34theletterbetweenB&D

I am not expecting anything like the recent rate of announcements, as the business model is that the profits from new introductions are ploughed into the new tooling for the next round of new introductions. Cashflow problems, rate of investment in new introductions drops off. Got to hope that the new introductions we know about supply the cash in enough quantity to 'prime the pump'.

As for that drive, the frame layout and dimensions are Swindon's copy of Crewe's highly standardised 0-6-0 production, a widely admired success. They were not the only works to pick up on what Crewe had achieved, so there are many other subjects out there that will take the 7'3"+8'3" and 5'2" wheel that this mechanism should have. If the motor is low enough it might go in a Doncaster type like the LNER J3 should I ever fancy one of those.

Whether or not this will apply to the Oxford Rail product or not we will have to see, but the construction on the Hornby J15 is exceeding neat, and very easy to adjust. Just a small amount of material removed from the two 'landings' where body and mechanism come into contact; and 'just like that' all evidence of a break line disappears. It does mean that the flanges now run very close to the insides of the splasher castings, with the risk of a short that this may entail at some future time once the mechanism has worn a little. As for non-radial handrail stanchions, if it irritates me sufficiently some cranked jobs will have to be found. Bachmann used them on their class 20. This business of two steps forward, one step back, seems a near constant in RTR OO. Bachmann having brought the centre motor drive to UK OO in a simple and well sorted design seem unable to resist tinkering with it. What's with replacing wipers on wheelbacks of steel axled wheelsets, with split axle pick ups? Stick with what is proven. (Happily it's relatively easy to make wiper pick ups so not a complete disaster, provided there has been good materials choice and design of the split axle assemblies so that they hold up in service.) As for their dropping the very good arrangement of springing coupled driving wheels on their locos, very sad. Of the ghastliness of Hornby's flangeless wheelset arrangements in pacific rear trucks, and the horrors of their high friction tender wheel arrangements, it is hardly necessary to mention. This seems to have been the price for the gains in accuracy elsewhere on the models. Heigh ho, out tools and modify so that the running performance matches the superior external appearance. Like it or not the majority of the market cares not for such things, and the published material reflects this uncritical approach, and the number of folks on forums who get exercised over such matters is tiny.

Take a long hard look at Hornby's Brush 2 (class 30/31) cabside window treatment, or their Gresley ganagwayed coaches side profile, compared to photos of the real thing. Many folks don't realise that the Hornby Jinty and Pannier roll around on a wheelbase incorrect for both: all these sold well enough and so will a Dean goods with a shape challenged firebox. Sad but true.

[OT] Squadron of hornets in the garden this morning. So that's be careful to look where you plan on sitting down, and check in the bed before turning in from now on. [/OT]

sd I wonder what the term is for the 'oops didn't mean to take this off-ramp' manoeuvre, of making a decision to depart the slip road very late indeed and move back onto the main carriageway, crossing grass and the hard shoulder to do so. 'Slingshit' comes to mind.

Promising. Fine side rods and what look to be smaller flanges on the wheels. And the loco and tender coupled up so that a scale dimension fall plate could bridge the gap. A little tinkering to allow the fall plate to actually fall onto the tender step in prospect. I do like late Victorian 0-6-0s as a genre.

Nicely grubby J50, just right for one of Hornsey's allocation. It was all that diving into tunnels under the Thames that did it. Give it a wipe over the number so that was more legible at a distance perhaps. Hopefully there will have been insurance in place. Having experienced the slow motion nightmare of manufacturing facility relocation, it is so very easy to physically lose stuff. In the case of Hornby's operation, there's all these very similar looking tooling kits, one set for each product line, hopefully with 'all the necessary' colocated - but possibly not - sitting on storage racks in one (or more) locations. All have to be identified against inventory and packed for transport (probably into containers) according to their intended end destination(s) and priority for next planned production run. We know that Hornby were moving on to multiple manufacturing partners, all it takes is a clerical or handlng error which puts a tooling kit meant for new partner 'A', into some other container travelling elsewhere, and it's 'lost'. It will probably emerge in the end when an inventory check finds a kit identifier not booked for that location or container.

It really doesn't matter how this problem arose now. It is now a matter for 'someone' at the Beeb with enough nous to realise that the first thing to do when in a deep hole is to stop digging immediately. The money is spent and lost. Best now to accept that, pull the programme and not damage your critical reputation any further. After all, the re-runs of real TG will still keep the revenue coming in.

The blue tit brood in our garden box have flown this morning, very early so not seen going. No 'fearless Fred' in evidence this year, poking his head out for a couple of days beforehand giving notice of imminent departure. There was one prize year in which the first flights were very wayward; not like the usual thing where they go directly from box to a tree about ten yards away, in response to the parents calling from said tree. The 'wayward' year, they were all over the place due to not flying in straight lines at all. The fourth out truly iced the cake by flying inverted in a circle, ending up near ground level in the beech hedge surrounding the box. Whatever, this year's brood are now mixed in with the robin, wren, great tit, treecreeper and longtail tit juveniles which all flew earlier from the garden sited nests whose locations were identifiable. The garden is full of weet-weet 'feed ME' sounds from all the densest foliage cover. The regular garden visitor whose juveniles I have never yet seen is the Nuthatch. Very cryptic indeed. The juveniles must stay in cover until full fledged in adult plumage before they emerge into view I suppose.

Good job then that 'everyone' is now tooled up with heavy centre motor both bogies driven traction to meet the haulage challenge of all those diecast car loads. I can see the Heljan 86 gaining in popularity, 'handsome is as handsome does' and all that.

Accurately modelled, and yet more handsome. Hornby hit the 'irresistible' spot again. Happily I don't need any excuses to have one, or two...

And on a slight tangent, not just the branded tank wagons, all wagons - excepting those for designated or specialised traffics - end up 'all over the place' from this time on. The railway's freight handling was operationally nationalised at the outbreak of war to maximise efficiency; and this meant a further extension to the long established 'common user' scheme, by which the majority of railway company owned general merchandise opens and vans were already completely mixed across the UK. Each company put into service their designs of these vehicles under an RCH administered scheme, in proportion to their ton-mileage. As most of the commercial traffic was on the LMS and LNER systems, that's what near 80% of the wagon fleet designs were. Inspection of freight train photos from anywhere in the UK in the big four period will reveal this effect: easiest to see with vans, if it has a sliding door then it's an LMS or LNER design van.

It's not getting passed off as fit for service until they have test run a wagon train over it surely? Regarding this refettling claim for stone track and the 'amphibious' possibility. The excavation and realignment of the circa 600 BC onwards Corinthian 'Diolkos' that can be seen in Greece well predates this work. Remarkably there is contemporary documentary evidence for how well this system worked: the earliest reference to a 'guideway' system anywhere I believe. There's a location in Germany - which memory is failing to recall - where you can see the remains of a manufacturing and repair shop for the wagons of a very similar flangeway system. It is fully equipped with flangeways, so they weren't even attempting to move them 'off rail' when they were making or repairing them.

Or, does your DCC system read CV values? If so CV8 will give you a number which is the manufacturer's ID. CV7 may have information on version. The full manufacturer ID list is in the DCC section of the NMRA's site. The three I know are 99 = Lenz, 145 = Zimo, 151 = ESU.

While travelling up North last week, I am sure I glimpsed a large sign reading 'Mudfest, Scouting for Girls'. A now over 80 year old design, still regularly used in current advertising. The significant design that's older and regularly used in advertising takes us back to where I came in above.

I would guess 'the money' largely went on the ERP s/w package and implementation (which is a classic 'first spend a large heap of cash, then wait until pay back begins' job); and investment in development and tooling of new product (anyone know if there was a similar surge of all-new tooled introductions in their other brands such as Scalextric, Arnold, Joueff?) which again is money spent, and not recovered until the customer - retailers mainly - buy it. The latter of these fits in with two pieces of information that are before us: retailers reportedly not taking up the product in sufficient volume, largely due to lack of confidence in Hornby's trading practises, and Hornby's very recent 'cash convertors' action of selling a large volume of recently released product to two major box-shifters; which I read as recovering liquidity.

I think it very simple to explain, and this 'little packet' in prospect exemplifies it. It is far better than > 99% of the finescale loco models of forty odd years ago considered as a package. Appearance bob on down to a level of detail that few attempted (or achieved if they tried), the mechanism is fully concealed, and we may be confident that it will run both reliably, and sweetly and near silently. That's serious competition: it is finescale OO, and finescale period, in all but the wheels and gauge. (It was the unrelenting and complete direness of the RTR offerings until the mid 1970s that drove those who wanted a model railway into DIY: and a fair proportion of those to go the extra steps of a more accurate or even scale gauge. Since you had to build it yourself it was not significantly more effort than building it to the commercial standard. This stimulant to up tools and get on with it has essentially evaporated.) None of the online rows in model railway that I have witnessed come within a country mile of the P4/S4 all-out warzone, and that was conducted without benefit of internet! Right up with the 'Two houses, alike in dignity' partisanship.

Though I imagine the railwayman I know with sufficient of these to completely fence his large garden (with easily enough over to completely roof it as well) must have acquired a fair packet's worth by the simple action of 'being there' with screwdriver at what looks like every SR location that changed its signage between 1965 and 2014. He's a very useful fellow: whenever there is a slight dig at my own affliction from madam I can point at him and say 'it doesn't even qualify as a cold compared to XXXXXXXX's Lassa fever*. *Other major infectious diseases are available to suit all tastes.

Those are related failure causes, and I don't think you will get anything more definitive. The motors can fail 'on their' own while running, and failure can be helped on its way by a valve gear lock up, and any other mechanical problem leading to more load in the drive train. If DCC operation is employed I feel that the suggestion above of two decoders and close speed matching is the best plan. I mentioned very early that twin motored diesel models with worm drives wore far faster than similar weight spur geared twin motored units, and believe this was due to speed mismatch which spur gear tolerates better than worm. (DC control, no possibility of independently running the motors.)

I am having a wallow in Granville Bantock at the moment. This by way of some light relief after trying yet again to get my head around Robert Simpson (sponsored by most musicianly male friend, and heartily decried by my most musicianly female friend, both professional musicians of no small accomplishment: her opinion is prevailing with me!). And a seasoning of Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Faure.

If you care to look at what one of the UK OO players have done - Bachmann - there's some good practise there. For example, make the body to scale, fit scale diameter wheels, then 'jack up' the spacing between bodies and wheelsets so that the excessive swing demanded by set track curves doesn't cause the wheels to machine through the body sides. The model looks flawed. But, within the model there is a simple (and easily reversible) component modification that will reduce the spacing to scale. Now the tops of the wheelsets are inside the bodywork, so a circa 30" minimum radius is required to avoid body work damage. The model looks right. I believe this is the desireable principle: as it enables anyone who cares to have the model look right. The alternatives are more expensive or difficult to modify, respectively: Well undersize wheelsets which clear under the body side but simply look wrong, which requires replacements purchased and then significant adjustments to the mechanism to install successfully, or; Distort the body work to accomodate scale diameter wheels, that is visibly inaccurate and so much trouble to correct that you may as well scratch or kit build. Generally tech adoption is pretty hot in the UK. Tell you what is missing in the UK as far as DCC is concerned, a real home-grown champion system. It should have been ZTC, but they are out of the running. Gaugemaster would be the other candidate existing business who come to mind - rock solid rep over decades for their DC control gear - had they taken the plunge on investment 20 and more years ago, and developed their own class leading system. Too late now.

From similar broad experience in several businesses of 'global' sourcing, I'd plunk my money down on a better than average result from Chinese manufacturing outfits, given an equivalent input of management attention. If you really want to see how things can be got wrong, try Birmingham, UK. Sorry folks, but there's some very wilfull shabby 'attitude' in the West Midlands and I'm never looking there again.

I would claim there is a serious error in that statement. It's a rare business that has any loyalty to end customers beyond their strict contractual obligation. Hobby businesses tend to operate at the better end of the spectrum; because these are highly discretionary purchases rather than necessities. Test it if you will. Explain that you have been a loyal purchaser of their product for 10, 20, 30 years, but are a litle skint for the next couple of years,and would they mind supplying your wants and wait for the cash until you are in funds again? Oh no, it's a strictly commercial relationship, you find the cash, we supply... I had my eyes opened to this when I was about 20, and that was pretty much it for loyalty from me as a customer to any business, retailer or manufacturer. (Just one solitary exception, Hyperion Records founded by the late Ted Perry. While he lived I bought what was produced without question because he was manifestly doing it for love, as well as to make an honest living. I doubt I shall meet his like again in my lifetime.)

Nah. They already know that we claim to want 'everything' yesterday. They also know by now how well the shouting correlates to sales. I truly would like to see some data for the most stridently wishlisted items, to see the achieved sales of these vs other comparable introductions for which there was little if any clamour.