andyman7

Thanks - I see what you mean! Hopefully some of that's making its way back to the fund for maintaining the loco

I've looked on the interweb and can't find any. Surely someone does these for such an iconic loco? Help appreciated....

Now I know what I'm looking for a quick search on ebay confirms that this is indeed a very early coach but unusual in having the Pullman bogies, which are riveted in place so clearly factory made. It also suggests that parting with a fiver for it was a reasonable price.....

Thanks for the replies - so definitely Graham Farish but an early one. Three of the bogie sideframes are in good condition but one was bent and broke under very slight pressure. It's been epoxied together taking the opportunity to correct the bend so that it is a running example.

This is an early 00 RTR coach I picked up recently. Plastic sides and roof, with some shrinkage/distortion suggesting perhaps Cellulose Acetate. Heat printed decoration. Metal underframe with bogies riveted on, diecast sideframes screwed to the bogie plate with split axle hoolow plastic wheels on metal axles. Does anyone have anymore information?

Yes, and a properly designed process can accomodate this. If you buy a paper ticket and lose it you lose all the evidence of having bought a ticket. With a properly designed e-ticket process, any issue that prevents you showing it can be verified without the need for nasty letters.

The real issue here is that by default any failure to present the correct ticket has to as these things stand be dealt with under the Regulation of the Railways Act 1889 (yes, that one!) or under the Railway Byelaws. This essentially bring any failure to present a valid ticket within the jursidiction of the courts. Some train operators can operate Penalty Fares, a civil process which (following recent changes) now has amuch strengethened statutory appeal process and, as its name suggests, is not a court matter but a civil one. However, many operators (mainly long distance ones) cannot use this. It is time that the Government legislated to make all ticket irregularities that are not deliberate attempts to avoid payment civil issues.

The phone doesn't need to be online. The advantage (when it all works properly) is that you buy your ticket on your phone and it's there. No need to collect. It shouldn't be the only way to buy, but frankly if you're under 35 these days you'll wonder why you can't buy your ticket this way when you do everything else on your phone. This doesn't distract form the major fail by the train company (not helped by outdated legislation that Government can't be bothered to deal with whilst it distracts itself with other things liking self destructing).

To clarify, the original question was prompted by an assertion somewhere (which may or may not be true) that the moulds for some of the more obscure prototypes that Heljan had modelled were designed for fairly short production lives (the implication that they were capable of being amortised over a small run); by contrast, some of the 60 year old Kitmaster tools still be used by Dapol were running 100,000 shots a year in their Kitmaster days (as noted in the Kitmaster book 'Let's Stick Together', from first hand evidence).

Firstly, I definitely couldnt find any other topic heading that this matched..... The purpose of this thread was to create a space where hopefully those with actual (as opposed to armchair) knowledge can help us all understand better the factors that affect whether an RTR model is made; for what market(s); what a realistic production run/lifespan of that market is; etc It's been inspired not just by the demise of DJM but also by the endless speculation on other threads of 'why don't they make x'; 'why don't they reissue x'; 'the tooling is worth y/has been lost/has got damaged and would be too expensive to repair/remake' - as well as the endless comment on prices. My only request is that this is used for facts that people who have actually been involved in various processes can reasonably attest to. So please no 'I think...' or 'I heard somewhere....'. I'll start with a few basics to provide a framework, all of which I'm keen are either refined or indeed challenged: In making RTR models, design still tends to be carried out in the country of origin, but the skills and capabilities required to produce scale models to any sort of standard mean that manufacture is likely to have to be in China if the final cost is going to be a viable proposition Model manufacture is a fairly niche part of Chinese manufacturing so sourcing and securing production slots and the support/dialogue to realise the final product is a specialist skill in its own right The market for fine scale RTR UK outline models is very specialist too, so production runs in batches of less than 1000 are the norm as opposed to the mass production of the 50s, 60s and 70s The main costs of fine scale RTR are design/CADs are; production of the steel moulding tols and ancilliary parts; assembly; shipping and distribution; - but it would be great to get a feel for how this breaks down! Tooling costs are in real terms lower now than 30 years ago, making production of sub-1000 piece items viable in the right circumstances (is this true?) If a mould has been lost, is it easier or viable to recreate it these days now that the item itself can be scanned? (I'm thinking for example of the Norev/Atlas Dinky Toy reissues which are all from new tooling for long defunct models). What sort of difference in cost is there for a tool needed to run 5000 items rather than 500,000 (if any)? I'm really interested to learn more about this! '

Very nice indeed!

It's not the TOCs, it's the DfT. The TOCs are contracts and the fares structure is very tightly managed by DfT. The DfT are terrified of properly restucturing fares because lowering prices might reduce the premium promised to the Treasury.

Full respect to the mods and in answer to those who wonder how this thread can have meandered on for 44 pages I think it the answer is that it is a form of therapy to be able to deal with the loss of promised models. However I think the wider lesson is (one again) the proof that running a successful, functional business with long term viability is a tough task that requires tenacity, resources and business acumen beyond armchair or pub discussion. Certainly, I am long past getting excited about any 'announcements' of new models or manufacturers, which for various well-aired reasons now tend to be years from a model actually appearing. On the other hand, when a new model does actually come out, I am these days much more relaxed about 'coping' (!) with the odd rivet in the wrong place or less than ideal lighting set up, and tend to just be pleased that other people have taken the risk, effort and work to let me actually buy the thing for much less than it would ever cost me in time and effort to build it to anything like that standard.

I suspect there will be a redesign before further batches are made. Unfortunately there is always the risk with the first production of any design that, despite best endeavours, a part will not have been engineered to a sufficiently robust standard - for example, the new batch of Bachmann Porthole coaches have revised bogies to address a weakness identified in the first production run.

I've just managed to pick up a second one of these Coachcraft models. At this rate I should have a rake in about 20 years

The main visual change is on the roof at both ends - the original loco hauled Mk3a FO and SO coaches have three small vents whereas the HST (and the loco hauled catering vehicles) have a larger square box vent at each end.

According to the notes in the instruction sheet for the Kitmaster 350hp shunter (see avatar for picture of same) the fuel tank has a capacity of 668 gallons 'sufficient for 10 to 15 days shunting work before refuelling...'

Some years back there was an interesting article or item (sorry, can't remember where) about designing the packaging for new Hornby models, which included the 'drop test' where essentially the item in its packaging is kicked around to see if it can survive. The Bachmann class 90 is a new model, and it would appear from the posts here that there may be a slight weakness in both the design of the bogie tower attachment and the packaging given the journey that these models have to make from China to the UK, the dealer and then often by post to the customer. It certainly doesn't infer a fundamental design issue, more a conditional issue of robustness. There were similar comments re the recent Hornby unstreamlined Coronation and a tendency with rough handling for the chassis/body locating slot to break in transit. There will always be some degree of risk with the very first issue of a brand new model despite everyone's best endeavours. I am sure that these issues will be addressed for future batches but as has been advised in previous posts, should you get a model that is broken this way, you have the right in law to return it - its an unfortunate event for the buyer but in the circumstances the only reasonable remedy.

You got there before me....I really like the lights on the Bachmann class 90, the warm white LEDs replicate the conventional lighting of the as built 90s very well and have just the right glow.

Your experience with longer distance TOCs who inherited the ex-InterCity businesses chimes with those of colleagues who worked there - my experience was in the ex-NSE area where yield management was rather cruder, and knowldge of ORCATS plus PDFH was the main influencer. Remember that unlike InterCity with Saver (off-peak) regulation, commuter fares were regulated on Seasons and full fare returns so the RPI-1 plus FIAP regime was pretty brutal on fare revenue. Of course, the franchise bottom line included Railtrack schedules 4 and 8 as well as FIAP adjustment payments so whether a TOC met targets or went cap in had to the SRA had rather more due to the luck of the drawer than neccessarily running the best show. I fully accept the the process by which TfL was able to create the Overground was unqiue - it must be remembered that these were National Rail routes and the DfT were originally dead set against cdeding them to TfL, but a combination of political alignment (e.g. Mayor and Government being aligned first with New Labour and the n Tory-led coalition) and the investment boost of the Olympics enabled us to see what could be achieved when real inevstment was applied to a route with a huge amount of latent demand.

As someone who has been involved in the analysis side of the business from the final BR years right through the (quasi) privatised era, I absolutely concur that the revenue and ridership trends we have witnessed cannot be glibly assigned either to privatisation or to the notion that it 'would have happened anyway'. Many of the factors have been suggested already, but a few standout factors are worth noting. The main ones are that BR fares policy (which had been very much about maximising the yields particularly from commuter and business traffic within existing capacity contraints) went out of the window; and that capacity enhancements previously unthinkable due to BR's external financing limit became feasible, particularly during the (now past) period whilst Network Rail existed as a Company Limited by Guarantee, essentially allowed to borrow almost without restriction whilst the debt magically avoided classification as public. Given the now highly political debate on fares, it is often forgotton that between 1996 and 2003 they were raised by less than inflation; and that the performance related element of fare regulation that applied until 2003 meant that, as a result of the network meltdown after Hatfield in 2000, coupled with very low inflation, fares actually went down on many routes for a couple of years. During this same period, a series of major capacity enhancements began to address very longstanding pinchpoints, and the buoyant frnachise bidding progamme saw new services bid into timetables. I don't think the effect of both enhancing capacity and removing the constraint to 'pricing off' excess demand can be underestimated. Look at WCML frequencies such as 3TPH London to Manchester (from 1TPH in 1995); London Overground running 10 minute 5 car frequencies on the Noth London Line served half hourly by 2EPBs 30 years ago; grade seperation and massive capacity enhancement at London Bridge and Reading; new platforms and Peterborough and Nuneaton - the last two are good examples of reversing previous cuts by different means as they each in their own way help to manage capacity that had previously been lost when avoiding lines had been closed.

Continuing the theme of vintage modern image cottage industry kits of the 1970s, I picked up this made up Mopok CCT at the Bluebell last weekend (for £2, making it cheaper today than the kit cost in the 1970s....). It strikes me that with skill this could actually make a pretty good model but I quite like this effort from an 'average enthusiast' (to purloin from Railway Modeller's tag line)

Marylebone workings for 115s ceased in the latter half of '92, so that would have removed a major need for Calvert - Bletchley. I'm not sure which way the the Akeman Street fertilisers ran but either way, the loss of both that and DMU ecs must have been the nail in the coffin so to speak.

As far as I'm aware it was the withdrawal of the 115s once the 165/166s were delivered that led to the mothballing of the Calvert-Bletchley line, as it was no longer needed for the 115 ecs/maintenance traffic. From then on, any traffic from the Aylesbury line reversed at Calvert and went via Bicester.