Ravenser

I'm an inactive member of the 3mm Society . I'm sympathetic to the idea and possibilities of a scale or scale that is significantly smaller than OO but larger than N, and which allows scope for making things yourself without undue difficulty and without requiring every point and chassis to be handbuilt by yours truly. 3mm scale (1:101) is different from 1:120 scale (0.1" /ft). 3mm scale is necessarily a scale in which you need to build stuff yourself, although the kit support available is by far the best for any non-RTR scale, ready-made 12mm gauge points and flexible track have been available from Peco for some years, and some RTR 12mm gauge mechanisms can be sourced from the Continent. 65 years of experience has been that making things in 3mm scale is not much harder than doing so in 4mm, a reasonable level of finesse can be achieved in the scale , and small shunting planks /"operational" terminus /FY layouts have never been seen as an "issue" by anyone It's in that context - donor 12mm mechanisms - that 3SMR stock a small amount of Continental TT RTR. Clearly that also supports anyone in Britain who wants to pursue Continental outline TT TT:120 is being launched as a scale with full RTR support . I believe that any new scale will need to be constructional in its early years because any new venture will always, inevitably, have less RTR /trade support than the incumbent scales . The fundamental question is whether there are possibilities , opportunities or advantages in working at a scale of 1:120, as opposed to other scales you might work to. That is a very different question to "is there more RTR available in X?" (The comment applies as much to 7mm and OO9 as TT:120. For very many years there was no real RTR in those scales. But they developed considerably as scales/gauges based on construction, because they offered possibilities worth exploring) If TT:120 proves inconveniently small to make things for most people, then its potential and its future will be seriously limited. If it proves unsuitable for shunting planks and branch line termini its potential will be seriously restricted. To have a real future, for the foreseeable future this scale needs to be "RTR ++" - that is , a good core of RTR bulked out by constructional modelling accessible to any modeller willing to make a serious attempt at it. From what I can understand, the 3mm Society committee has decided that TT:120 does not represent "an existential threat" to 3mm, and the 3mm Society carries on as before. From what I've seen elsewhere and on here 3mm modellers seem generally supportive rather than hostile to the scale, and the 3mm Society's recent survey has shown that existing 3mm modellers will stay in 3mm (see Chairman's comments in Jan 3mm Society Newsletter) Every scale/gauge needs its oen eco-system of products, traders and support. What is becoming clear is that quite a lot of the constructional support for TT:120 is going to come from parts of the 3mm eco-system: Lincoln Loco , 3SMR , and Worsley Works are all from that world There are two groups who do see TT:120 as a serious threat. It is clearly an alternative to N gauge as a small scale, and some N gauge modellers see it as a potential threat to support for the scale: Comments on TT - Farish thread That's led a few folk to try to counter any suggestions about what could be done in TT with "but you are better off doing it in N!" postings. (For what it's worth - I don't think many committed N gauge modellers will change scale. TT:120 is potentially of interest to those on the margins, who are in N because they don't have soace for 4mm, but feel N doesn't really work for them. The loss of people who wouldn't stick around anyway isn't going to have much effect on N) The other group hostile to the scale are some parts of the retail trade. This is a matter of commercial interest. There doesn't seem to have been any great enthusiasm in the retail trade for the launch of a new scale, and Hornby's decision to sell direct means that some retailers feel that success for TT:120 would open up an existential threat to their own business' survival in other areas. Hence there will be some traders who would like this scale to fail, and who might oppose it. It's getting quite difficult to see a future for TT:120 based on being sold in every model shop up and down the land. Either the scale fails commercially - in which case model shops would never get involved anyway, as there will be nothing to sell, or we end up with a limited number of specialists carrying a deep range of TT:120 and most shops having none. I could see 3SMR as being one of those specialists. (And I think quite a few shop owners , if offered the chance to sell TT:120, will tell Hornby where they can stick it. Because sales will be through the Hornby website initially there will be not much evidence to convince the sceptics that there is genuine demand for it) (A parallel would be the first few decades of DCC , when the hobby in Britain very largely rejected it as a waste of effort. DCC was available from a limited number of specialist retailers such as Mackays Models. Most model shops , if asked , would have told you that DCC was an expensive but pointless product)

We've had two years of the pandemic, and the exhibition circuit is still markedly reduced from what it was in 2019 (No Stevenage, no York, no Railex, no Peterborough last year. And so forth) . A rough count up says my show going has halved compared with pre-pandemic, and I seem to be going to a much higher proportion of the "available opportunities" The survey result may be an accurate reflection of where we are now , as opposed to where we were in the decade before the pandemic

Hornby have said that they are working to NEM310/311 for TT. At this stage (until someone measures something) no reason to disbelieve that. Similarly we presume Peco points are to the same standard (NEM110 in the case of track - 0,9mm - 1.0mm flangeways.) A "finescale" standard for TT:120 using 3mm Society wheels would ideally be matched with handbuilt pointwork to the appropriate matching 3mm Society track standard (12mm Intermediate : 0.9,mm-1.0mm or 12mm Finescale : 0.75mm - 0.85mm. 3mm Soc Technical Note 2 here ) It would therefore appear that "standard" 3mm Society wheels for 12mm Intermediate Standard ought to be fully compatible with NEM110 track to 12mm gauge such as we presume both Hornby and Peco points to be, and they could be used immediately as a resource for builders of locomotives 3mm Finescale wheels would need handbuilt pointwork to preserve full compatibility , though 12 mm track to this standard is known territory, and gauges/support should be available in 3mm scale . The sleepering would obviously need to be adjusted (That said, in OO plenty of people use Gibson/Ultrascale wheels on Peco and waive away the issue . "It works just fine". I don't necessarily recommend it, but people do it) Whether anyone in the future will want to go the whole hog and invent a deadscale P120 standard I don't know. But in the first instance if anyone wants to build their own or refine the wheels/track it seems simplest to run with what's already available "off the shelf" for 12mm gauge in 3mm scale

A 1/72 Fairey Battle , from a vintage Airfix kit, one of four kits in a cheap boxed set Account of construction here Battle 1 Battle 2 . I still need to write up finishing it: the idea of attempting a very simple tarmac diorama to display it is awaiting arrival of a supply of Round Tuits A Cromwell tank (Airfix 1/76) . Bought to bulk up the order for display stands for the Battle : intended to serve as the load for a DOGA Warflat kit at some point.

A fascinating little survival - must be almost 90 years old

There's a small trickle of responses in the "AC / clockwork / live steam /Radio Control" area that look to me like 7mm / G1 coarse scale and outdoors Quite a few of the others really ought to be under the DC, DCC , both categories. R/C and "dead rail" technology is talked about, but there seem to be only a handful of people actively doing it, and it may be that the models are actually large scale. (As far as I'm aware Don Rowland is the only person to have made a serious sustained attempt at r/c on a 4mm finescale layout - or indeed any 4mm layout) "Custom linear motor " sounds rather interesting . Why am I thinking steampunk/Dan Dare??

If you are going to put wagons up against them , there might be an issue. It is also likely that they have been compressed for N But they might do at the back of the layout . It's really quite difficult to say without examining them closely There is however one issue - together they cost £90 , for a moderate sized N gauge industrial structure

The magazines had become very focused on the exhibition scene where layouts were concerned. The fact that Hornby Magazine could run an "innovative" feature called "Layouts that Never Leave Home" points to how far the selection of layouts appearing in the magazines was aligned to layouts appearing at shows. I know that Blacklade would not have appeared in a magazine if it hadn't gone to a particular show Once the pandemic struck, all that switched quite rapidly. Suddenly there were no shows, and after a few months the mags started featuring lockdown projects , which are invariably quite modest- sized home layouts To a degree , that's fashion in publishing, but the fashion is more about switching coverage from "the circuit" to what's happening at home, and we are seeing a different style of layout because that's what is possible at home and exhibition layouts have been more or less off the table for over 2 years... Watching the trains go by may be very popular amongst the exhibition spectators, but I'm not so sure it's what people want when they are building something at home . The branch line became a cliche for a reason This is someone's lockdown project - a small urban terminus in N , very nicely done, seen at Shenfield in September. I think the whole thing including FY is no more than 7' long, and it may be only slightly larger than Carl Arendt's canonical 4 square feet I It isn't about "shunting or constant loco swapping" - which would certainly cover a Minories-style operation, but I'm thinking about the potential for steam age subjects, which are, in this kind of space and to this kind of standard in TT:120 P.S. You may actually be responsible for the whole Boxfile concept in Britain. Certainly I'd never heard of the idea until you floated it as a DOGA competition in 2003 ( 😲) , and I was initially very sceptical that it could be done. Your Melbridge Box Company might be the first practical British Boxfile

It's always easy to be over dramatic, but in some ways the 08 and the wagons are critical items for the development of the scale. I saw the below comment on the last F\arish announcements thread and it's revealing: The chronic housing shortage has now reached a point where for many people a branch line terminus or a shunting plank isn't possible in 4mm without severe compromises. The appearance of "micros" and Boxfiles shows how severe the problem has become I am well aware of the issues: I live in a 2 bedroom flat , and there are serious restrictions on what I can do in 4mm. I'm single, though - many folk are more restricted than me But one way or another N does not seem to be catering for those kind of layouts . Whether it is the standard n gauge coupler , which is said not to be very suitable for shunting, whether it's mechanical concerns/limitations lingering from the old days of Poole-era Farish twenty years ago (when N gauge mechanisms seem to have been quite rubbish), or the small size of steam era wagons in N, or limited availability of RTR N steam in recent times , or whatever ... That kind of layout doesn't seem to happen much in N. N is not challenging OO in this area. Meanwhile space is harder to find than it was in the 1950s, and 15" radius curves are no longer tolerable in OO. The sort of small layouts Cyril Freezer was designing in the 1950s and 60s for those with restricted space are off the table. The classic BLT formula for a small layout has become a struggle in 4mm for many So , if the 08 runs well, and the coupling works well, and the wagons are ok - TT:120 could give many people the chance to create an effective "small layout" in a modest space without crippling compromises. Something which isn't really possible in OO or N for a lot of people at present. The 08 will be the first small loco we see in TT:120. If a sweetly-running Inglenook is possible as "proof of concept" using that , the first wagons , and the standard coupling , then it is "game on" for shunting planks and BLTs in TT:120 (For the sake of clarity, I'm not specifically suggesting Inglenooks in TT. That would simply be a "proof of concept" that shunting puzzle layouts will work nicely in the new scale. Carl Arendt defined a "micro" as 4 square feet or less - say 4' x 1' or 6' x 8". Two boxfiles are 29" x 9". I'm wondering what can be done in TT:120 in such spaces. People don't use N gauge in them. For whatever reason.)

"Norfolk is a county cut off on three sides by the sea, and on the fourth by the LNER"

A branch line terminus , with the fiddle yard behind it on the same board, reached via a curve? That is, a U shaped layout on a solid board? "loop on a single board" is a common enough format in N, with a backscene rather than an operating well screening the fiddle yard. But on the whole N doesn't do branch line termini In a scale 25% larger than N that should still be possible. But the concept of looping the FY behind the scenic section , not off to the side means that the length needed would be slashed . And length required is often the major space constraint. This potentially means reaching across the backscene to handle the fiddle yard. That might be a practical difficulty. However the real awkwardness comes when you have to deal with stuff stuck right under the backscene. If the FY roads are all a few inches behind the backscene this could be much easier to work with. Your board is built , but based on a 330mm curve someone could take the board width down to 75cm/30". That certainly ought to be manageable to reach across, and the larger volume of TT:120 stock as against N (2x volume) would make it easier to handle when reaching over. Given that TT:120 is a smallish scale, the backscene can be relatively low in terms of actual inches - 4"-6" max height a further refinement - there is no real need for the BLT to run strictly parallel to the board front edge. Continue the turn a little, and have it running a little diagonally across the board. And a further effect of this set up - you get quite a lot of depth behind the station. Layouts with backscenes tend to end up as thin strips, but the format I'm suggesting would allow the station to seem set in a deep expanse of space . The 330mm curve equates to 21" in 4mm . A bit tighter than the "accepted scale minimum" for OO buit still not outrageous for a single track branch

It looks like one of the factors that killed TT in Western Europe was that neither the gauge nor the scale were in fact agreed or common ground between the manufacturers. This makes Triang's decision to go with 3mm /12mm rather easier to understand. They weren't being wilfully different, they were picking amongst a spread of existing options However none of that is an issue this time round. We get a clear consistant scale and gauge, the same as every other manufacturer and country, with the track gauge pretty well spot on , and working to a common and coherent standard (NEM310/311)

Scholarly caution is one thing, but as modellers we have to live in the real world on a practical basis. "It is not possible to model the GER before WW1 because we don't know what colour the coaches were" is not a useful practical or sensible statement. Any uncertainties are wildly overstated by it. There is a marked difference between the teak of the Metropolitan coaches in the photos I posted , and the sample panel which Edwardian posted as a sample of "Moulmein teak" . The coaches have an orange/chocolate cast. The panel has a paler less rich look , with what I might call a pinkish shade . I now understand the reasoning behind the paler and somewhat pinkish shade shown in the artwork for the Hattons GE coaches Phoenix are paintmakers , and would naturally want to work from some kind of colour chip. Adrian Marks' reasoning derives the paint colour from the colour of "Moulmein teak" as it is known today - which seems entirely logical if not absolutely precise and watertight Clearly GER "teak" paint is different from LNER teak and brown , and also from the Stratford Brown applied to pre-grouping GE section coaches after 1948 There are colours which are clearly and demonstrably wrong . Dark olive where it should be chocolate , teak printed like a pine grain shelf , and signal yellow where it ought to be BR warning panel yellow. But the worst that can be said about Hattons' choices are "we can't be quite certain that it's right, but it looks not unreasonable" My own slight interest is as the owner of a Hornby 6 wheel LNER all 3rd , who has the intention to acquire a Hattons 6 wheel LNER Brake 3rd and Composite to make up a short train representative of a minor LNER branch in the 1930s (totally out of period for anything else I do , but there you go). I think the Hornby coach will need to be weathered down a bit for such an old coach, and I was contemplating using a wash of Precision Pullman umber for the job , as the paint has no other real use for me... Precision LNER teak dull is a relatively pale shade : (Coaches "understood" to be ex M&GN ...) (I find it is a very useful weathering shade for the coat of brown muck that covers say modern engineers ballast hoppers)

In my case , a 1/48 scale plastic kit for a San Francisco cable car , acquired as a kid in 1981... I think the equivalent for Jimmy Choos is a 7mm brass loco...

And how badly compromised? Both the Bagnall and the 06 are very fat and the 06 has spurious boxes to get round the clips. Hence Hornby should naturally be looking for a boxy side tank to go on the chassis. Still slightly miffed they haven't done a Y4. But B4s exist in preservation and Y4s didn't survive

Cos they are boxy. Saddle tanks like the MR dock tanks done by Ks aren't going to work when we know that there are issues with motor width/fittings You might have got away with a GER Y4 , as that's boxy with big side tanks too. There were some Avonside 0-4-0Ts in S Wales that ended up with the GWR , that I think were fairly boxy side tanks too. And I suppose the Y7s that Rapido are doing are side tanks too But Hornby were never going to do this: The answer is probably that the B4s are the largest most-widespread class of boxy side tank 0-4-0T available..

Make of these what you will - three teak coaches, photographed on the Bluebell in November. Possibly some of the variation may be replacement panels as a result of restoration The Bluebell's ex Metropolitan Chesham set No undertaking is given that these shades match GNR, GER or LNER teak Possibly any colour images of "faux teak" on post war Thompson stock might help , if they exist. Doncaster and York would presumably have tried to get as close to actual LNER teak as they could

Yes. A much better yellow and somehow the blue looks a bit stronger too

How far can existing 3mm wheels be used? They are at least aimed at 12mm gauge, and at 6/5ths of TT:120 scale the scale difference might be managable

OO is relatively bigger in terms of numbers. Even so Bachmann are pretty quiet in OO as well. Look at how many active Bachmann threads there are - and then compare it with the Hornby section or even the Accurascale section There are still plenty of blue boxes in the shops, but I'm starting to wonder how much of that is old stock...

A revised DCC socket really doesn't require a retooled bodyshell. Hornby managed some quite extensive revisions of the 4VEP including moving the motor from one place to another without scrapping the lot and starting again (If they'd decided it needed that approach we'd never have seen the 4VEP again..) I am actually hostile to Bachmann connective couplings because I like the gangways closed up . A couple of Kadees and the job was done on the 108. In contrast nothing can be done about my 150/1 because it has a connective coupling bar. The fact that a scale 18" of fresh air between the corridor connections is thought perfectly acceptable and passes without comment , when you look at some of the other "issues" that people stone models and manufacturers for, is very odd . It points to a rather selective view of what constitutes accuracy on a model I'm also pretty dubious about sound on a DMU. The 30-45 sec rigmarole of starting up the decoder before you can dispatch the train is an excellent way of gumming up the operation ofv a layout. A complete retooling of a model simply for the benefit of the small subset who want DCC sound seems mistaken to me. Not least when multiple units are already the most expensive models on the market and price resistance is an issue I doubt there will be very much new tooling announced

There's nothing significantly wrong with the 108, and no obvious need to take it off the market for a decade and sink development money into a very high-priced new one Unfortunately there is something significantly wrong with the Bachmann 101 (believe the position of windows in the bodyside isn't right?) - which is why the vintage Lima model is still around. Faced with two models , both of which have bodyshell issues, both of which "look the part" and both of which are DCC Ready and run very nicely, price and availability of the livery you want become deciding factors. Hornby's model retails at half the price of Bachmanns - provided Hornby knock it out in a different but commercial livery they can still make sales. As it is ,Bachmann have alternative DMUs that are right in the form of 105 and 108 , and can keep knocking them out from paid-for tooling. DMUs no longer seem to be a focus at Bachmann anyway, so I expect retooling the 101 is way down the priority list Where they have been very quiet is steam . When Dennis Lovatt was there , you'd have backed Barwell to do the Austin 7 and Fowler 2-6-2T, and quite possibly an LNWR 2-4-2T . Things have changed.... In any case the new policy seems to be not to announce things until they are almost ready for production. Much of Bachmann's recent new steam has been as commissions for others , which means someone else is paying for the R&D. A Bachmann run of a commission from a few years back, or a new NRM commission (Aerolite? Cornwall? A Star? Even a J69??) seem more likely Along the way they could offer new releases of some bread and butter items - Jinties, 08s, blue/grey Mk1 TSOs/SKs (perhaps with a BCK) . Stuff like that. Another outing for the Deeley 3F? . It appears that the ex Airfix/Mainline tooling for earlier LMS coaches has expired , both at Dapol and at Bachmann. Tooling some replacement early LMS coaches (P1-P2) might therefore make sense . The Portholes are post war, and some of them are exclusively post Nationalisation. A left field option would be to tool post WW1 LNWR or MR corridors instead - a project in the vein of the Birdcages that could be run in plum/spilt milk behind Hardwicke but also in BR liveries on a 1950s secondary line It will be interesting to see what they can rustle up under the EFE brand, to bulk out their depleted in-house OO and N

The Cl 390 Pendolino , Cl 395 Javelin and Cl 800 Azuma all need to be added to the list, along with the star example , the Railroad Mk1s . And Tornado (Not to mention the Hornby 4 and 6 wheelers, and arguably the 2HAL) There are really two issues mixed up here: - How far is the "arms race in detail" adding to production costs in China ? - How far can "affordable models" be generated by re-runs from tooling which has been paid off? "Affordable" ranges in Continental HO use both strategies I think Hornby said that the Pendolino wouldn't be viable as a full-fat model, but there have been very few complaints about it over time - it seems to be regarded as a perfectly acceptable model. The same goes for the Javelin and Azuma. In this particular sub-niche it seems to be less detailed models or nothing, and the results seem acceptable. Meanwhile Bachmann's "full fat and full retool" approach means in practice that the Voyager has been unavailable for a decade.... Pre 2000 models are generally flawed , and therefore vulnerable when run as affordable models. But what happens when existing 21st century models are run as paid off tooling against a state of the art new tooling is a very interesting question. It is possible to run as a business for a while without much new model development, just turning out existing ranges.. Wrenn did that throughout the 1970s , and Dave Boyle-era Dapol ran on second hand tooling turning out new production without a lot of model development I'm quite struck by Dapol's approach in N. They aren't developing and releasing many new models in N. In that sense they are probably being outperformed by Farish. But Dapol keep all their existing N gauge range in regular production. The models are all post 2000 , fundamentally accurate and ok, even if Farish might have the edge and Revolution certainly do. Dapol's prices are cheaper - Farish seem to price N at or above OO prices. Meanwhile the vast majority of Farish's nominal "range" is not in production and availability of staple items from Farish is an issue. If you want to buy N gauge models today, there is arguably as much Dapol available as Farish...

In all the circumstances , it's good to highlight the support being made advailable from the specialist trade for this new scale Model-making and ingenuity have always been required in the pioneering phase of any scale or gauge

............. Couple of things : - I can understand your feeling that there's something not quite there on the paint job, but having read your post again , I think I can lay my finger on it . The yellow's too dark /rich. Signal yellow is a different colour from BR warning panel yellow , and Precision do two shades of the later - an early more orange version and a 1980s paler shade. This is throwing out the balance between blue and yellow - the blue is looking slightly washed out/faded. A top coat of BR warning panel yellow over the signal shade should ease it back I think - Agree that the bogie sideframes are a bit sparse and need enhancement - A 37 is promised from Hornby in Phase 4 behind the 50 in Phase 3 , so doing one by another route may be unnecessary (Though it's good to prove to the knockers that it is actually possible to make things in this scale regardless of what's available from Hornby) Good to see Railtec are on board in supporting this scale