Ravenser

Here are enough photos of the real thing without the valances for you to judge the model: A4 photos

It's just occurred to me - I believe the LNER (ex GC) side of Manchester Piccadilly (Manchester London Rd then) was just 3 platforms . Now that was the end of the GC main line, and saw A3s from 1936 ...

I thought there was also some suggestion that there was a suppression issue with the old Ringfields?

It strikes me that 66 + 08 provides a very credible package for a lot of contemporary small freight operations Just going back to the 08 shunter list for a moment , and 08 375 . The Port of Boston evidently feel they have a use for a shunting loco. The Boston Docks branch is a single-track length of chewed string that trails off the network past the old goods shed, crosses the A16 and plunges into the back-blocks of the town. There are one or two trains a week I think , and I believe the traffic at present is steel. I'm not certain whether the line into Boston is currently ok for 66s : I recall there have been problems with the state of the track for locomotives north of Boston, but they are clearly OK to get freight trains into the port I'm seeing a small terminus /fiddle yard freight operation, with a scenic area 5' x 15" . Possibly 2 boards each 2'6" by 15" which box up as a crate. The fiddle yard is a 22-23" cassette hung off one end of the scenic section. That will take a 66 + 3 bogie wagons. The loco comes in , drops off the wagons, maybe picks up some outgoing wagons , and departs. The 08 fusses around shunting everything into place. Use a bit of modeller's licence to add a second traffic flow and you have a fair bit of potential With that footprint you can lay the whole thing out quite spaciously and use large vehicles and still have something that is little bigger than a ferociously compressed micro in 4mm. Scale up that footprint to 4mm and you are talking about something around 8' x 2' with a 1m train length. Not something that's easy to accomodate at home,. But this would be..

Platform 5 also list 08 511 at Eastleigh, 08 670 and 927 at Bescot Yard, and 08 730 and 08 934 at Whitemoor Yard . All for GB Railfreight , and all but 08 934 owned by Railway Support Services (latter is GB Railfreight's own) . Meanwhile GB Railfreight's own 08 818 and 08 925 are with HNRC at their Worksop depot/wagon works . Of all these locos only 08 670 at Bescot is marked as "Locomotives with engineering acceptance to operate on Network Rail infrastructure" It's worth prodding this one a bit further - what exactly are these locos doing, and can we get layouts out of this? It would seem my suggestion of a wagon works with 66s bringing in /taking away the wagons for repair, and an 08 or two to shunt the site is bang on the money for HNRC's Worksop operation I tend to take the view that the opportunities in OO largely involve things that haven't been done before, or things that haven't been done to 21st century standards, (plus replacing tooling that is actually wearing out.) The supply of those in OO is running low. LMS Period 1 and 2 coaches and Period 3 CK, and a few things like J94 and 14xx (where DJM made a horlicks of his effort to beat Hornby) are available; there are hints that some of the old Airfix/Mainline tooling may be starting to wear out. But almost everything else in volume-built locos and coaches post 1923 has been done. And Hornby are not ones for re-tooling things unless they really have to So I don't think it's really a question of TT:120 starving OO of investment, so much as Hornby feeling they are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of tooling opportunities in OO , and looking for more promising opportunities elsewhere to spend their tooling budget on. A Class 66 in TT looks a lot better prospect than pretty well any loco subject you can come up with in OO. Why invest in a 3rd rival new-tool 37 in OO when you can do the first one in TT:120?? That doesn't mean Hornby will stop making OO. Dapol haven't developed much new tooling for N recently. But they've made vigourous use of the tooling they already have...

Why do I have nightmare visions of a strobe-lit Pullman Disco???

A quick look at the most recent Platform 5 volume I have (2021) shows approximately 175 Class 08s listed , plus 10 Class 09 There's quite a few shown as at the Weardale Railway and occasional preserved line listings, but an awful lot of them are shown as at obvious depot or industrial locations. Thus 08 375 , listed as owned by RMS Locotec and operated by Victoria Group , Port of Boston, Boston , is pretty obviously an industrial shunter in commercial use. It's not marked with the asterix showing "engineering acceptance to operate on Network Rail infrastructure" Your figures may be accurate for locos cleared to run on Network Rail - but there's an awful lot of 08s in commercial use that aren't 08 442 - ArrivaTrainCare, Eastleigh Depot . (Not NR cleared) 08 445 - Daventry International Rail Terminal (Not NR cleared) 08 447 - Assenta Rail, hamilton, Glasgow (Not NR cleared) 08 460 - GB Railfreight, Eastleigh East Yard (Not NR cleared) [Hornby are doing a GB Railfreight 08] and so on and so on Those aren't in preservation

There is supposed to be a small radius point coming in the Peco range, down at about R1 or R2, though I don't know when we will see them. The Hornby points being dead frog is a pretty serious objection to their use on any shunting layout Look forward to seeing this

It has taken us just 4 months to go from this: "Hornby have screwed up the range by not doing a shunting set with an 08 and some wagons" to this "Hornby have screwed up the range by doing a shunting set with an 08 and some wagons" Give me strength. Poster 1 has missed that the range includes what he is asking for. Poster 2 has also missed that the range announced includes what he is asking for (there's an HST coming soon and a Class 800 Azuma promised) Perhaps we can discuss the potential to do a quite substantial shunting plank in TT:120 in a 4' x 1' space (Carl Arendt's definition of a micro) without someone starting a "let's give him a good kicking" thread elsewhere on the forum?? Operational interest , and all that?

I know where you are coming from , and "Hornby haters" are indeed a prominent force in all this. But if you look back at the Peco TT:120 announcement thread, you'll see that attempts to discuss the announcement and the implications of the new scale faced repeated interventions from posters new to the thread trying to shut down the discussion. There was wave after wave of statements that it wasn't happening - the product is not for the British market, nobody is launching a new British scale, Peco don't mean a word of what they've just spent 6 pages of the Railway Modeller saying, only the very very naive would believe that, it's just a bit of window dressing..... "Nothing's actually happening. Please stop wasting our time talking about this . Move along now, nothing to see here" That was long before we knew Red Box were involved. And speaking personally a lot of the heat has come from N gauge modellers, some of whom see TT:120 as a threat to their own scale . It's certainly a rival for the support of those who feel they haven't got space for OO. Any attempt to suggest that TT:120 might offer opportunities that N gauge doesn't , or that there might be any limitations to current N gauge and it is jumped on by N gauge modellers. Even float an idea about the sort of layout you could build in TT:120 given the products , and people jump in insisting you should do that in N , not in TT. After someone attempted to gibbet me for this elsewhere on the forum I have fairly strong feelings about that side of the opposition. Red Box aren't in N , so that part of the opposition has nothing much to do with feelings about them. At this point I'm not sure there is any practical distinction between trying to stop people buying TT:120 to ensure the commercial failure of the Hornby range and give Red Box a bloody nose, and trying to stamp this out as a commercial scale in Britain. The Chadwick video was very much attempting the first. Set aside any possible glitches in the actual commercial launch - what on earth are we doing as a hobby trying frantically to secure the commercial failure and disappearance of an entire new scale?? Faced with a serious large-scale attempt to draw new blood into the hobby , why in heaven's name are folk trying to scare off the newbies by frantically screaming "Wake up! You've been lied to! You'll be skinned alive and dumped"???

What about the industrial sector? If you want a shunter you get hold of a second-hand 08. That makes the 08 a 21st century J94.... I'm currently attempting a contemporary wagon works . That could certainly be done in TT with a pair of 66s as the "mainline" locos and an 08 to shunt the wagons round the works The idea that the 08 is somehow a bad choice is crackers. They are after all just about the largest British class ever built, and they have a 69 year (and counting) service life. (Oh ,and some very similar locos were used on the Continent, which may help with a scale which is at the moment very largely a Continental European affair commercially)

Sorry, but this is a misleading trope. You do not have special insight into what "a genuinely new market" requires - cos you're part of the existing market... Virtually every type of loco built in significant numbers in the last hundred years has been done in OO. A lot of the one offs have too. Many of the pre-Grouping locos built in significant numbers that made it to c1955 have been done too. Likewise virtually all significant types of post 1923 coaching stock So basically whatever gets done in TT:120 will already be available in OO. The idea that prototypes only have merit if they are currently in Bachmann's or Dapol's or Rapido's OO ranges - but not if they are in Hornby's - is patently absurd. So is the idea that someone blundered into earlier , that Classes 68 and 70 (of which there are a grand total of 71) would be a much better proposition than a model of Class 66 , which numbers many hundreds of locos There are more 08s running around the network at present than Classes 68, 69, and 70 combined... And modern high speed express units necessarily will be in the Hornby range - cos Bachmann have only ever done the Voyager, after Virgin leaned on them to do it , and Barwell dropped it from the range a decade ago and can't be bothered to bring it back... You did spot that we've seen EPs of the HST , and the Azuma has been declared to be a future TT model? Hornby could have aimed the new range at the membership of DEMU (currently about 700 I think, maybe a bit less?). To a large extent that is where AS are currently aiming. But instead they're targetting the families who visit preserved railways - but aren't in the hobby. That's a fairly sizeable group The Facebook groups show that a lot of those who have bought the sets so far are in fact new to the hobby. Arguments that the strategy won't work are rather negated by the fact that so far it has been working. What the future holds is another matter. But we do know it holds a TT:120 Class 66 and HST

Sam is rather fairer. I've seen the rel;evant bit of his news roundup - he admits he was sceptical of the claim and thought the radius 6 piece might have been used but on assembly of a ring of radius 3 , pushed home tight he reckoned there was a 30mm overlap (Chadwick claimed it was 3" I think) Sam stated that he hadn't noticed this when setting up his own fixed layout on a board, but on closer inspection that circuit had slight gaps on the inner rail at the joints. This was replicated when making a circle with his loose radius 3 curves. He also notes that the R3 curves aren't quite sitting flat. He recommended people use Peco TT track instead It does look as if the geometry of the radius 3 curves is slightly out, which it shouldn't be. (Whether Hornby can resolve this simply, by very slightly shortening each outer rail by about 1mm-2mm I don't know.) It looks as if the R2 curves are fine It wasn't a Chadwick style rant - it was clear from the video that the track as supplied can be used pinned down without any serious issues, and there are workarounds. But the stance is that the curves aren't quite right and they should be Personally I wouldn't use code 80 deadfrog out of a trainset when I can use code 55 livefrog from Peco anyway. So it would be a non-issue for me. But Hornby will need to tweak this particular item going forward

Ilford depot still uses 08s as depot shunters, so "every time they pass Ilford depot, going into or out of Liverpool St". (There's at least one Conflat A still in use as a reach/converter wagon at Ilford) In fact there are several hundred 08s still in service on the network HSTs are on the Phase 1 list for TT:120, and Azumas are on the long list. Class 66 is in tooling Furthermore steam-era modelling remains the majority of the hobby. I'm sorry , but this is a non-point

On a more cheerful note: closer inspection has revealed that it is possible to get a frog feedwire onto the Vee of the frog of the points either side of the broken point. This I've done, using some fine green wire stripped out of a bit of ribbon cable salvaged from an old computer. While it doesn't exactly improve the look of the points, it's no disaster and not much worse than any other feedwire. I've now fitted and wired up a Peco polarity switch on the most distant point in the first picture. The point in front of the camera will follow - that's got a SEEP motor and I need to find the wiring diagram. The plan is now to cut out, lift and replace the broken point and to provide a buried frog feed on the replacement . That will mean the first 3 of the 4 points in the works siding fan will have proper frog wiring , and I should be able to shunt with a degree of confidence. The three points on the left hand board are another matter: here a mixture of SEEP motors without switches and awkward locations may rule out retrofitting feed wires. But these points are somewhat less critical. This should be sufficient of a fix to justify carrying on with the N gauge layout. I will keep the replacement tiebar I fabricated from PCB in reserve, in case any more points fail. Some of the other points could be got at for replacement in the event of a failure, but a further point failure that can't readily be resolved might well signal the end of the layout.... While I'm about it , I might as well finish my N gauge Bill of Complaint with the saga of the Farish 57. This was bought years ago in the local model shop's closing down sale. When I tried running it on this layout it derailed at every point. Further investigation revealed that something was fouling on the tiebar lugs on the points, and these had to be clipped away. (I'm trying to imagine a RTR Class 47 or 57 fouling on Peco Streamline points in OO: I think there'd be a firestorm about the issue. But this is N - people seem just to accept it without comment) The loco then ran. But it doesn't have NEM pockets . I have a hazy recollection I might have been warned about that when I bought it, but now I've been driven into Dapol Easi-Shunts this is a serious problem. I don't know how to convert it for Easi-Shunts , so I can't use it....

Full list for TT:120 transfers from Railtec A post 1956 loco number sheet is available

This is a long shot, and may not be workable , but - If you were able to cut away the front half of the affected wall, and replace it with a scratchbuilt lean-to annex, presumably added later, it might be possible to salvage the building with much less work than scratchbuilding an entire replacement. I've never attempted to saw into a resin building , so I can't comment on the practicalities or risks of doing so . But your photo in situ shows that there is space for a lean-to office to the side. I would be inclined to saw into the window apertures - to minimise the amount of cutting to be done - if attempoting this. You would then only have to remake a replacement for the lower 3/4s of the front edge of the wall, probably using embossed plasticard and any slight mismatch in the finish of the stonework can be explained away as the result of building the annex later Effectively , you are cutting out the affected area and masking it with an add-on As I say I've not attempted anything like this, but if the alternative is to discard the building , then your risk is limited . If the thing sustains unrepairable damage in the attempt, well, you were going to discard it anyway

Given that they've done both in 4mm , could it be that they have produced a single tooling suite that allows them to offer both varients in TT:120? What exactly are the differences? I don't know the vehicles in that fine detail - Harris lumps them together as a single chapter in his Mk2 book, and from what I can make out the differences are different aircon equipment and in most of 2Fs different seats. If it's the same bodyshell with different boxes on the underframe and a slightly different interior , then a single suite of tooling might well cover both types (I posted a video of mainline steam earlier - the second clip in it featured an A4 with an EWS 66 behind the tender, followed by a maroon support coach followed by crimson /cream Mk1s . You could do that with what's been announced 🤪) I get the impression the phasing /timings are a bit flexible as things evolve. Phase 2 is supposed to be Stanier Pacific and coaches, plus 66 - the Stanier coaches are almost here, the Duchess looks like it's slipping to the end of next year, and the 66 is just going out for tooling alongside two 0-6-0s. The latter are presumably the 57xx and J94, which are listed as either Phase 4 or Phase 5.... Meanwhile I don't think we've seen even an EP of the 50, which is supposed to be Phase 2 as well. We have seen the HST, so my guess is the HST comes second half of this year , with the 66/ 0-6-0Ts around New Year Whatever the planned phasing was on paper, the real world is clearly intervening....

It seems there is no radius 1 in TT..... Hornby -Arnold state a minimum radius of 310mm = R2 for all their models. That seems to be the absolute floor Hornby are working to. The 08 + some wagons is next off the runway I believe, and green is promised as a later release. No doubt blue/grey Mk 1s will happen in due course I'm looking forward to the first TT 08 repainted in black with cycling lion😜

Much play is being made of the lack of BR green and BR blue versions of the 08. But exactly how difficult is it going to be to take an 08 in GB Railfreight or DB Schenker, and stick it in the line of fire of a rattlecan of Brunswick Green or Rail Blue? These are single colour liveries. Glazing would have to be removed or masked , wasp stripes might need masking , but Railtec are making transfers available. A new scale requires a certain amount of pioneering work and dare I say it a willingness to make things. Here is a simple straightforward test of whether TT:120 works as a constructional scale . Can you repaint an 08 into a simple plain livery without undue difficulty ? This sort of thing is not a problem in either 4mm or 3mm If you are modelling before 1960 you don't even need wasp stripes. Plain green or plain black A new scale cannot launch on the basis of being spoon-fed absolutely everything exactly right straight out of the box

Railway Modeller arrived today. It contains a 3 page review of the Scotsman set and a two page interview with Simon Kohler. Peco are part of the TT-120 ecosystem, making track , scenic bits and with a wagon to come - they are clearly using Railway Modeller to promote the new scale. There's a half page ad for their scenic stuff and another half page for the wooden PO minerals in TT:120. For the second month running. (I recall something being said on here to the effect that Hornby had not sent BRM a review sample, but also elsewhere a reference to Tony Wright having photographed a set. As a partner in the TT:120 venture Peco have evidently been supplied with a set to review . I haven't seen BRM , so don't know what the situation is in Lincolnshire) I don't normally watch Missives from Margate, but in view of the above I've just taken a look at the interview to see what he said on this. and That is what Simon Kohler actually says about the target market. (There is more stuff about why TT, and why direct sales, but I don't want to be accused of being on-message so I won't quote that. Clearly he has a product to sell, and you can take a view on how far he is presenting things in a positive light, and what may not have been mentioned. But I think it's best to start by dealing with what is said, at face value) So if Covkid is fully committed to OO and doesn't want to be part of any Hornby demographic - then he wouldn't be part of the target market for TT:120. (Although nobody is being told they are not wanted in TT:120...) That being said I'm not quite sure why he has such strong views on what the launch range should be. I think it was Paul Isles who originated the trope "They should have gone with modern multiple units not old-fashioned big steam" - clearly his heart was in the Flirt and the Azuma, rather than the 2MT and the 0-6-0T Peckett. However steam remains the bigger sector of the hobby, and a lot of people visit preserved railways where some very big kettles pulling Mk1s are major draws . Peco's TT:120 pitch was steam-age branchlines done spaciously in modest domestic spaces As well as photos of the stock in the Scotsman sets, there is a photo of the 08 decorated sample , and EPs of the TTA and HAA . The latter looks more finished As for someone's comment earlier that you have to be over 60 to remember steam on the national network , I'll just leave this here: LNER Pacifics Hornby were always going to get a Gresley Pacific done faster than a 66 (the latter is a clean slate job for them) and an A3 and A4 are arguably better bets than two Bulleid Pacifics

There really is quite a determined effort to stamp out this new scale going on

Since pretty well everything commercial has been done in OO , it is inevitable that whatever Hornby do in TT:120 will already be available as a OO model. Bachmann have done the Class 70 in OO, Dapol have done the Class 68. More to the point - Hornby won't have the necessary licences. Bachmann and Dapol have the rights. Likewise - no Mk5s in TT:120 as AS hold the rights Doing things where you already hold the necessary licences for design and livery keeps costs down. Why does the Scotsman set feature Blink Bonny not 4472 ? Because they would have to pay the NRM to do 4472, and it might put £15 to £20 on the price of the set Multiple units are an interesting one. They sell least well of all subjects - and one reason will be price . A 3 or 4 car multiple unit is going to have the highest unit price of any RTR model . Price resistance is becoming a real issue now , and the highest priced items will face the strongest resistance Hornby's OO "offer" in Modernisation Plan DMUs is Class 101 (ex Lima) , Class 110 (vintage Hornby) , Class 121 (ex Lima) . All from vintage tools , upgraded with a decent drive, 8 wheel pickup and DCC sockets 20 years ago, fully paid off now. These they sell as "affordable" models priced at under £150 for a 2 car unit In Second Generation units they have the ex Lima 156, with mechanical upgrade, and their own modern tooling 153. Both priced at an "affordable" price point And they've now planted a flag in 21st century units with the Greater Anglia Flirt, still to reach market Currently no DMU has been announced in TT:120 (unless you count the HST and Azuma) The Gloucester Class 100 is the last major long service Modernisation Plan DMU not done in OO. Do Hornby tool up a Class 100 in OO and TT:120 , to replace the 101 or 110 as tooling becomes life expired? Do Hornby do a TT:120 version of the 153? TT:120 is launched as an affordable scale , for those not willing to pay £330 for a 2 car DMU (see HJ. 158s are out at £290) - a single car DMU can retail at a similar price to a diesel loco, and is therefore more affordable Or are Hornby developing a TT Flirt in parallel with the OO model? Kick the ball right up field . But you might want to see how the OO model sells before committing to that... We are only 10 weeks into this scale. Give them a little time.....

Given the comment from Hornby somewhere that the 66 had been slightly delayed going out for tooling because they needed the tooling to cover a lot of things , including European varients, that could well be the route they are taking. The Arnold model appears to be being released as a set along with the container flats , so that gives them more scope to cover their tracks in terms of pricing

I'm aware that RRPs are routinely discounted. But some sort of "apples with apples" comparison needs to be made, otherwise we descend into "well I bought my Manor from Accurascale in their clearance sale but the Hornby Caprotti is only available at full RRP", Hattons don't stock Bachmann , Rails won't stock Hornby , etc etc I make the assumption that a given retailer's discount from RRP is fairly similar across the board, and bargain bin clearances are ignored for the purposes of this exercise (The basic point was that although Bachmann's OO 66 is the same RRP as their N 66, the OO 66 is priced well below other Bachmann diesels in OO: no doubt because the tooling has been depreciated and the model faces stiff competition from Hornby and Hattons. We can argue about the exact "going rate" for a Type 5 diesel in OO , but it's clearly well above £159..) I would argue strongly that cost comparison with N is definitely important . If you are considering buying a scale smaller than the norm, you are likely to check the options and you will rapidly discover the existence of N gauge Quite apart from anything else , as soon as the prospective purchaser walks into a model shop that shop is going to be counter-selling N gauge against Hornby TT:120. Any price differential will be seized upon as a selling point. I think the idea of there being a captive market of gullible sheep who can be milked and shorn once they've been lured in is mistaken. This scale - and this range - is going to have to fight with every possible angle and resource it can get to secure every scrap of market share it can, to reach viability and long term success, and that will be the case for at least 5 and probably 10 years. Only once there is a large heavily- committed pool of TT:120 modellers who are in it for the long-haul and wouldn't change gauge anyway , can pricing become independant of N gauge The fact that N gauge prices are significantly less than OO doesn't affect OO priocing because very few of those in OO would switch to N - for reasons that have nothing to do with price. For the foreseeable future TT:120 has to compete with N for support : it cannot build a future by relying on the existance of "people who don't know any better" - don't buy magazines, don't go to shows, and don't read forums Reverting to the Class 66 , Dapol were selling their 66 off their stand at Warley for £100. I settled for a 33 at £80 because I'm counting the pennies, a 33 is much shorter (train length issues) and I would quite like a mainline loco for the N gauge project that isn't a 66 . My nearest retailer has a small pile of Dapol 66s at the back of the shop priced at £81 In the face of that reality I do not see how Hornby can price their TT:120 at more than £125-£130 on the website. Factor in the 10% TT Club discount and further down the road, Reward Points , and your price is competitive with boxshifters selling Dapol 66s How you sell a 66 for £125 here and then release it in the Arnold range without totally destroying your pricing structure in the Continental TT market is an interesting question. Some nimble footwork will be required . I suspect a 66 in a specifically Continental scheme , with one or two extra details at around £175 : even that is half the price of big Continental steam in TT As a pointer - when the 66 appeared on the website at range launch, it was shown as priced at £104.95 (from memory) - well out of line with all the other diesels. That attracted comment. But a look at the going rate for Dapol 66s suggests where that price came from. The 66 is now not appearing for about a year, and the 66 pre-order pages have vanished from the website. The 08 is priced at £119 pre-order ...