Ravenser

A new scale is necessarily more constructional than an old established one. And while new entrants may not initially be into kit building, they may be willing to move up to simple kits more rapidly than we think. Put another way, people don't seem to have run screaming for the hills when Lincoln Locos bodies with motorisation are posted on FB groups. Rather it seems to have inspired one or two people to muse about whether they could have a go at something like that in due course. 3D printed bodies definitely seems to be something quite a few are open to considering, if not immediately then in the near future. And they are a very low-volume technology. There is already a range of laser-cut wagon kits, although I have no experience of either the kits themselves or their maker Where building are concerned, I'd have thought the existing downloadable builting kits from Scalescenes and others would fill the gap. All you need to do is print the N gauge ones at a suitable correction of 125% (or slightly less) and you have what is required

It's good to hear this initiative seems to have been well recieved in the market. We need to remember that TT:120 is not a debate, but a modelling scale in which people do (or don.t) make railway models. None of us can argue TT:120 into or out of existence online. No amount of banging the drum, asserting or confuting percieved facts, trying to expose contradictions in people's arguments or tangle them up in their own words and all the rest of it, on either side have any force against the simple fact of whether the stuff is selling in the real world. If it sells and keeps selling, then the scale lives and all the hobby needs to do is make the best of the opportunities thrown up. I take Revolution's point about only doing stuff they have already researched and developed in another scale. (Hornby said something fairly similar). At this point, we have an 08 out, and a 66 months away: that's the basic traction package for 21st century freight operations . What's needed beyond that is a supply of appropriate wagons: Revolution has a lot of suitable candidates in their existing range, things for which Hornby does not have CAD and therefore presumably is very unlikely to make. That would seem to be a fruitful vein to pursue Modelling the late 20th century freight railway at home in 4mm was already challenging because of the space issue. The evolution of the freight railway over the last 30 years has made those difficulties considerably worse, and I'm starting to think that that the 21st century freight railway may have to b e modelled in the smaller scales, at least if you want to do it effectively at home. If N gauge doesn;t suit you, we now have TT:120 And while we are waiting for Revolution's wagons to reach us, perhaps we could relevantly discuss things to do with them - in the form of home layouts based on 21st century aggregates facilities (whether quarries or discharge terminals ) in 1/120 scale. What that might look like is a good question , because in over a quarter of a century I can barely remember any such 4mm layouts appearing in the magazines. A couple of attempts at doing the Peak Forest area, something very loosely inspired by the Grassington area (I think) and an attempt at a corner of a southern quarry are all I can hazily drag to mind , plus one current finescale project towards a quarry based setting . There may have been more in N, but it looks like almost virgin ground to me. In terms of parameters I;d be wondering what would go in a second bedroom (the second bedroom in my flat is 9'3 x 7'4") or maybe an 8' x 6' or 10' x 6' shed. Market Deeping MRCs Dawlish has shown that 1/120 scale can do impressive rockfaces , without overpowering the trains. Quarry rock faces are big , but maybe big trains can speak back strongly to them. It could be a scenically impressive layout in this scale

The II-AD biomass wagons were orfiginally tooled for Drax as a corporate giveaway. The commercial sale of a limited number was said to be only to get the production run up to a level where the tooling costs per unit were manageable. They were very expensive and like hen's teeth to get hold of. Building a complete train was reportedly near impossible The second run was billed as a teconciliation gesture to the trade , and featured the most startling price cut I can remember . There was one batch, which turned out to be a good deal larrger than the very limited quantity people originally expected. Now a 3rd batch has been announced and the rice has gone back up from £50 for a pack of 2 to £40 a wagon. This isn;t the history of a normal bread and butter product . Go into a model shop and you'll find the shelves loaded with 17'6 underframe wagons. Hornby Drax biomass wagons? Not so much HSTs have been a staple of the trainsets for a long time. How many run scale length HSTs outside of big exhibition layouts I don't know. If you want to do that at home, I suspect N or TT:120 are your best bets. If you want to model an "HST railway" with the things in squadron service it may be your only real option Big exhibition layouts exist. They and the people who hope to be involved with one represent a demand in 4mm . When OO RTR is saturated as it is, and people are tooling up the Worsborough Garrett and Lickey Banker you;d expect some big modern wagons to hav e been done. But how much of this stuff spends its life stored in boxes is a good question

I wasn't particularly suggesting Revolution should produce 4 wheel wagons , or that you were deliberately targeting them. It;s more the thought that the modern freight railway has evolved into something that has become pretty difficult to model in 4mm, at least at home. The passenger railway is different : 2 and 3 car DMUs are perfectly manageable . But freight is a different story, and it seems to be freight that contemporary modellers want to model. Logically this kind of model railway would have to move into the smaller scales. And that seems to be the pattern, with you building a business producing big modern stuff in N and then moving into 4mm where the same subjects were still available in an age when everything seems to be being duplicated and triplicated (3 x class 31, 3 x class 60, 3 x class 25) It;s obvious how a second smaller scale might fit in here. The number of modellers who are avidly building a collection of locos and rolling stock but who have no layout of their own, on enquiry seem never to have built one ,and have no prospec#t of doing so because their housing simply won't accomodate the sort of layout needed to run the kind of stock they;re collecting , is a social phenomenon I've been very aware of in the D+E scene for at least 20 years. There seem to be lots and lots of people like that I can't help feeling it would be better all round if they were able to build layouts and get further with their hobby. Having a second small scale could help the situation. Those for whom N is an answer are presumably already in N. Maybe 1/120 scale could be an answer for some of those for whom it isn;t. I;m not expecting a mass exodus, but a steady trickle of 4mm collectors into TT:120 layout building could be very significant in terms of a niche scale like TT What Revolution are doing here opens up those possibilities

Not necessarily.... A substantial number of 4mm modern image modellers have their stock in boxes, against the hoped-for day when they actually have space to build a layout. From personal experience I can think of quite a few people in that end of the hobby who are active stock-buyers and stock-builders but have never had a layout of their own - and still haven't although I must have known them twenty years or more. The aspiration to be involved with a club exhibition layout is often the missing link. These people, who have no obvious hope of building a layout they can actually run their stock on, are surely the biggest potential target for TT:120 in terms of existing modellers adopting the scale. People who have already built a layout in 4mm or N (or even O) are presumably satistified with their chosen gauge and wouldn't move to TT:120 . People who simply don't have the space to run the sort of big modern stuff they aspire to in 4mm might be tempted by a smaller gauge in which they could. If they are currently in 4mm but blocked, then presumably N gauge doesn't cut it for them - N has been around for decades. Maybe a bigger scale (which is still a lot smaller than 4mm) might do the trick ? So a big wagon like this, that typically runs in longish block trains, looks like a good choice to offer in TT:120 RevolutioN originated as an N gauge specialist , as the name suggests. The OO wagons are a essentially a spinff. And as far as I can see more or less all the wagons Revolution do in OO are big bogie types from the last 40 years or so. (The one exception isn't really: the IPAs are coupled twin sets of very long wheelbase 4 wheelers. Not small beasts) If everything you do in 4mm is a big modern bogie wagon , then your sales figures tell you what's the most popular such wagon. They don't tell you how they sell compared with 17'6" RCH underframe types , or what proportion of buyers leave the models in their boxes in hope. People have speculated in RTR threads that figures for defective returns of locos are badly distorted because so many locos are never run . locos not run : The situation for wagons isn't likely to be better I hope TT:120 offers a cure for this I suspect there's a reason why all these big modern wagons in 4mm have been left to a specialist like Revolution . They're niche subjects, because they are space hogs

I wish Revolution every success with this bold initiative If you are going to model the sort of trains these wagons run in, then you had better be in a small scale (unless you have a stately home/cathedral available and an income suitable to fund it). Hence these wagons are a natural subject for TT:120. (You can equally argue that traditional 4 wheel wagons are larger, and therefore more manageable and convienient, in TT:120, so 1/120 is a suitable scale for steam age shunting planks and should play to that strength, too. There can be multiple angles, striking out in different directions) As to the choice - container flats have a model in the form of the KFA (which I think has already been released in the Arnold TT range earlier in the year, and is coming second to Hornby TT:120?) . Oil traffic already has a model wagon in the form of the Hornby TTA, which dilutes the scope for a TEA, and coal has the Hornby HAA which is I believe on the cusp of release? This announcement adds a fourth traffic flow , aggregates, which is where the Class 66 sprang from in the form of the Class 59 My one comment is that if you buy a 10 wagon train it will set you back nearly £450. In 4mm the issue won't really arise :you are unlikely to have space for a credible modern aggregates train. It will be exactly the same if you buy these wagons in N or if you buy Farish TEAs : assuming you can find enough of the latter, and no different if you want a plausible length container train of KFAs in TT. These are the conditions in which we operate (or in 4mm, can't operate at home..) With an 08 available for over a year, and a 66 a couple of months away, we have a traction package to model 21st century freight operations.What was needed was a good range of wagons for them to pull and this announcement provides an important buildiing block. An aggregates operation can now be modelled in 1/120 scale. (You won't be doing that in 4mm - quarries are big) . Whether such wagons have seen service on the Continent, I dunno The Revolution team have made some positive comments about the new scale in the last 18 months , and its nice to see this blossom into something that opens up opportunities for building 1/120 scale model railways. I'm sure that everyone interested in /active in TT:120 will rapidly get to hear about it and I hope Revolution do well out of this

No, you did earlier You are carefully comparing a TT:120 Stanier derived from the "full fat" OO scale range with a 1970s generic coach. There's no comparision. What they've done is taken the 21 century OO Staniers and shrunk them to a similar standard as the newtool Railroad Mk1s . Mk3s pitched as a good Design Clever version of the full fat main range Mk3s are being compared with 1980s Lima models... And a brand new TT 66 with centre motor drive, lights, NEM pockets and tooling suit to cover all varients which has to hold its own in the Eastern European market is compared with some 1990s Lima with a motor bogie But you miss the key point - TT:120 is a product for those who don't have space for OO. To run a half-way sensible looking 66-hauled train in OO you'll need at least 6' train length in 4mm. Few have it. At that point Railroad and second-hand ebay OO become irrelevant. To do so in 1/120 , you're looking at 3'6"-3'9". Now you might be talking ... Of course those who have limited living space probably also have a restricted budget : living space is commonly the first thing people spend extra income on. And there's no doubt that the cost of high-end new tooling RTR is starting to inhibit buying. To assemble a train with a 66 and 10 bogie wagons from Revolution or Farish is going to cost about £600. For one train . Ouch! N gauge is noticeably cheaper than OO - a Farish diesel is typically £160 and a Bachmann £220 . Do the same train in OO with high end tooling and you'll be comfortably over £600. And you'll need to accomodate a 9'6" train. Who has space for that at home??? Teletougous makes a fair point - wouldn't you look to buy new N? And when you look there you find Dapol with a stand at shows selling their Class 66 for £100 as a show special . And their Class 33 for £80. 21 century models with centre motor, decent detail, lights, NEM pockets. They will sell you 6 x MJA bogie box wagons for £100. Now you can have a 12 wagon train with 66 for £300. That explains the eye-watering initial price of £110 for the TT:120 66 - now revised up. Sell direct on the web and you can stand it.. The price point for TT:120 is visibly about or slightly less than the price for new Farish N gauge . Because the competition for this stuff is N . Not only does it explain the pricing it explains the spec. Continental HO has operated with 3 levels - "budget" , "hobby" and "expert" or some such equivalent for several decades . Over "expert " was the so-called "museum-quality model" . Hornby International has spent its existence mainly pitching at the "hobby" level - decent well proportioned models from modern tooling but not featuring the ultimate in detail . They are arguably more successful brands in the group. Hornby tried to bring the "hobby" concept here as "Design Clever" and a vocal group said they wouldn't tolerate it. New high spec tooling for everything , or nothing But "hobby" is exactly what Dapol have been doing in N for about a decade with much of their range, and they seem to be doing fine. Revolution are pitched firmly at the "expert" level - but most of their output is sold direct, on pre-order so they can hold the price down. Trains you can fit in your house to a decent standard at a price you can afford is the TT120 pitch.. Meanwhile, the stuff sells , as fast as they make it. That's the reality we need to address. The French I believe have a phrase "it works in practice. Just not in theory" That seems to be where we are here.

This is a misconception of the levels of accuracy and detail on TT:120 models. Coaches are flushglazed. No RTR coaches in 4mm were before about 2000. Consensus seems to be that the TT:120 Mk1s are about on a par with Hornby's current Railroad Mk1s - recognised as rather better than any attempt at a Mk1 other than the Bachmann models. The 08 is accurate in a way that the Lima model was not. The HST /Mk3 coaches are close to the current Hornby full fat model, and well ahead of the ex Lima Railroad version. Standards of finish are far higher thanh Lima and Hornby achieved in the 1980s and 1990s. More pertinently TT:120 stuff blows the socks off Poole-era Farish on a second-hand table. If you are looking to the smaller scales for space reasons , that's what buying second hand from the 1980s-2000 gets you. It's not that cheap , and it was mechanically quite suspect

The OO market is only a portion of the total model railway market, albeit a large one. If you were correct about the TT:120 market being approximately 1/100th the size of that for OO , we'd be talking about TT:120 amounting to decimal points of a single percent of the total market. That seems implausibly low, especially as some retailers report there being a noticeable interest in the stuff. Sub 1% of the hobby is about the market share for 3mm scale. This is visibly a lot bigger in terms of numbers More seriously, your argument would equally suggest that N gauge and O gauge RTR shouldn't be viable either. Very pertinently, exactly the same logic would apply to Bachmann's OO9 and 7mm NG ventures. It's not obvious that OO9 RTR has sold more units than TT:120 - arguments could be constructed that 1/120 has had the bigger impact in the market. (Although nobody actually kinows, since neither Hornby nor Bachmann know what the other's relevant sales figures are, so no comparision can be made). But if Bachmann's OO9 range is a viable initiative - and plainly it is - it's not clear at all that TT:120 is a much more marginal/less profitable venture. TT:120 is certainly a bigger play, but so far it's made a rather bigger splash, and has a stronger marketing push behind it. It also seems to have been driven by new entrants to the market rather more than OO9 has The fact that Bachmann have attacted some criticism from N gauge modellers for sitting on their tooling and not keeping trhe market supplied with bread and butter items might point to N gauge being less profitable for them. But since we are talking about using existing tooling in N the economics involved are somewhat different. Nevertheless nobody is talking about N or O RTR as a marginal activity in scales the stronger players don't need to touch. The idea that TT:120 models are established as being less profitable than OO and therefore something you would only touch because you couldn't sell OO models successfully it something I've seen casually assumed by by several people. But nobody knows Hornby's sales volumes or margins on this product, or how they compare with OO, N or O sales by anyone. I believe that when people gave up estimating TT:120 set sales from carton markings the estimated total was nearing 10,000 sets. And that was about a year ago. It implies that total sales of Gresley Pacifics were around 10,000 units even then , and sales of coaches were around 30,000 . Those seem decent volumes, and of course the figures will have risen , perhaps significantly , since. Those items may go on selling for some years to come Are you going to sell 5000 units of the Lickey Banker or the Worsborough Garrett in OO? Or the Bulleid 4DD? Are three rival models of the Class 25 in 4mm all going to hit 5000 units in short order? And then there's the question of saturation. There's 75 years mass production of OO RTR out there , and probably 35 years worth is usable at some level. Every new RTR thread in 4mm seems to have its fair share of people posting that they already have a perfectly acceptable XYZ-class or three, and while they might perhaps have an extra one they don't see enough of an upgrade here to replace their existing models .This issue does not exist in TT:120 . You could sell people 4 or 5 or 6 models of a Class 37 or a Class 08 or a Class 66 ; and probably 3 or 4 A3s, Castle Class locos or HSTs . Everyone is starting with a clean slate. This is one of the classic benefits of format change . Everyone buys their music afresh What is certainly true though is that no-one really knows what the sales figures and margins are, except Hornby. Because this was launched as web-only and is still web-driven, not even the retail trade have a good handle on how it is doing. Anyone launching a rival product is therefore doing it with a very high degree of uncertainty about the potential market , and that means a high risk. Easier and safer to do nothing, until you are certain that a significant market is definitely there, and more critically, will remain there in 4-6 years time when you are trying to sell the product you might develop. There are considerable advantages in moving first - others may take a long time to catch up But I'm not convinced that TT:120 somehow needs someone other than Hornby "to lend it credibility" or save the project. The stuff has apparently been selling as fast as Hornby make it for 18 months now. There is no sign that's about to change. It seems to be attracting appreciable numbers of people new to the hobby. N gauge ran with just one producer of British outline - Farish - for two decades. It might have been better if Farish were challenged, but the existence of British N was never in any question . Similarly OO had basically one producer from 1964-1977. Not ideal, but no threat to the viability of the scale. It's entirely possible British 1/120 modelling could continue for up to a decade with just Hornby RTR . How the hobby would respond to that situation is an interesting question. But it wouldn't mean that the product wasn't particularly profitable, or that the scale's long term future was in doubt. "Hornby's Z gauge" is currently looking a rather plausible scenario The reality is that N and TT:120 are competing small-scale options. 4mm is obviously the favoured scale - but what if you like the fidelity of the larger scale , but don't actually have the room to build a layout in it? If the question is "what is the largest scale I can fit in the space I've got?" rather than "what is the smallest most compact scale out there?" , 1/120 scale may show an advantage. There are certainly plenty of people "in 4mm" who plainly do not have the space to do anything meaningful in 4mm . If N were the answer they'd already be in N - but they are not. TT:120 might shake some of these people free In some respects the way everyone seems to treat TT:120 as "small 4mm" rather than comparing it with N is one of the most positive signals for the scale's long term future

Hornby went into TT:120 because of a particular issue. The biggest brand in British outline model railways had no product in a smaller scale than OO to offer the space challenged. Despite the fact that they are most emphatically heavily involve in N and TT with Hornby International, to the extent that Hornby International might be even skewed towards the smaller scales (Arnold seem to have a disproportionately large number of models on offer compared to their HO brands) , Hornby in their home market had nothing smaller than 4mm Bachmann have the market leader in British N, (Farish) and the recent OO9 range,. Dapol have been number 2 in British N. Revolution grew out of N and are now both N and 4mm. Cavalex do both 4mm and N. British outline is only one part of Rapido's interests (I'm not sure how far they are involved with North American N). Nobody else really had Hornby's problem - pretty well everyone else already has a small-scale product to sell Hornby presumably felt that if they went into N they would at best become the number 4 brand in N and it wasn't worth it. If they'd "sold" N , inevitably 70-90% of converts' spend would have gone to Farish, Dapol, Revolution, Peco et al, and Hornby would have been left doing a lot of heavy-lifting in sales but picking up crumbs in spend. TT120 wasn't an obvious move - which is why nobody really saw this coming even when Hornby were rumoured to be working on TT. You can argue about whether it was a good move, but the stuff has so far apparently sold as briskly as it's been made and there's no sign is damaged Hornby's bottom line.. At the bend of the day what matters to the hobby is what new opportunities and possibilities the models open, not how we score detailed Hornby commercial policy out of 10 . We now have two different small scale options, with different merits, not one But I can't see why a manufacturer who already has a British N range as their small-scale product would want to get involved with a rival scale . Bachmann have OO9 for those who with insufficient space who find Farish doesn't suit. Dapol have extensdive N gauge interests . Accurascale made their feelings about the venture known at the time, not least by responding by announcing that they were looking for N gauge subjects. It had something of a look that they were backing N against TT:120. At this point I'm not sure how any AS support of the TT:120 venture would sit with their established brand values None of this means TT:120 isn't a commercially viable scale or won't establish a decent sized niche market. I just don't see anyone who already has significant British N interests getting involved. They don't need to. The people who might get involved are those outside British N, especially if they are already in TT, and those who have already shown their hand. Heljan have no British N interests I can immediately think of, and they've already flirted with the idea of British 1/120. BritishColumbian mentioned Tillig - if a viable British TT market becomes established, you can imagine them wanting a slice of whatever action is going. Someone was behind the Gaugemaster 66 announcement, which as I understood it was a Request for Interest on behalf of A Manufacturer - Gaugemaster themselves were not as I understood it going to be the manufacturer. A Continental brand with existing TT interests represented by Gaugemaster would be the obvious suspect. Rapido explored the idea of a 3mm model with the 3mm Society a few years back; someone from Revolution expressed the view that they weren't necessarily ruling out making something at some point in the future , I believe? But I don't think that was meant to suggest anything was under current or imminent consideration In my view that's where another manufacturer of British 1/120 scale RTR might emerge. But I think anyone hoping for Accurascale, Bachmann, or Dapol to get involved is whistling into the wind

Good to hear this is not quite the end . A very fine layout, superbly built - and a very tragic loss of its builder An excellent exhibition all round - good to see the North Cornwall Minerals locos from the MR of my youth. Iain Rice humanised P4

I've used SMP bullhead flexible in OO and had no problems. On the other hand I have seen the issue on C+L flexible some years ago. C+L has more prominent chairs than SMP, and the tale doing the rounds at the time (15-20 years ago) was that there had been slight damage to the mould for the C+L OO trackbase which resulted in one or two of the chairs being slightly raised. I believe this mould has since been replaced For that reason, I went with SMP. I would imagine that Peco were careful to ensure their 16.5mm bullhead flexible would have no problems with modern wheels . But I haven't build a new OO layout since it was introduced, so I have no direct experience

This is OO - a bespoke Marcway item as it happens. It's fully matched/compatible with RP25/110 wheelsets and I've had no trouble with drop in or derailments.

Are there enough second class bits left over to make up a TSO or SK?

As this thread has resurfaced - what a difference a year makes. Doncaster 2023: Doncaster 2024: Dawlish at Doncaster show 2024