MarkSG
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Posts posted by MarkSG
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3 hours ago, robk said:
We tried that a few times previously and generally got very few of the short forms back. It's a question I'd like to answer, along with "where did you see the show mentioned?", as it informs the advertising decisions.
What might be worth trying, in order to both encourage responses and minimise the admin work of collating the responses, is to put the questionnaire online and simply provide a URL and QR code to visitors (in the show guide, if you supply one) for them to access it. It might even be worth incentivising responses by offering something in return for completed online forms, such as a voucher for reduced price admission next year or entry into a prize draw.
It would be more work to set up in advance than just using a printed form, but it would be hugely less work afterwards analysing the responses.
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20 minutes ago, DaveF said:
My own view is coloured by the things I have done over the years.
I only go to a few local shows each year now. As long as I know the dates and the venue I am content. That's because I've been going to them for 40 or more years, I know the size of the usual venues and I know who is likely to have a layout there and which traders will usually attend.
Not quite 40 years for me, but in the same vein, my regular local shows will get my custom every year provided I know where and when and the date doesn't clash with another commitment. Similarly for the two or three big shows I'll travel further afield for each year. Because I've been going to them enough times to trust that the organisers know what they're doing and will put on a good show.
But for a new show, that I've never been to before, I'd need more information before deciding whether to make the trip (unless it's really, really local and I've got nothing else on that weekend and I feel like just dropping in on the off-chance). And the further away it is (and the bigger it is) the more I'd need to know before deciding whether to go.
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I do like it when the organiser provides a preview of the layouts expected to be there, but it's not a deal breaker if there isn't one. Any larger show will always have good layouts that I haven't seen before, and the risk that I might turn up at a smaller show and be confronted mainly with layouts I've previously seen isn't a huge issue (and, in reality, it's never happened). And, in any case, a good layout will stand repeated viewings.
Similarly, the precise number of layouts isn't really an issue. I can generally infer the approximate number from the entry fee and the nature of the venue for the smaller shows (and the bigger shows always make a point of saying, because that's a key part of their publicity). It can be helpful to know, because it gives me an idea of how much time I need to set aside for the visit, and, for shows that are further away, whether it justifies the travel time. But I wouldn't not go just because I don't know exactly how many layouts and traders will be there.
What is a deal breaker for me is the absence of any information about the show on the organiser's own website (or, at the very least, their Facebook page if they don't have a website). That's basic admin and publicity, and if the organiser can't manage that then it calls into question the rest of their organisational skills. Even if the event is actually taking place (which, of course, can't be verified if the only mention is on a show listings page), it's unlikely to be particularly well run.
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9 hours ago, 57xx said:
Richard has already alluded to the possibility of producing earlier versions, so fingers crossed.
A pretty obvious option for a second run would be to do them in their original Air Ministry livery. Wartime is a bit of a niche era for railway modellers, but these would look great - and highly appropriate - hauled by a Rapido S160.
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1 hour ago, Pteremy said:
Fidczuk does include Lobitos in the list of smaller companies that acquired Air Ministry tanks, so there must have been a period when they had some in a correct post war Class A livery.
It would be nice if Dapol could produce one then, possibly as part of a second run!
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Here's an attempt to summarise the authenticity and appropriateness of the various liveries, based on previous comments in this topic plus some research elsewhere...
Firstly, a note regarding in-service dates. These wagons were originally built for military use, and only sold off into private ownership after the end of the war. Class A tanks lasted until 1971 and class B until 1974. So in terms of typical modelling eras, they're mostly appropriate for the BR early crest and late crest periods, with a few of them lasting until the BR blue period. Plus, if you model the immediate post-war era, there's a very short period of time (1947-1948) when they would have been part of post-war Big Four trains. But, realistically, these will be most at home in BR steam and transition era trains.
As far as liveries are concerned, all of the black (Class B) liveries appear to be correct for any time in that period. But... the black ones all have ladders, which weren't part of the original build - they were progressively added later. So, while there may have been some with ladders earlier on, these models are probably best suited to a late crest (or even early blue) train. Alternatively, you could try removing the ladders to give the wagon an earlier appearance. Or, just invoke Rule 1. It's not a huge stretch to hypothesise that your train contains one of the first to have a ladder added.
The Class A wagons are a bit more of a mixed bag.
The Esso and Regent Class A wagons are correct, both in livery (silver) and design (no ladders) for their early life in private ownership. But these would have become progressively less common as time wore on, as ladders would have been added, some would have been converted to Class B, and many of those remaining as Class A would have been repainted pale grey during the mid-1960s rather than staying silver. So these probably slot best into an early crest train, although some would still have been around later.
The Shell/BP Class A wagon is correct for post-1963, when pale grey was allowed as a base colour as well as silver. It also has ladders, which, again, marks it out as a later wagon. So this is spot on for a late transition era train, or even early (pre-TOPS) blue, but wouldn't have been seen at all before 1963.
The Shell-Mex wagon is the wrong livery for any era - it's a pre-war livery on a post-war model. There are photos of this wagon in this livery in preservation, so if you model the preservation scene then this would be appropriate. But it isn't correct for an in-service wagon at any time.
The Lobitos wagon is either completely wrong or potentially right. Take your pick. The stone (beige) colour is wrong for a post-war wagon carrying volatile flammable oils (they had to be silver, until pale grey was allowed in 1963, as above). But... it could possibly have been carrying non-volatile heavy oil (uch as lubricating oil), for which there was no prescribed colour scheme. In practice, though, such oils were typically carried in Class B tanks, and this is a Class A. So it's not impossible, but it is unlikely. And unlike the Shell-Mex wagon, this doesn't appear to be a preservation era livery either. So unless someone does come up with documentary or photographic evidence of this livery carrying heavy oil in an Air Ministry tank, I'd say this is probably too inaccurate for anything other than a heavy dose of Rule 1.
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1 hour ago, gwrrob said:
I think this will be a very popular livery and researching the weathering for these found these on Paul Bartlett's site.
It is a nice looking wagon, and I suspect that's precisely why Dapol included it! But, in real life, I think these would have been less common (and probably more localised to London and the Southeast) than the other liveries. Berry Wiggins was a fairly small player in the oil industry, compared with the other brands modelled in this range, so their wagons would have been correspondlingly fewer in number.
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I usually pay on the door (other than for bigger shows where there is a significant benefit to me to buy in advance), and if given the choice I'll pay by card. That leaves the cash in my pocket for the traders, not all of which do take cards.
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1 hour ago, ianmianmianm said:
Thanks for the supportive comments all. I made a decision not to name and shame for a number of reasons. Mainly that I didn't raise this with the show organisers at the time or after, and I would not want the club to be tarnished since, unless they had prior experience of these two and still went ahead and booked the layout, they really weren't to blame. I can't imagine a show manager deliberately booking a layout when this kind of thing was already known.
I think you probably should get in touch with the club and explain the situation. I hope you're right that they wouldn't book the layout if they knew, but obviously they're not going to know unless someone tells them. And I think this is behaviour that needs to be addressed, it's completely unacceptable and all of us have a responsibility to do our best to ensure it doesn't flourish.
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17 hours ago, Dungrange said:
Interesting point. We went with Ticketsource (https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/elmrc). Would they be in your don't trust category?
Yes, that would be fine. I don't have a an exhaustive list of trusted ticket vendors, if I came across one I hadn't seen before then I'd assess it based on how professional it looked.
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As others have said, it depends on several variables:
1. The size of the show.
2. How soon in advance I know I'm definitely going.
3. What benefits I get by booking in advance.
4. How reliable and user-friendly the ticket booking system is.
For smaller shows, I typically don't bother. For big shows, I will book in advance once I know I'm definitely going (which usually isn't until a few days before) provided I get a worthwhile discount for doing so, and the ticketing platform is one I trust (eg, SeeTickets or EventBrite). I won't book in advance online via a ticketing platform that I don't trust, and I certainly won't if they expect to post the tickets to me rather than allowing me to print them off at home! (Although tickets by post is, now, pretty much a thing of the past, and rightly so).
On the topic of benefits for booking in advance, the one that matters most to me is getting a discount. I don't live close enough to the big shows I go to for the early admission to be useful - even if I could be out of the house early enough to be at the NEC for 9.30am, the chances of dragging my teenage daughter (who usually comes with me) out of bed that early are close to zero. Equally, queue-jumping isn't a huge benefit as by the time I do get there (which is more likely to be around 11am) the initial queue will mostly have dispersed.
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2 hours ago, melmerby said:
A lot of extra laws were brought in.
e.g. I paid for a new car in 2007 with a card. (approx £17000)
Fast Forward to 2017 and cards weren't accepted due to money laundering.
I bought a car just over three years ago from a well-known online second hand car sales outfit that you will hear incessently advertised on TV and radio. I'd originally lined up to buy a near-identical car from their rival online second hand car sales outfit that you will hear incessently advertised on TV and radio. But that one only accepted payment by bank transfer. And, since it exceeded the transaction value limit (and they didn't offer the option to split it), my bank refused to make the payment as the recipient wasn't in their list of trusted beneficiaries. Which, as an anti-fraud measure, may be useful, but it made it impossible for me to buy the car from that seller. So I went to the other online car sales outfit, and discovered that they, rather more helpfully, offered both the ability to pay in multiple goes but also by using multiple cards. So I paid £20,000 by Amex (their transaction limit, at least on my account) and the balance by Tesco clubcard credit card.
Financial rules can be both inconsistent and maddening, at times.
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54 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:
I'd be very surprised if Peco and Hornby didn't know that both were going to launch into the British market with TT.
I'd be surprised if Peco knew that Hornby were planning it. Heljan certainly didn't. And Hornby has a track record (pun intended, sorry, I'll get my coat!) of keeping things under wraps and then announcing something which duplicates other manufacturers' projects. Trains on Film, anyone?
41 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:This has been gone over before but the Peco TT:120 and Hornby TT:120 logos use what appears to be exactly the same design and typography. There must have been some dialogue.
Hornby's TT:120 logo was registered as a trade mark in October 2022, which was after Peco announced their TT:120 range. But although they both use similar typography, with the two Ts overlapping, the Hornby logo as registered includes the red and yellow surround which distinguishes it from Peco's version. And, although the letters are almost identical, the numbers aren't.
I would be more inclined to think that Hornby copied the overlapping-T aspect from Peco and then modified it a bit, with the addition of colour and a slightly different typeface for the digits, in order to create a logo that was registerable as original.
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19 hours ago, Roy L S said:
Every other country as far as I can see (having quickly checked) simply calls the scale "TT" and "TT120" is purely a Hornby branding.
It's simply TT everywhere else, because nowhere else used TT to mean 3mm/1ft. Peco introduced the name TT:120 for British outline stock constructed to 1:120 scale when they announced their entry into the market in 2022, about six months before Hornby did. Heljan also announced a TT:120 range in mid-2022, predating Hornby's announcement.
So Hornby didn't invent the term, they simply followed what had already been used by other manufacturers. Heljan referenced Peco in their initial press relase, so it looks as if Peco invented the label.
https://peco-uk.com/blogs/news/tt-120launch
https://www.Heljan.co.uk/post/no-compromises-british-outline-1-120-tt-is-here
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6 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:
I'm not sure I'd give much credence to those comments... fact is that Hornby have barely been able to keep up with demand, how many batches of product have sold out? I'm very doubtful if Hornby are buying their own product up themselves just to make it look like they're doing well, so I think it's fairly safe to say that TT:120 has thus far been a commercial success.
The aspect of the comment I was quoting on which subsequent comments cast doubt is the assertion that they're not selling to existing modellers, not that they are selling to new entrants.
I think it's fairly clear that TT:120 has been a commercial sucess, it's just not entirely clear where that success has come from.
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20 hours ago, Ravenser said:
TT:120 has had some commercial success amongst those who weren't yet in the hobby, but much less so amongst those already in the hobby.
If true (and I note subsequent comments which cast some doubt on this statement), then that's exactly what Hornby want. They want TT:120 to open up new markets not cannibalise their existing OO market. It's also exactly what the bobby as a whole needs; a new entry point for those not previously involved in it.
I'm one of the people who's unlikely ever to do anything in TT:120, precisely because I have neither the space nor the time to work on different projects in multiple scales (and I'm already too committed to OO to drop that). But I hope TT:120 succeeds for a different demographic of modellers. I'm looking forward to seeing TT:120 layouts starting to turn up on the exhibition circuit alongside the other scales.
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9 minutes ago, locoholic said:
Not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but if you are fitting loads to the Rapido RCH wagons, be careful to make the loads smaller than the internal dimensions - if it's too snug, the load will split the wagon body open - they are not a single piece moulding, and the sides and ends aren't joined very strongly.
I suppose that's a consequence of the fairly detailed internal moulding, with the doors clearly visible inside as well as outside. Most models of open wagons skim over that somewhat, with internal moulding limited to a fairly basic representation of the planks, but without any doors. The simplest way to get a fully detailed internal mould is to do the sides separately and then assemble them, rather than doing the body as a single piece. But then you do run the risk of the assembly coming apart if you put too much stress on it.
As an aside, that's also an illustration of why the common expectation that open wagons should be cheaper than vans is misplaced. There may be a bit less plastic in an open wagon than there is in a van. But a van rarely needs any internal detail, so it's a simpler design to create and produce. And it's the design work you're paying for, not the plastic.
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9 minutes ago, Cwmtwrch said:
But note that this is a 1/800 van, not a 1/801. Did the latter vans ever work off the ECML? [Don't know, just asking.]
That's a good question, and my limited Googling so far hasn't turned up a definitive answer. But all the pages I've read which talk about fish vans suggest that they were used interchangeably, the 1/801s were simply a later variant that suplemented the existing 1/800 stock rather than having a more specific use.
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30 minutes ago, phil gollin said:
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Did the fish vans only run in dedicated fish express trains, or were smaller numbers cut out of the expresses to go to as part of ordinary fast goods to smaller destinations ?
Also, why did they have steam heating pipes as I thought fish needed to be kept cold - were they just steam through pipes ?
This photo may answer those questions:
Photo credit: Ben Brooksbank CC-BY-SA
Found here: https://www.bloodandcustard.net/bluespot.html
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59 minutes ago, Fredo said:
Hi Rapido, Looking forward to the Fish Vans. What is the difference between the 1/800 and the1/801. Thanks Fred
The most visible differences, as far as I can see from product images, are different side stanchions - the 801s had four vertical stanchions, the 800s only had two. There are also differences in the door handles and the bracing.
Here's a Hornby 1/800, compare that with the same coloured 1/801 from Rapido pictured upthread and it's fairly easy to tell the difference.
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7 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:
Is the match truck based on a revenue earning wagon or a specific (or worse generic) build for the crane?
Comments upthread, based on the CAD render, suggest it's a Midland style match truck. The Midland Railway, unlike most other companies, did have a standard design of match truck, and there are documented examples of them being used with a Cowans Sheldon crane of the type Oxford are making. See comments on this subject in this related topic:
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/148508-crane-match-trucks/
So it is the obvious choice if a match truck is being included, because it will be definitely right for at least some of the versions and "close enough" for many of the others. But if you're not modelling a location which would have seen a Midland crane, and you'd prefer a more accurate match truck for yours, then the included match truck isn't going to be much use for anything else.
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It will make a difference to my purchasing habits, although not necessarily buying less overall. With Hattons, if there was a new announcement that I liked the look of then I could pre-order to the trunk, and then as they were released they gradually stacked up until I decided to get them sent to me in one box. It both guaranteed getting the item, with no risk of missing out if it sold out on pre-order, and minimised postage costs.
If I queue up pre-orders with any other retailer, though, what will happen is that I'll get a steady stream of single item deliveries, in some cases only a few days apart, each with its own associated postage costs. So I'll end up spending a lot more money for the same number of things.
To avoid that, I think I'll probably be less keen to pre-order in the first place. Only big ticket items, such as locos, that I'd be happy to get in a standalone delivery, will be pre-ordered. For wagons, I think I'll switch back to taking my chances on actual release, and hoping that I can time an order to get two or three (or more) recent releases in the same parcel.
That does mean I'll be more at risk of missing out on some popular items. But I think that's less of an issue with lower cost items such as wagons - very few of them are going to be "must buy" purchases in the same way as an eagerly anticipated loco. So if I end up having to take my chances on the secondary market, I won't be too bothered, and it won't be the end of the world if nothing turns up at all.
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My first was the 1978 show at the same venue. I persuaded my dad to take me! In later years, when I was a bit older, I was allowed to travel down to London on the train on my own.
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Interesting. I have to confess that I'd never heard of a Palvan before. I'm not sure whether, realistically, one would have found its way into rural East Anglia very shortly after being built, but I suppose there's a viable Rule 1 scenario whereby one was attached to a regular fruit train simply to make up the numbers. 🙂
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Exhibitions where you don't know what layouts will be there....
in Exhibitions
Posted
I think there's a clue in the name of at least one of them!