, bidders have gor it wrong - but so has the DfT for agreeing a contract with no capacity to cope with anything other than perfect delivery of multiple complex schemes. I'm sorry but this completely misrepresents the reality. Franchises are bonded. No-one can walk away without forfeiting millions of pounds. The fact that in the end the owning groups will forfeit the bond shows just how badly the contract has failed to deliver. It is populist claptrap to claim that franchisees who hand back the contract are let off the hook. The issue now is that the DfT has truly cooked the geese that were laying the golden eggs - an owing group might swallow one multi-million pound loss if they can maintain a portfolio that is overall net positive, but when they all start failing, then (as DfT has discovered) you either end up with no bidders, or one bidder with no competitors who is clearly going to price in this risk. That is why franchising is now dead. Having started work for BR in 1987, it quickly becae apparent to me that BR was in fact extremely efficient - it was just woefully underfunded. The idealogues confused inefficiency with poor outcomes, one of the benefits of privatisation was to release funding streams that BR could never get hold of but of course it proved that to operate the network properly cost more, not less than BR spent. There is no doubt that with Network Rail now renationalised and the franchise model being (as seems likely) changed to a contracting one that spending will be much ore subject to government scrutiny.

It was Engine'N'Tender in Woodside, secondhand trains and model cars piled floor to ceiling. It only closed finally a couple of years back with the death of the owner. The Northfields shop was Braleys Hobbies.

Yes, it's a lot of money. But as has been rehearsed again and again, model railways are not priced on a 'cost plus' basis, because the materials are but a small part of the process. CEPs at £70 were a steal for us, but no way representative of a sustainable business model. To get the 4BEP made under Bachmann's current global strategy, it (as a niche product for a small market) has to 'buy' its slot in production by contributing to global overheads. I will still buy it because, although I am now very selective about purchases, this a real essential for me - and when I amortise the cost over all the Bachmann BR era EMUs I have bought (many at ridiculously cheap bargain prices) the price will be a bit more palatable.

I've noticed that sometimes there is a lag between winning an auction and being able to pay. Just another curious coding glitch I guess.

Thanks everyone, that's brilliant. It's definitely a supreme example of 'cross-kitting'......

To be fair, the affected models are now all around 14 years old.......

Hi, I have acquired the LNER 4-4-0 shown below. It is a fairly typical 1960s amateur attempt to make something not available RTR, numbered 2672 which accords to a D11/2 but it looks more like an attempt at a D49 Shire/Hunt, however any other thoughts would be appreciated......many thanks

Assuming you don't need the decoders you will also be able to get a few pounds for them secondhand as an added bonus.

There was some reengineering of models - I'm not the expert but for example I understand that the Wrenn era City/Duchess uses the A4 mechanism rather than the one HD used. The least valuable Wrenn items seem to be the ones that are essentially HD reissues but I wouldn't underestimate the usefulness of the Triang couplings - these are crimped in pace on spigots cast into the chassis that are missing on the HD versions. I'm not sure that the collectors market was the sole focus of all the liveries rather than a small company sweating the tools for all they were worth. The documented production figures are quite eye-opening, with production of items in their 000s in the 1970s dwindling to issues in some case of under 100 for mid 80s to end of production in 1992.

On pedantic note the motorised van was a Kitmaster product; AIrfix never made one.

Trix 52 is a contender but it is seriously remiss in actually looking like the loco it is supposed to represent. Fleischmann 42 is H0 and therefore disqualified . I stopped at Class 55 as from class 56 onwards they are not modernisation plan era but the original 4mm 60, 66 and 67 models were all done by Lima.

There are a few difficult ones - H/D did the Deltic, Trix the Western (class 52) and Warship (class 42). But I treated the 'first' model as the first one that had any kind of serious resemblance to the prototype (of course an endlessly debatable point in itself!)

Indeed. I included it on the basis that the original Hornby release lists it as a class 47/48 on the header card, regardless of prototype fidelity.

By my reckoning, the release of the Class 21 now means that every single mainline diesel class of the BR modernisation plan has been made as an RTR model in 4mm. I'm discounting the Playcraft H0 D6100 for this exercise. Off the top of my head, the list of each class followed by the first RTR model would be: Class 14/15/16/17 - Heljan; Class 20 - Hornby Dublo; Class 21/22 - Dapol; Class 23 - Heljan; Class 24 - Bachmann; Class 25 - Hornby; Class 26/27 - Lima; Class 28 - Hornby Dublo; Class 29 - Hornby; Class 31 - Triang; Class 33 - Lima; Class 35/37 - Triang; Class 40 - Jouef; Class 41 - Kernow; Class 42 - Lima/Mainline; Class 43 - Bachmann; Class 44/46 - Bachmann; Class 45 Mainline; Class 47/48 - Hornby; Class 50 - Lima; Class 52 Hornby/Lima; Class 53 - Heljan; Class 55 - Lima.

Royal Mail offer 'Tracked and Signed' as a postage option for most international destinations, but for Australia you have to choose either 'Tracked' or 'Signed' but not both. I always use 'Tracked' for Australia as I'm aware that the signature service is largely academic for many places in Oz.

There's no pitfalls and by using the ebay return label they automatically get to track it so will know when you get it back. It's annoying when this sort of thing happens but the process is straightforward.

Mobile Operations Managers were introduced by BR in 1992 as part of the 'Organising for Quality' reorganisation. One of the purposes of this was to split 'retail' (customer facing) staff and operational staff. I became an SM (Station Manager) under the new regime and so was quite used to dealing with frustrated platform staff who previously were track certified and could nip down on to the track to wind failed points etc, and who now had to call for the nearest MOM to attend. However, before this turns into another debate about the good old days, I should point out that in practice there is a lot of sense in ensuring anyone with trackside/safety critical responsibilities is fully able to focus on those tasks, and that staff dealing with customers are trained and focussed on that. The railway is a much safer place for workers now than in 1992.

The Cavalex model was announced in March 2019 so the Hornby model looks to have been on the cards well before then.