Ravenser

Model Rail and Rapido certainly approached the J70 as a "one-time" project, and it's reasonable to assume that the same applies to other Model Rail/Rapido collaborations The full cost of tooling and development must surely have been put against the first run, since there is no current plan for a second run. Why on earth would you use more expensive "hard" tooling for this? That doesn't rule out a second run, any more than it stopped Heljan, but the business model clearly wasn't based on ongoing production. And the same seems to be true of the other collaborations Revolution have stated that some of their models are done by Rapido .And Revolution supply a handy project status list: Revolution Trains projects The "Completed Projects" section makes it obvious that most of these projects have been done on a "one-time" basis. No doubt a second run is possible if demand is obvious, but the numbers must have been done on a "one-time" basis, to pay off tooling/development costs against the first time. Again it doesn't make sense to do anything other than use shorter life/lower cost "Soft" tooling for this. Some of these projects will have been done through Rapido Given today's announcement, the Revolution OO TEA project is of particular relevance. One run, models delivered to those who ordered in late 2018 /early 2019. No intention expressed to do any further run. Today Hornby have announced the re-release of their own TEA. Many would have declared that Hornby had ".lost" the TEA to Revolution - but plainly they haven't . The Revolution TEA has been and gone . If you want a TEA now and for the foreseeable future, then Hornby is the only game in town... This is why I don't accept the argument that Rapido are going to "block out" Hornby from the OO wagon market. The "new players" do not keep their models continously available. There will always be large gaps in their availability - into which Hornby can release their own model. Whether Hornby can generate enough unit volume over time from those gaps to recover the rapidly escalating cost of new "hard" tooling in China, plus the development costs , is another matter. But that is a clash between two different business models , based on two different approaches to tooling. It's also clear none of this stops Hornby knocking out models from existing paid-for tooling. The current run of Drax Biomass wagons where the price has crashed from £83 /wagon originally to £25/ wagon now (2 pack for £50 RRP from Hornby) is a startling indication of how costs drop when you don't have to pay off tooling and development costs

They ran the 1960s Mk1 tooling into the ground as well, to bitter complaints on here, every time it was re-released Caley 123 has been re-released again... There's a pattern.

The EFE venture signals that Barwell have capacity issues: it's a way round it. I don't think there's any suggestion at this stage of Bachmann owned tooling being run elsewhere than Kadar , so EFE would not allow Bachmann to use existing tooling to hit back at Hornby. I presume that Rapido are using so-called "soft" tooling , like Heljan : it's been repeatedly stated that Hornby and Bachmann use a different style of "hard" tooling , which costs more to tool but has a much longer life. It's never been suggested that Heljan's tooling wears out after one run - but it has frequently been suggested that it makes viable their style of targetting "exotics" like 10800, Baby Deltics and the like where sales volume will be lower. Lower volume subjects run from cheaper , shorter life tooling. It is reasonable to assume Rapido are the same.That fits with the "Australian model" - RTR , on a "do a project then move on" basis , at a premium price, with the lower tooling cost recovered over a much shorter run than traditionally the case, and the bulk of the production sold direct against pre-orders. Yoyu don't produce until you have the orders . Popular subjects may be re-run some years later, (as Heljan do anyway). The same applies to Revolution It's an effective way of doing RTR for markets traditionally thought too small to support a RTR range. But it does mean that models even of popular subjects are only intermittantly available. It also generally goes with the model being of something new, that people traditionally didn't expect to get. You mop up the entire suppressed demand for a decade , then move on. There is a debate to be had whether Hornby and Bachmann are making a serious mistake by clinging to old-fashioned "hard" tooling at a much higher cost. If you are never going to use the tooling for that kind of long high volume production , why spend the extra money on hard tooling that needs a long run to recover the cost? If the market is shifting to short lower volume runs and intermittant use of your tools , hard-tooling might now be shooting yourself in the foot. (Indeed looking at the ongoing saga of OO Class 37s , you'd have to say "hard" tooling is not worth the money. Is it possible that the reason for the new Bachmann 37 is that Barwell opted for "soft" tooling on their Mk3 37, and that tool is now life expired. meaning a new Mk4 tool??) The point is simply that Rapido will be expecting to recover the bulk of the development and tooling cost on the initial production runs . Any reruns become bunce . They don't necessarily have the production capacity to keep expanding their product range (defined as those currently on offer) . They can keep doing several new wagons a year - but the price of that is that last year's wagon project makes way for this one. (The Rapido J70 is no longer available, and they aren't taking orders for a rerun. Looks like that one has had its time, and they move on) Hornby and Bachmann expect to recover their (higher) tooling and development costs over many years of production and a high unit volume . Whether that is still a realistic approach is open to discussion (EG Hornby really ought to "soft"-tool the B17/5 bodyshell. It can't possibly achieve the production runs to justify "hard" tooling) Are Hornby suffering because they are using the wrong tooling technology now, and competitors use a more suitable short run technology? That's one debate we haven't had. Hornby's behaviour on many fronts looks like they are trying to get long runs out of "hard" tooling. Is that a correct call any more?

Not necessarily incompatible: "we have large quantities of orders " can fit with "Hornby can't promise me as much stuff as I want to buy". It does look as if Hornby should not have serious difficulty selling what they manage to produce in the next few months We know Hornby have been holding TT120 stock in the warehouse (track/Skaledale) pending launch and have committed to production of the new range . That will have a funding cost and might well show up in the net debt. So will the cost of holding TT120 stock at your own warehouse for direct selling , as against using the retail trade as your warehouse at their expense. Direct selling moves the stock-holding cost back onto Hornby The admission they may not break even this year is more concerning. Being able to sell all your production is all very well, but if you can't get enough produced to hit your budgets that's not good

A new wagon isn't just for Christmas.... it is going to sit in your tooling bank for 20-30 years The Bachmann model has been around a long time. I have a long stalled crane project that uses/used one as the runner wagon, so it could be about 20 years old. More pertinently, when did Bachmann last release it? I get the impression that Barwell is now somewhat constrained in what they can offer because they can't afford to bid high enough to get all the production capacity they would like, given the price point they would have to sell at. (They can't price too far above Hornby). A wagon that Bachmann can't find capacity to make is a good target for Hornby . Rapido seem to be doing wagons never before made (easy enough in a field as broad as wagons) . Accurascale have so far only announced 2 wagons that didn't get TOPS codes ( NER hoppers and the chaldrons ), and one steam loco , so their current emphasis is post steam. And Rapido will be using soft tooling /shorter runs and do seem to operate on a "do a project then move on" basis Unless someone else is determined actively to target Hornby development projects I can't see a rival model being tooled against this . (A good reason for Hornby to announce the project early, especially in the context of a thin year) More pertinently - can they make the numbers stack up for the investment? Tooling costs have escalated as well as production costs. However developing and tooling up a large wagon might not cost dramatically more than tooling up a 4 wheel open even though the retail price may be significantly higher. Hornby are potentially vulnerable to Bachmann hitting them with a release from paid-off tooling when they have a substantial tooling cost to recover themselves. They must be fairly confident Bachmann can't find production capacity (at a bearable price) to do it

No-ne has commented on Iris 2 , and there's something rather odd that deserves comment: IRIS 2 - Hornby render As shown on the render this has grills and modified bodywork. It is not simply a bog standard 101 sprayed in custard Now - are they actually going to issue it with modified bodysides or not?? (If they do, then presumably it would have to be a retool, and you'd be crackers to generate a new tool without the capability to do a normal 101)

You do realise this is an N gauge model? I think you are in OO?

I suspect that it was deliberately intended to land trhe morning after the first episode of the TV series....

Be warned . It's been shown that the PVA is acid and over time corrodes the lead, resulting in swelling . I think it was MRJ that first brought this to light - an etched brass kit where the boiler had been filled with lead, and over time the swelling of the lead resulted in the boiler being forced apart. Added to which, the corrosion product of lead is white lead which is highly toxic I believe some folk have taken to pouring superglue in to secure the lead, instead ofr PVA

Fine, but if you are trying to discourage p[eople from modelling in TT:120 , suggesting you are about to buy into a product that may be withdrawn by the maker in the foreeseable future is the obvious angle to take. I'm mildly curious how far traders will go here - they might simply say "unproven , we won't hold stocks until we see there's definitely a market, but I'm putting an order into Peco next week , so if you definitely want some of the track I can get it for you" - They might tell the prospective customer unequivocally that they've bought a pup, that the scale has no real future , and that the best thing they can do is to off-load their new set on ebay while there is still a market and go into N or OO. Those are two different stances It's clear some shops are willing to stock the Peco TT products. It's been suggested that others have taken a decision to boycott the new scale completely. Getting some feel for how far that goes may be relevant. In this case RobinBrasher seemed to be suggesting that simply exhibiting TT:120 at an event was drawing adverse comment from traders present. Active opposition to the scale as a scale would raise things a further notch. We haven't seen anything like that since the early years of P4 Just how widespread and how intense the opposition to the new scale is will have some effect on it's progress. It might also have a significant effect of what kind of TT:120 modelling scene emerges, and what kind of culture it ends up with. I think there is little doubt that the early years of P4 have had a lingering effect on the culture of P4 modelling and the way it's regarded in the hobby at large

There's a large full page advert in the current RM. That said, it's one range amongst many Peco ranges, and in the short term the big market for the track is in Easter Europe. Peco don't sell their existing HOm 12mm track hard every month , but there's no reason to think they intend to stop making it

There's the question of whether some parts of the model trade will "sell against" TT-120 Twenty years ago , Heljan brought out the first high-spec British diesel, their 47. In those days I had a local model shop. They decided not to stock Heljan. I remember being told in the shop by a chap who helped there that the market was overwhelmingly price sensitive, most people were not going to buy a £90 model when they could buy a perfectly reasonable Lima model for £60 , at the higher price no-one would dare to do any modelling on a Heljan model, and overall only a s,mall part of the market would buy one , so the venture was unlikely to succeed There was no real point the shop stocking a product that they would sell hardly any of.... That their call was wrong is not the point. The point is that having decided not to stock Heljan, they sold "against" Heljan to their customers I'm not clear whether those traders were merely having a grumble about Hornby and their commercial policy or whether they were expressing negativity about TT120 as a scale. If you are a shop stocking N and OO but not TT:120, it is likely that you might sell to your customers that they should be in N or OO, not TT. Choosing not to stock the scale at all might easily go with attempting to dissuade customers from considering it as a scale for them... Those elements of the trade who sell direct and who use scaleable production methods (etches, 3D printing, laser cutting) are clearly in when it comes to TT:120. Some other elements of the trade may emerge as firmly out. And this could potentially get somewhat devisive (I don't see much of this at the level of clubs, shows , etc. Some magazines will certainly be supportive of the new scale. But things may be a little different in parts of the trade)

In the case of Hardwicke , it should be a matter of rewheeling, pulling out the plug-in couplings and adding replacement screw couplings . Most unusually , Bachmann have included a spare driving wheelset without traction tyres. This is clearly intended as a drop-in replacement with spare bearings ready fitted. Rewheeling this one ought therefore to be fairly straightforward (I can't quote axle diameter because mine has only been run on rollers , and I've not opened the packet of detail items) The only possible issue I could see , given this is an inside cylinder 2-4-0 , is clearance inside the coupling rod splashers. I think the Webb Coal Tank is also inside cylinder so should not be an issue. P.S. Buffers at the front of the loco and rear of the tender are not sprung. Ultrascale do not list a set of wheels or conversion pack, though possibly they might bite if asked for a special order. The replacement wheels should be with you in time for Bachmann to produce a second run..... (somewhere in 2025)

PC coaches??? The style of constrution sounds right

The classic case is the old Hornby Class 29, especially its cab front. I can see no explanation for the weird melange of headcode box and nose doors unless Hornby had access to a drawing of an NBL Type 2 as built on which someone had overdrawn the revised features added during rebuilding to a 29. Having cleaned these up twice (once in one direction to a 29 and once in the other to a Pilot Batch NBL Type 2 ) it's the only explanation I can thionk of for the state of the bodyshell. In the other direction there is occasional comment that possibly the roof of the Hornby 153 is not right. But in the absence of any drawings for the things in the public domain , no one can measure basic things like height of the sides and total height of the vehicle to see if there is a problem. But as it was an article of faith among D+E modellers that scale drawings are a snare and a delusion, a large class of vehicle has been in widespread service for over 30 years without anyone ever bothering to make basic dimensions available . Consequently nobody really has a clue if anything is wrong : it looks good "and the detail is there!" It's only a unit after all. Which is why we now have a 5th and 6th OO class 37 model since 2000 being released and long vicious feuds have been fought over the subject, but nobody much cares that the Bachmann 101 is flawed in the bodyside and the ex Lima model is somewhat representational (If you try adding a destination blind you soon find that the cab ends are all over the place dimensionally. They are artist's impressions, not accurate models) The contrast between the way models of certain diesel locos have been picked over, and the casual way Bachmann's DMUs (especially the Sprinters and post privatisation units) were simply waved through on trust is stark. I'm not clear why Bachmann have retooled the body of the 158 , because nobody ever seems to have discussed whether the the first version was totally accurate or not. "Looks good, must be right, no need to discuss further!"

Peco track and buildings are also available

While the Airfix body is good, the Hornby mechanism is very much better . The Hornby model has lights (arguably over the top for a Modernisation Plan loco) NEM sockets, finer wheels, all wheel pickup. A good deal of detailing work needs to be done on an Airfix body before it can sit comfortably next to the Hornby loco, which has a good deal of finesse. As Sam's Trains would say "the detail is there!" The question is whether the detail is exactly right... Another issue is that the Airfix body models a headcode box loco in original condition. Quite a bit of awkward work would be needed to do a second batch 31/4 or a 31/5 from it (Since the later 31/4s went straight to IM for Transpennine South duties I have an interest to declare). The bodyside band on a Hornby 31 is tampo printed and too low relief. But it's a great deal easier to do a refurb without the band and with sealed nose from it. Hornby have done a "skinhead" without headcode box . Airfix - start carving,filing and heavy filling. Apart from the bodyside band - which you don't want in later condition - and a question mark about how far the cab side windows are inset, I don't actually know what is allegedly wrong with the Hornby model. (And I have a modest interest in 31s). But the vague impression that "The Hornby 31 wasn't well recieved / got quite a lot of criticism" floats around . Whether this amounts to a need for a better 31 to be tooled up is another matter. In the mean time Hornby themselves seem to find it is a better commercial proposition selling the ex Lima Railroad 31 , which is generally regarded as a decent body , more often than they offer their "full-fat" 31 . Since they have the figures to compare, it seems they regard the demand for "affordable" 31s as stronger than for "premium model" 31s (If anyone wants to argue that what is really needed is an Airfix body on a Hornby mechanism - well. I have a mazak rot Hornby 31 stored, and a small stash of Airfix bodies, so I would welcome some practical comments on how it is to be done. ) Hornby left/upper , Airfix detailed right/ lower. The Hornby is more or less as bought, very slight extra weathering

Back in the day , there was an obsession among D+E modellers that photos were the only valid form of evidence and scale drawings wewre all wrong worthless and should not be used... For me , the reducto ad absurdam came when someone emailed one site to declare that he and his mates had spent the afternoon looking at photos of Class 40s (or whatever) and they were now convinced that Bachmann's new model was the wrong length. The length of a Class 40 in feet and inches was normally included in the dimensions quoted in spotters' books. Rulers marked in millimeters are easy to find. The maths is not difficult. But they'd wasted an entire afternoon looking at 3/4 angle photos and guessing (to the detriment of the model of course, because Bachmann were a whipping boy in those days)

One comment - the "fiddle yard" appears to have capacity for a dinner plate and a mug. I'm not sure that's necessary or sensible - food and a layout don't really mix. If you didn't need to do that , (and further, could cope with your cup behind the cassette) then access becomes less restricted

Pack the NEM pocket with a scrap of plasticard or even card underneath to stop the droop. Also get a set of Kadee pliers which allow you to bend/ adjust the tail below the coupling so that it stays above the railhead

It's the very devil....

A fair amount of progress has been made with Mercia Wagon Repair over the last 6-8 weeks. However this has involved a number of revisions and minor tweaks. The layout - or at least the "main line" side of it , which was all that had been laid - had been test run a few times. This amounted to running in a train behind a type 5, the loco running round and picking up a train of wagons waiting in the departure siding , then returning whence it came. The shunter would then shunt the incoming wagons into the departure siding. I have bought one of the NGS Hunslet shunters in Railtec blue and white livery to supplement my Farish 04. It's a very small loco, and modestly priced at £81, and it certainly runs very slowly, which is a plus for a shunter. But despite all the plaudits it doesn't run as smoothly as the 04. I'm reminded of a lot of small 4mm kitbuilt locos - it seems to have a certain faster/slower waddle though (like them) it doesn't stall. I don't regret my purchase, but it isn't my best loco and I'm not sure I'd buy two Along the way I had set about converting the couplers from Arnold Rapido to Dapol Micro-couplers . This is an expensive exercise : even buying packs of 10 couplers it works out at just over 5 pounds per vehicle. I bought a pack each of medium and long , and then found that the long version is something of an embarrassment. On almost anything it looks a bit like the couplers on 1930s Hornby tinplate, projecting far beyond the vehicle. The shorts are too short for most stock, but I did just about manage to find homes for the contents of the pack. The medium is the bread-and-butter coupling, and I'm now on my third pack of mediums. To the point. I went to start work laying the wagon works itself , and discovered that I seemed to have bought the wrong handed points... Acxtually I hadn't. I'd merely not bothered to check the plan and had happily proceeded on normal railway principles. The plan is to be found here and you will notice that the bottom road of the actual works comes off the upper road of the loop, via a reverse curve and there's a somewhat odd arrangement whereby the topmost road comes off a wrong-handed point and goes round the back of the works on an awkward reverse curve. I'd assumed that everything came off in the normal way through a nice conventional fan of points. I contemplated ripping up the recently laid top road to follow the plan as drawn for about half a second, and decided I didn't much like the idea of shunting wagons through all those reverse curves and access through the loop being required every time you wanted to shunt in or out of one road of the workshop. Nor, I think, would the real railway. Presumably the plan was drawn that way to save on length and get everything on a 6' long (ahem 180cm) board in HO I am not short of length when it comes to the wagon works. The space constraints are the length of the loop, and the length of the entry/fiddle siding to the left , plus the length of headshunt required to take an FEA twin-set plus a shunter. Those constraints limit me to a 66 + 3 bogie wagons and a 4 wheel wagon in my 6' in N . But the wagon works sidings are pretty long, so I don't need to compress the fan of points into them. Then it became apparent that a short and a medium point weren't going to fit in before the board joint . The second point just overlapped the joint - largely thanks to the fact that you can't join Peco code55 N points one after another like you can in OO . They foul each other at the divergance, so a small length of plain track needs to be spliced in. So I bit the bullet - the second point was displaced onto the left hand board , clear of the board framing, and I decided to go for a large radius point at the divergance of the first workshop road All this shoved the start of the hard standing in front of the workshop about 6" to the left of the board joint. That was the end of my plan to use the change from ballast to hard standing to disguise the board joint. An access path across the tracks will have to do the job instead. Here we have progress , with only one siding to go in. That siding is now going to incorporate a Peco inspection pit inside the shed, though not for the full length of it. Since this requires me to cut a slot in the board laying this has been deferred .... Having got something like a layout laid, of course it had to be test run, to check nothing fell off (and also to see how it would actually feel if operated as envisaged) The front siding is the departure road, where wagons that have been through the works are held pending a mainline loco taking them back onto the network. A train of wagons for repair is standing in the "fiddle" road, representing the connection to the national network. (The limitations on train length are obvious.) As this is in front , it will have to be scenic - I have added a spare bit of flexible track in front as the stub end of an abandoned siding , where an abandoned wagon can be held. This should really be slightly further forward : the intention is to imply that a former double track approach line has been singled. I intend to add a "holding track " at the front , between the two groups of switches . This will be firmly off stage and this front area painted stage black. What you see is nearly all my serviceable N gauge stock... It became painfully obvious that to run the layout when complete everything I have , including unbuilt kits, would need to be pressed into service. I am therefore compelled to buy more rolling stock. I have also been checking dimensions and trying to mock up backscene buildings , based on possible downloads and the Pikestuff material I have. (N gauge stock boxes found a use here) This is a closeup of the actual wagonworks area. My various pencil marks as exact arrangements were amended can be seen The IPA twin and the Network Rail open mark the location of the actual works shed, more or less. This has now shrunk to 12" long from 15" , and it should have a lean-to store/office along the front. It will be a Pikestuff 2 road shed , extended and with the roof omitted except for a short strip front and back. The rear track is behind the shed : the missing road with the inspection pit will fit in the gap. Dapol uncoupler magnets have been laid across the door positions: all this area will be inlaid into concrete flooring so they will be hidden . The Cargowaggon is in an area behind the shed which will be used for holding wagons that have arrived and are awaiting their turn in the shed. Behind it is the NGS Hunslet - there is an isolating section here, to hold a "back shunter" The VTG hood marks the location of the paintshop. This will be the Pikestuff Atkinson Engine Facility, which has a front leanto office . That office, it is now apparent , will block road 2 of the shed, which will have to stop short And here we see how Mercia Wagon Repair uses my hifi speakers as trestles. There are plates of single ply faced in baize for them to rest on, to protect the speakers - the controller and external CDU box sit on top of the hifi cabinet. This is a lot less disruptive of normal use of the room than Blacklade , which has to be erected diagonally across the room

It's £75-£80 a coach for recent releases for at least one manufacturer. The £100 RRP coach cannot be further away than late 2025... My requirements in this particular area are being covered by an upgraded Lima Mk1 and a project involving an unbuilt Kitmaster kit someone gave me. But I'm not entirely comfortable the upgraded Lima vehicle can be run with Bachmann coaches , and no guarantee I can manage it even with the Kitmaster I'll have a Genesis 6 wheel brake third, and luggage composite in LNER brown if they do them again. Otherwise I have a full cupboard with more unbuilt projects than I can bear to consider

Is this a typo or a startling new item in the steampunk/heavy metal range????

There was a little more to "Blood on their hands". At that point there were two rival OO models of the 37 being announced. One was Bachmann's Mk3 Class 37. It was widely whispered that a member of the REM team had been an advisor for the rival model (though I never heard any hard evidence either way...) That was the Mk1 Bachmann Class 37 and it would have been REM. Whether Bachmann's action was specifically against the review, or whether it was simply the straw that broke the camel's back is another matter. There was a sense at the time that the review was simply the latest incident in a sustained campaign against Bachmann and its products by a number of people, originally entirely online . However there was a sense that with REM reviewing , one or two of the online critics had now found a print outlet (It wasn't just Bachmann either. I remember one year where there were 6-7 major releases in the couple of months around Warley and leading up to Christmas . And every single one went down in a hail of bullets from the "electricnose" site... These were new models to a standard we had never seen before, recieving a level of hostile criticism and invective never previously seen in the hobby) So by the time of "blood on their hands" there was a strong perception of long term bad blood between at least one manufacturer and several reviewers (online and in print). Potentially, vested interests could give rise to hatchet jobs as well as shill reviews , and there was a suspicion of that hovering over the whole business It was in that context that the whole trope about magazine reviews being in the pocket of the manufacturers, and of magazine reviews glossing over blatent faults to protect their advertising revenues first arose. The online critics did present themselves as being independant and objective reviewers and it was implied online that those who gave more favourable views of models did so because they were compromised. It seems this one has never quite been expunged since then. When people pointed to the reviews in REM as one of the major stengths of the magazine , the implicatuion was that REM offered the only honest rigourous and independent reviews in town. I am not convinced that such a claim was valid. I do feel that some D+E reviewing in that era had lapsed into a kind of "spectator blood-sport" , and I don't think that was a healthy development . Personally when I buy a magazine I want to read about someone's model-making or layout , or deepen my understanding of what the prototype was about. I am not much interested in pages of stuff about last month's new releases , especially when they are just existing models in new paintwork. (And I have to admit that my views about manufacturer bashing , manufacturer X taking down manufacturer Y's model, and the fight for "the definitive Class 37" were forged in those particular fires over about 8-`10 years) It's worth considering the sequel. - The Bachmann Mk3 Class 37 remained in production until last year. I think that's over a decade of steady sales - But its rival didn't exactly crash and burn. It remained on sale in quite a few model shops for 5 years or so , until the manufacturer seems to have lost interest