MarkSG

No, because that's a plausible fictional scenario. Personally, I think it's still a train set even if it's permanently attached to a baseboard. It's making at least some effort towards real life or fictional plausibility (even if it involves a significant willing suspension of disbelief) which I think is the key. That doesn't have to be a model of an actual railway. It can be completely fictitious. I'd call Laurie Calvert's steampunk layouts model railways, not train sets, because although they're unrelated to the real world they're set in a plausible and consistent alternate universe (and there's a lot of excellent scenic modelling going on there, too). But SamsTrains' setup is a train set. It's a big, expensive train set - the sort we all dreamed about as kids - but it's a train set nonetheless, because it exists solely to run lots of different and unrelated trains on, without any attempt to create a consistent modelled world. That's a good question. Arguably, some of the most famous "train in a landscape" layouts are, functionally, just very big working dioramas, because although the trains pass through the landscape they don't really interact with it at all - there's no shunting, and in some cases there aren't even any stops at stations, instead the trains just run through at a constant speed. But I think it's still a model railway even if nothing is moving, as long as it is a model of a railway. I'd say that a railway diorama is a subset of model railways, rather than being something different.

I think it becomes a model railway as soon as you start making a deliberate effort to recreate something which represents a real (or plausibly fictional) railway, rather than just buying and running whatever takes your fancy.

So Pendon is a just a train set then? Because, despite the detail and fidelity of the modelling, operationally it's just a big roundy-roundy...

You mean, because it turned out not to be a mystery?

It would depend a lot on what you want to do with it. It's unlikely to have had a huge amount of traffic as a pure redirector, because it won't crop up in any search results. But it would be a good choice of domain for a website about model railways, because then the domain name will match the content and that's a positive signal for search engines.

I've ordered a £100 box. I wouldn't expect to get a loco in that, it's almost certainly going to be all wagons. The majority of the wagons Rapido have done would be fine for me. I model early BR, so anything early BR or earlier would be usable - if the livery is pre-BR I can repaint or patch it to take it into 1950s condition. The only wagons I really couldn't use would be the OOAs and VIXs, so if I do end up with any of them then they'll be off to eBay.

I don't think it necessarily means that any of the items in the boxes were unpopular. As I understand it, Rapido's business model is essentially that they make as many as have been pre-ordered, either directly or by retailers, plus a few extra for stock and to be able to replace warranty returns. So there won't normally be all that many unsold items from a particular manufacturing run, because the run will be tailored to the orders. What I suspect has caused a surplus here isn't a model having fewer orders than expected, but instead having more cancelled orders than expected. But that could happen to an otherwise really popular model. A thousand orders and a hundred cancellations will leave you with more spare than five hundred orders and fifty cancellations.

The whole point is that you're taking a punt. You might get a box full of things you actually want. Or you might get some things you actually want, but also some things that you're unlikely ever to use. Or, if you're really unlucky, you might get a whole box of stuff that's of no interest to you. So there's no reason why you shouldn't try to offload anything you don't want to keep. I don't think anyone is going to get rich buying these to resell. By their nature, they will be things that haven't sold out, so they also won't be the things that command a premium on the secondary market. If you can resist the temptation to open the boxes, then you should be able to get close to a typical retail value on the secondary market (bearing in mind that it's the price at Hattons Rails et al that you're competing with, not RRP), so it ought to be possible to turn a slight profit. But you've still got the hassle of packing and posting them, and any gross profit on the sale itself isn't really going to offset your time and effort.

Funnily enough, I had one of those as a kid! It was my favourite of my two locos (the other was a Hornby Dublo Standard 4MT), because it went faster 🙂 What I would have liked to own, but never did, was the giraffe wagon. If I ever see one of those going cheap at a second hand stall, I might buy it just for the sake of it. On a similar line, and another reminder of just how much the animations, to use Kathy Millat's term from GMRC, are to younger modellers, a favourite that I did own was the Travelling Post Office coach that collected and ejected a mailbag. I could play with that all day, it was just so much fun. As for the nostalgia of the future, I really don't know. The models I'm nostalgic about are the models from my childhood, not from when I matured into a "proper" modeller (although I do have a bit of a thing for the Mainline J72, as it was the first loco I ever bought with my own money). I don't think that market is really catered for at the moment. There's Thomas for the younger train fans, but there isn't really anything aimed at the older, but still pre-teen children (which is when I first got a train set). Hornby's Railroad range isn't quite that, it's cheap enough but it's aimed at being a budget range rather than a fun range. We need a helicopter wagon back on sale, or even another working TPO.

One of the Oxford Rail warwells comes with the roller as a load https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/products/warwell-with-steam-road-engine-dm721211-or76ww009 But, as stated earlier, it's unlikely, in reality, that it would be transported like that. Typically, the roof and chimney would removed to lower the profile and minimise the risk of damage in transit. And, with the roof off, it would also probably be covered with a tarpaulin to protect it from the elements. It would be fairly easy to modify an Oxford road roller to be a load like that, but if it's going to be hidden from view with a tarpaulin then it's a bit of a waste of a model. You could mock up a convincingly roller-shaped load covered in a tarpaulin with a few bits of spare plastic. If you want a visibly agricultural load on the wagon, then something like a plough or harrow would be a more realistic option. That's my plan for the lowmac, anyway.

Wrong era for me, that's more suited to a pre-grouping or Big 4 layout whereas mine is set in early BR days. But the Walthers Scenemaster Plough and Planter would be perfect, despite being American and 1/87 scale. Farm machinery varies in size anyway, so the slightly smaller scale would simply give the impression of a slightly smaller piece of equipment. And that kind of equipment was common globally, not just in the US. Unfortunately, Gaugemaster don't have any in stock, and nor does any other UK stockist I've checked. And I'm not paying £20 postage to get a £17 model shipped from the US!

Yes, although Lowmacs were often used for things which would still have headroom on a normal flat wagon. There's a reason why Rapido picked a wheelset for the included load, after all (and see photos linked earlier in the thread). So a tractor wouldn't be hugely unprototypical. But something a bit more specific would be good.

Well, the simple option, obviously, is a tractor from the Oxford Diecast range. I've already got a couple that are currently just scenic props, it would be easy enough to put one on a wagon instead. But it might be fun to have a go at scratchbuilding something that looks vaguely like some farm machinery. Or even put together a kit, if there is such a thing.

No; it's going to be something agricultural. Because I need an excuse to have one on the W&U 🙂

I'm not complaining. I've already got a replacement load lined up!

Who's going to be the first to complain that Rapido have got the wheels the wrong way round..... https://PaulBartlett.zenfolio.com/brlowmacep/e227bcc94

I suppose the simple answer is that they weren't hugely numerous, they're not particularly glamorous, and there are still other early diesels that haven't been done yet. I expect Heljan will get round to it eventually.

Other way round, surely. The old adage that "revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king" still applies. Obviously, you can't have cash without profit, and you can't have profit without revenue (turnover), but turnover is always only ever a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Chasing turnover at the expense of lower profit is a common cause of business failure. (Not saying that's what happened to Hattons, because as far as I can tell it wasn't).

You'd have to ask the owners that, for a detailed response. But in the radio interview referred to previously, Richard Davies gave the impression that, long term, the shop wasn't a going concern, at least in its present form. It wasn't at immediate risk of insolvency, but there didn't seem to be an obvious way forward to return it to long term stability. There are probably parts of the business that could be sold off as a going concern. The manufacturing side is the most obvious of those. But the reality is that retail is a tough environment these days. If I was going to start a new business now, I wouldn't start a model railway shop. The management team at Hattons know their market sector well. And the decisions they've made reflect that knowledge.

Yes, I feel much the same. I don't want this to come across as critical of the organisers, because I know this situation isn't of their making and they're still doing their best to put on a great show in less than ideal circumstances. But the reality is that the bowls hall isn't as good a venue as the sports hall, not just because of the heat but also because it's smaller. One of the things I like about Railex is that it's always gone for quality over quantity, so the show doesn't feel cramped and you can spend plenty of time at each layout and still see them all, making for a good day out. But the bowls hall loses that, it feels cramped, so you feel less like lingering longer over the layouts. And even with the organisers' best efforts there have to be fewer layouts present. So it doesn't feel like a "whole day" show in that environment - last year, we ended up leaving a good two or three hours earlier than previously, because we just felt that we'd done everything in that time. But if I'm not going to spend all day there, then Aylesbury is a bit too far to justify the travel time.

Hattons had a big share of both the new and second-hand markets. That's all going to go somehere, but it may take some time before it's apparent where it has gone. Second-hand in particular has a critical mass: the more you sell, the more people will look to you first when buying, meaning that your stock will shift faster, meaning that sellers will look to you first to offload unwanted items, meaning that you've got more to sell...

I didn't know people even did this, to be honest, although I can understand why it makes sense if you're after something specifc that's sold out new and is likely to be snapped up quickly when it appears in the second-hand listings. How regularly do Rails update their listings? Maybe what we need is an email alert system, similar to eBay, when they add something you're interested in.

Well, that's it. Trunk emptied. Goodbye, Hattons. Best wishes to all the staff for the future.

The mega-layouts certainly bring in the crowds. But they also take up a lot of space, and take a lot of time to construct. And, as I've said earlier, I'm not sure that they're the sort of thing which will inspire people to take up the hobby themselves. I think they have an important role to play, but they're not going to be the be-all and end-all of it. Free-mo has never really caught on in the UK the way it has elsewhere. I think part of the reason is that the fairly rigid interconnect requirements (which are necessary for the modules to interoperate) tends to make for unrealistic scenic treament. Plus, of course, Free-mo is a standard designed for HO (it mandates code 83 track, for example), so a UK OO version would need a different standard, and, as far as I'm aware, there isn't one. Free-mo layouts are probably enjoyable to build and operate (not that I have any experience of either), but from an exhibition visitor perspective they're generally not as interesting as a well-designed and well-constructed standalone layout.

Ah! You have to go specifically to the "preowned" link at the top of the page. Just including preowned in the "closing down sale" page doesn't show them.