Ravenser

51 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

5.5cm is about right for the prototype's 21'6" over headstocks, so not including couplings.

Since it's an imperial scale 1/10" to the foot, this should be  2.15" long over headstocks

1 hour ago, Porfuera said:

I thought I'd kick off a thread on these wagons, seeing as they may be the next TT:120 wagons to arrive - assuming the HAAs don't overtake them and beat them to it.

 

I know everyone and his dog would have preferred Hornby to have produced the 16 ton minerals instead of these, but it is what it is. I'm sure someone will produce 16T minerals at some point - maybe Peco if not Hornby themselves... Roll on April - maybe they will be announced then?

 

I for one am looking forward to these arriving - more stock can only be a good thing, right? And for me these (reasonably) modern-image wagons are even better. And I guess the chassis can be used under 3D printed bodies of other wagons and they would be cheaper than using the chassis from the TTAs.

 

These appear to be the pre-production prototypes (photo from Key Model World):

 

 

I'm not an expert (on anything) but the online shop seems to be a bit confused over the Eras and identities for these wagons. They are listed and pictured as:

 

TT6015 21T Mineral Wagon, B314633 - Era 5 (bauxite livery is pictured)

 

TT6016 21T Mineral wagon, P200781 - Era 4 (grey livery is pictured)

 

TT6017 21T Mineral Wagon, B316500 - Era 6 (Glenhafod livery is pictured)

 

It seems to me that the Glenhafod wagon should be the Era 4 wagon rather than the grey livery that is pictured in the shop. I guess that the 'P' prefix on P200781 indicates Private Owner and since the colliery was closed by the National Coal Board on November 28th 1958 then this would make these Glenhafod wagons Era 4/5.

 

And seeing that the running number of the grey wagon in the photo above is B316500 then it seems that pictures on the shop entries for TT6016 and TT6017 have been swapped around.

 

However, IIRC someone (sorry I can't remember who you were) has already pointed out that both the grey and the bauxite wagons have TOPS codes (MDO and MDV respectively) so should those both be Era 7? Does anyone out there have a definitive answer to this?

 

To finish off, here is a picture of the undersides of the wagons (also from Key Model World):

 

 

Has anyone noticed that the bauxite wagon has top doors , like an MEO, 24.5T - but the other two do not? So two bodies have been tooled up

The PO version really ought to be pre-nationalisation and therefore a GW dia N32 "Felix Pole" mineral , built for hire-purchase to persuade S Wales colliery owners to modernise. It does not carry a P -series number. Dia N32 is the basis for the old OO 21T minerals from Hornby and Airfix in the 1970ps

The grey version carries a number BR do not seem to have used, according to Rowland's appendices: no numbers between B314999 and B 333000 were issued . It could be an N32 numbered as P200781, or it could be a welded wagon from the 1951 build to dia 1/107, B201000-B202499

The bauxite wagon should by the number be to dia 1/119 , with top flaps , lot 3439, Derby 1962 

14 hours ago, PMP said:

 

 

With Warley club deciding not to run their exhibition this year, if Key or any other publisher, organisation or group want to have a crack at running what will be a good opportunity to be the national annual model railway exhibition, that’s a good thing. If people don’t want to exhibit or contribute to an event that’s fine. Those that have been invited are going into it with pretty clear understandings of what the show is and the relevant T&C’s.

 

 

 

With a significant number of new modellers coming into the hobby, you would want them to benefit from being able to go to decen t sized shows , see insipirational layouts, come across interesting and specialist traders , and so on and so forth. It would be nice to think they would have  some kind of exhibition circuit to enjoy , as people did before the pandemic.

The "circuit" has seen a sharp contraction. The hobby - in terms of modellers - hasn't . We hear that clubs are no longer so interested in putting on large shows or even that it isn'r really reasonable to expect them to do in the way they did 10 years ago.

If clubs are stepping back from organisating this kind of event , then we aren't really in a position to be too picky about who we want to organise large shows, and the fine detail of rules of engagement. Assuming the hobby still wants this kind of event, then to a degree we have to accept   what is workable for the people still willing to organise them.

A very fine piece of modelling with a finesse and realistic muted pallette not always associated with this scale. Inspirational

As someone currently building a layout based on a wagon works, this thread is very useful

Some notes on the subject I had as a draft blog popst that never gotr finished :

This post is mainly by way of a clipboard for various links to material on prototype wagon repair facilities in Britain on the post-steam railway.

That falls into two distinct periods - the modern image BR era (c1965-c1995), and the post-privatisation era (c1995 to present). Trying to cover nearly 60 years during which a lot has changed on the railways may be a mug's game, but I'm suddenly very aware just how large and how obscure this subject actually is. How can an entire sector of the railway industry - and one that is very much still with us - have gone largely under the radar for over half a century??

Some links to websites of current players:

 WH Davis  "Britain's last remaining independent wagon builder" . Workshops at Langwith Jnc, Shirebrook on the Robin Hood line. Some site photos

Davis Wagon Services  wagon repair division of WH Davis. Head office at Immingham just outside the Dock area and just down the road from the head office of my late employer...  I am not clear if they have any actual rail connected facility in Immingham, or whether the boasted 9 outstation hubs nationwide amount to anything more than  lockup compounds with a stores warehouse/office and a couple of vans to attend  rail vehicles on site. Possibly any heavy repairs would be carried out at the parent company's Shirebrook works.

Harry Needle Railroad Co  recently opened wagon repair/stock storage facility at Worksop, redevelopment of former EWS/DB Schenker wagon repair depot (closed 2015). Photos on website.

Paul Barlett's wagon site -  central page for industrial locations

Covers:

BR workshops:  Burton wagon works, Carlisle Currock wagon works

EG Steele :  Hamilton wagon works (still in Baker 10th ed 2004)  

Marcrofts : Stoke (still open 2018), Swansea, Radstock (closed 1988), Burry Port, Healey Mills (still in Baker 10th ed), March. 

Powell Duffryn : Cardiff Maindy (still open 1992)

Procor : Chas Roberts Horbury (still in Baker 10th ed as Bombadier Procor) , Gloucester

South Staffs Wagon Works: Tipton (closed 1984)

Standard Wagon:  Heywood (still open 1989) ; Reddish (still open 1984)

Marcrofts:

Acquisition by EWS 2006 - Competition Commission report no longer available  and OFT document

Radstock works site - link has disappeared

Warrington - wagon repair sidings (Baker 10th ed)

Crewe Gresty Rd (BR)

Operator at Ashford

Wagon repair 80s - 90s  highlights that tanks needed specialist attention at a works

Other known closed wagon sites:

BR :  Ipswich wagon works (closed mid 1980s) ; Peterborough  Crescent Wharf (in Baker 10th ed, to EWS - now closed?); York (to Thrall, closed by 2004)

Wagon Repair Ltd : Chesterfield works (closed 1988?)

6 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I agree Robert, sad thing is I am a locoholic,

 

Hello my name is Clive, I am a locoholic, it all started when I purchased my second Brush type 2. It was the way it looked at me all sad with wonky buffers. I just can't stop.

 

Talking of class 31s I had thirty one 31s until Gilbert Barnart asked me to foster his poorly Hornby one.

BR had 263 of them . You've got a long way to go.

But you've got 2 more than IM had in 1979

16 hours ago, James Harrison said:

'The Ashworth Branch' in this month's Railway Modeller got me thinking about the trackplan again as I was really taken with the imaginative use of the available space.  A quick calculation suggested that, shrunk to 4mm scale, the same trackplan might reasonably squeeze into a 12' x 8' room. 

 

Just, unfortunately, not my 12' x 8' room.  The chimney breast and the doorway put paid to that.  A couple of attempts to lengthen the run between RLS and CfP and use the diagonal space looked promising, until I reflected that there was no access space.  I'm thin, but not that thin. 

 

One madcap idea I had was to make the layout completely portable so it could be stored in the back bedroom but brought out and erected in the master bedroom for operating sessions (which measures something like 14' x 12'), but I think if I did that setting it up would be too much of a chore and it wouldn't see any use. 

 

But then, if I'm considering a portable section, why not just have a lift-out bit behind the railway room door?

 

That gave rise to this;

 

 

Now of course, the fiddle yard will need to be a good 100mm or so lower than RLS, but that was always the idea (in fact one of the my worries about the previous iteration was getting that 100mm drop and how it would interact with the junction, considering the short run between that and the fiddle yard entry).  Moving it around the room means a more reasonable 100mm drop in around 4m of running line. 

 

It also, quite excitingly, means that CfP could become the through station that it was imagined to be, if I accept that it is on a gradient.  Suddenly I get trains running (we suppose) through to Mansfield, as well as Worksop. 

My one concern would be that if that cut-out square is where the door swings, the lift out section would block opening of the door. 

If anything happened to you while playing trains, nobody could get in to help you..

3 hours ago, mikeford2002uk said:

 

I also wondered if the organisational model of Model Rail Scotland with its Association of Model Railway societies in Scotland (AMRSS) could be used as a template, for something south of the border, with joint management of the show arranged through several model clubs, not just one ?

Just a though, we live in hope. But thanks for the memories

 

Mike

The largest association in England is CMRA .  The website lists 117 member clubs/societies, assuming I haven't miscounted  CMRA membership

For decades before the pandemic, they organised a well-regarded sizeable 2 day show at St Albans and latterly Stevenage (when it was my nearest large show) .

It has folded, firstly because David Crossley the show manager is well into his 70s, had a stroke several years before Covid , and didn't want to do it any more. Despite several appeals over several years nobody stepped forward to replace him. And the Stevenage venue has lost its car park, a new venue would be needed - and nobody seems interested in finding one.

A General Meeting was called in April 2022. It was possible to join by Zoom. There were I think 3 people in the room, and a total attendance of 12 (out of 117 members), with a few apologies from other organisations. I was one of the 12, on Zoom. 

There was no real discussion about or interest in reviving the show - just "no show manager, no venue, so no prospect of holding a show"

With Stevenage and Peterborough gone there are now no decent sized shows in Eastern England between the M25 and Spalding.

It was said that ending delegate meetings had been a mistake, but in the last 2 years I'm not aware of any further meetings being called. The website is still being updated, fliers for shows are still being circulated and I presume the exhibition barrier is still available.

The combined populations of Hertfordshire, Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire are over 4.5 million - not far shy of Scotland. There are no two day shows in the area, and in Essex only a limited number of small 1 day events

I suspect it would take active support from 5-6 clubs to revive the show somewhere in that area. At least I think the former SAMRAC , which ran a show at Crawley , had about that number of members

By the support of 5-6 clubs I mean that the club membership would need to want such a show and be willing actively to make it happen. No club committee member is going to volunteer their club unless they are aware that their members actively want a show to happen.

A lot of members of those 117 organisations must read RMWeb. If they want this situation to change , I suggest they find out who is their club's CMRA rep and speak to him. If the response to enquiries as to who is the representative is "So are you volunteering to do the job??" you might as well call the bluff and say yes. It is not particularly onerous, especially at present

For the avoidance of doubt, as the lawyers say, I’m convinced there are more people in the hobby now than five years ago. The TV programmes before the pandemic led to people taking up the hobby, and quite a lot of folk became active railway modellers during the pandemic. There’s been gloomy speculation that the last 18 months may have burnt them off, but the reports that some clubs are recruiting strongly shows they are still there and getting more involved in the hobby. A whole new commercial scale ought to be a big positive – reportedly it’s selling well, and seemingly not to existing modellers. I’m more confident about the long term survival of the hobby than I’d have been 5-6 years ago.

The state of the organised hobby – things like clubs, societies, the exhibition circuit, the trade, magazines and social media, even the manufacturers, what you might call the “structure” of the hobby, is a different thing. Media seem to be doing well, but some things, especially the exhibition circuit, have taken something of a battering recently. Hattons‘ closure is desperately bad for the large number of people employed in the business, in an area that’s been a byword for high unemployment and economic depression throughout my lifetime. But I can see at least 3 major factors which seem to be unique to Hattons, so I don’t really think it says anything about the RTR market in general. If you want to be a big boxshifter, being cut off from supplies of the second biggest brand and having supplies of the biggest limited is a pretty fatal obstacle.

Losing Warley is a different matter. It isn’t an isolated example as the demise of Imrex was in its day. Feb 2024 RM lists 25 shows and 2 open days, over 5 ½ columns and 6 weeks. In Feb 2019 it listed 45 exhibitions and 5 open days over 10 columns. In my area at least, most exhibitions seem to be rather smaller than they were, so this is a contraction of around 50%. I thought the circuit was over extended and some pruning and regrowth would be a good thing – but this goes far beyond that, and there are only limited signs of regrowth two years into “normality”. Perhaps my patch is badly affected, but my nearest 2 day show is now over 50 miles away.

Nevertheless I think much of the exhibition discussion is back to front. The common view is that exhibitions exist to fund the clubs, who would not survive without the profits they make .

Here’s Pacific231G in the Warley thread:

Quote

 part of the problem is the over-reliance many clubs have on their annual show to fund their activities rather than it being a showcase for the hobby or to attract new members … This dependence on exhibitions for a club's own running costs doesn't seem to apply in other countries…If the purpose of a show is simply to attract enough visitors to turn a profit for the club then there are far less opportunities to share interests with and socialise with fellow modellers

The pandemic has proved this isn’t true. If clubs needed a tidy profit from a show to survive, then clubs would have been folding left, right and centre over the last 4 years. As far as I’m aware hardly any have gone under. In the South East I’ve heard a rule of thumb is that the overall profit is roughly equivalent to the profit on catering.

The result is that lots of clubs have found they can downsize the show radically and still make almost the same surplus.

I first heard this from a Colchester club member when they lost the venue for their well-regarded 2 day show. A 1 day show in a much smaller venue, he said, would generate almost as much money with a lot less work. That show then dwindled away – the club is still going but they no longer hold exhibitions.

Typeapproval tells a similar tale of Ipswich on p2 of this thread:

Quote

For many years the "Ipswich Model Railway Show" was among the biggest. ….. HOWEVER! when the rent for the leisure centre that had been the venue for some while was hugely raised, it became unaffordable! 

IRMA have not held a large exhibition for nearly 20 years to the best of my knowledge. But they are still going, and after a 5 year hiatus are planning a small local show in November

And PaulRhB says something similar of Salisbury in the Warley thread:

Quote

Post Covid losing the big venue meant a scaled down show but pleasingly a similar profit as the overheads were far less and with less layouts less risk. 

So clubs can easily downsize the show and retreat into a comfort zone. And they don’t generally go back into the bigtime

But layouts like Baojaio and Copenhagen Fields are not going to small one day shows in village halls. Larger layouts need the larger 2 day shows which seem to be falling by the wayside. Societies won’t be going to such shows either – and in my experience a society’s membership footprint is largely determined by the shows it attends. The two main activities of 21st century clubs are putting on an exhibition and building club exhibition layouts to take to others’ shows. If Middlemarch MRC downsize their show to 6 layouts in a village hall, they are relying on Gricerville MRC, Much Binding in the Marsh MRS and Madderport Modellers continuing to organise large shows for Middlemarch’s layouts to go to. If Gricerville, Much Binding and Madderport also downsize – everybody’s layout groups are all stuffed. So are all the people who build private exhibition layouts

I see no sign exhibitions are disappearing because clubs are dying. But there’s a long term risk that clubs could start to wither if the exhibition circuit shrivels up. If there’s no point building exhibition layouts because there’s nowhere much to exhibit them – what’s the point of being in the club? Many modellers join clubs precisely to get access to a much bigger layout than they could build at home, run their stock on it and go out on the circuit. If the club can’t provide the layout some of them will already drift off. If exhibition layouts become an endangered breed, some may be lost to the hobby.

I think the YouTube debate is also back to front. Shows are not disappearing because the gate is ebbing away and the numbers no longer add up (which is what killed IMREX) .  Shows are disappearing because clubs are no longer prepared to put them on. There are plenty of punters: some shows like Railex and Bognor are crowded – as you might expect if the hobby has grown but the number of shows has halved.  To make an exhibition video, you first need an exhibition. If there are hardly any decent-sized shows, then the YouTubers will have nothing to video ..

I take PMP’s point that shows need not be organised by clubs – they could be organised by groups of friends. York is the classic example. Or by a federation of clubs like AMRSS and Model Rail Scotland. Or by a preserved railway, who own their venue. Or by a magazine or commercial organisation. Or a society. Unfortunately, for pretty well every “business model” I can think of a 2 day show organised that way that’s recently folded…

At the least, we need to stop griping about shows being organised by someone other than a club. It isn’t taking the bread out of clubs’ mouths, and in the present climate we need to be grateful for anyone who will organise a 2 day show

1 hour ago, Porfuera said:

 

August's TT Talk said they would be here in December so maybe they're coming through the Panama canal

Ships in the Far East trade have been ultra-Panamax for about 15 years, so they won't fit through the Panama Canal ... Between 1967 and 1975 when the Suez Canal was shut after the Seven Days War , the Far East trade did indeed go through Panama, but that's no longer possible

Cape of Good Hope or nowt

10 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

......I began to suspect some time ago that the apparent rude health of the r-t-r sector of the industry/hobby may be rooted in relatively few people spending an awful lot of money whilst most have become much more circumspect. 

 

This is evident among my own contacts, though it should be borne in mind that most of us already own more models than is perhaps decent. A few are still spending freely; around half (including me) seem to be averaging roughly what we've always averaged (though I'm personally 15-20% down on pre-pandemic spending). and are acquiring new stock at a slower rate in consequence. More worrying, I think, is that more than I expected are actually spending considerably less in cash terms than before and will only open their wallets for items they have "always longed for". One has even thrown up his hands, declared that the world has gone mad, flogged all his models and become an armchair non-modeller!  .....

 

 

We can perhaps quantify that using Andy's survey last year: 2023 modeller survey

The highest 2 categories for "how many locos/units do you have" are 50-100 (  , and 100+ (19.8%). Together they amount to 41.6% of respondents

Now what feels like a wakeup call to me is that counting kitbuilt trams/LRV's , I'd be in the mid 50s - so at the bottom end of the second highest group. (That excludes unbuilt kits)  But I've hardly bought any new RTR in recent years. And I've never been one of the big spenders. 15 years ago I was picking up a discounted multiple unit here , a cheap loco off the Bachmann stand there , when such things cost £50 -£75 - and that was the peak of my spending. Those people declaring in threads "I was going to have 7 of these Class XYZs but having seen this I'm only having 2.." (those were the days) have always left me bemused. OK, I've been picking things up for 40 years and I've almost never sold stuff on, but still...

I'm left thinking that the folk who dominate RTR discussions and seem to be spending  4 figure sums on new RTR each year can't be that much more than 25% of the hobby. Perhaps the "80:20 rule" is in play - 20% of modellers buy 80% of the new RTR??

But though I'm pretty marginal in terms of the RTR manufacturers' market, I'm very much actively involved in the hobby. I've two moderate sized layouts and am building a third, I belong to 4 scale/special interest societies, pre pandemic I was going to 9 shows (and a couple of other events) a year. I was helping  on a society stand at 3 shows regularly . 

A slump in spending on new RTR might be very painful for the manufacturers indeed. But it looks as if maybe 3/4s of the hobby isn't really involved in the "new RTR circus". Indirectly we benefit from the cornucopia, but new production RTR won't stop being available - even if it consisted very largely of reruns, even if the unit volume dropped sharply, even if it came from fewer players via fewer shops. It would not be good, of course, but the hobby would go on, fairly normally, for most. 

However - the 3 shows where I regularly helped with a society stand were Stevenage, Peterborough and Warley . All 3 have now disappeared . If I look at alternative shows for me to go to  (or the society to attend) - I can't think of a single 2 day show left in East Anglia. 20 years ago you had Ipswich, Colchester, Southend, Southwold - and probably one or two more I never got to. All gone now. 

The E Midlands isn't much better. The two  Lincoln at Newark events - gone. According to this month's RM , Lincoln club are putting on a show with 7 layouts in a village hall at Fiskerton. Nottingham show, which was said to be not far behind the big shows - gone . I gather the Nottingham club, like the Lincoln club are doing a small local show.. The GCR event - gone. The St Neots show that started at the anuimal shelter south of Huntingdon and moved to Kettering - gone. Apparently the St Neots club are doing a little local show in St Neots

As far as I can see the only sizeable 2 day show left in eastern England  between the M25 and the Humber is Spalding 

And the small local shows? The one in the town is no more - the club have retreated to an event at the preservation site where they have club rooms . 3 layouts and 2 traders in the goods shed, four or five more in the large club rooms, plus the club permanent layouts. Chelmsford has contracted from 15-18 layouts in a school to 9-12 layouts in the football club with 2 traders and a club second hand stall. Shenfield seemed to be about 10-15% smaller when I went .  I'm not sure if Colchester show is still going

What's disquieting is that there are still plenty of people going to shows. The gates are ok, some shows are crowded. The hobby may even be somewhat bigger than in 2019.  But there's been a drastic contraction in the shows available to visit - and 2 years after "normal service" resumed  with Model Rail Scotland 2022 we are still contracting and losing major shows ...

The only shows I can think of which are stepping up a gear are Manchester, Chatham, and Thornbury. Not much, 2 years into "recovery"

Some pruning may have been healthy. I think "the exhibition circuit" was over-extended in 2019. But this goes far beyond that. Given the extent to which the hobby in Britain pre-pandemic centred on exhibition layouts and the exhibition circuit , such a sharp contraction risks real dislocation and some damage to the hobby.

What chances of building an exhibition layout now? Acquaintences with such layouts say the bookings post-pandemic are a fraction of what they were. Never mind the finances - where does this leave clubs , whose major activities pre-pandemic were staging exhibitions and building exhibition layouts? And getting involved with a club layout was the major alternative available if you didn't have space to build one at home . Losing that opportunity could be damaging for the hobby

That';s why losing Warley comes as a big blow. Hattons is arguably a one-off. The end of Warley isn't. There are plenty of modellers out there, but the structure of the hobby is creaking

1 hour ago, Aire Head said:

At Warley while manning the LMS society stand I noticed that a lot of young people were visiting the show. The age issue isn't that people aren't getting into the hobby it's that they aren't joining societies and clubs.

I've been involved with the breakdown at a largish show for some years (no names, no packdrill). One thing that struck me particularly last year was that while pre-pandemic I was one of the younger members of the crew (I like to think of myself as middle-aged), last year at least half the crew seemed to be under 30. The club recruited remarkably strongly at the previous show - the first after the pandemic. It's also had a strong youth section in recent years.

Post pandemic there was a noticeable shift in the show demographics. Pre-pandemic , you got the modellers , from 50 to 80, and then the families with a youngster aged under 10 chanting "Thomas the tank! Thomas the tank!".

Post pandemic , those families had disappeared. But there were suddenly quite a lot of people from the late teens up into their thirties. Traders at shows  in 2022 were reporting these people were spending. Where there were families, the child was in his teens . There was a marked increase in female visitors - and these were not accompanying Grandad aged 75.

This matches with Aire Head's view of the last Warley demographic. I was struck at Railex this year by how elderly the punters seemed - that may be because I've become used to a rather different demographic at other post-pandemic shows. But it may also reflect that the finescale movement is now becoming rather long in the tooth.

A lot of folk seem to have become involved with the hobby during lockdown, though the route of building a small layout at home while they were shut in. These are not finescale layouts /modelling as we've known it, and they won't have come in through the conventional club/show/exhibition layout scene. There are a lot of Facebook groups now, and these people are very likely already to be on Facebook. In another direction Hornby appear to be selling TT:120 as fast as they make it (admittedly a modest part of their overall production) . Someone's buying it, but there's barely a hint of it in the established hobby - not a breath at Railex to hint that there might be a new commercial scale out there, and hardly much more at Ally Pally or DEMU  Showcase

In short the new blood - however much of it there is - seems to be over the horizon as far as the established hobby goes. I think they are very happy to go to shows , and buy magazines. Some clubs seem to be picking them up. Other clubs may not be . How far they are willing to get involved in organising and running things, I don't know. After all they are still newbies and novices.. And since they are largely over the horizon it's difficult to say how far the lockdown surge has been sustained and how many have dropped out under the economic pressures of the last year or so

A very impressive piece of work, from some unpromising materials . At least there won't be many others around and you should be pretty safe from any RTR model , even in the current climate. 

(Oddly enough I have heard of one other model of these recently , via another route - chopped up ex Airfix/Dapol LMS non-corridors. You seem to have got there faster)

Scratchbuilding the roof ofd Manchester Oxford Road may be a bit of a challenge...

This is a big loss, simply because this was the BIG show. Warley National was a pretty overwhelming event, for the visitor. 70+ layouts of every kind, seemingly every trader you'd ever heard of, and any society worth mentioning. Oh, and a gate of over 15,000.

It was a remarkable showcase and highlight for the hobby for over a quarter of a century. I doubt if we will see something like that again . 

To the visitor, across nearly 30 years, Warley National was simply an overwhelming accumulation of the riches of the hobby. You couldn’t do Warley properly in an entire day.

We are all a little poorer for losing that, and the tail end of the year will be rather empty for many people.

The Midlands have been hard hit in terms of losing big shows after the pandemic- especially the East Midlands. East Anglia does not seem much better.

It has been a huge input to the hobby by those involved in making it happen, across 3 decades. A contribution that will always be remembered. And it is very much better to retire in good order with good memories than cling on until a final collapse which can be damaging.

But still... it’s a very big loss. In some ways worse than losing Hattons – because other box-shifters exist. Nothing else like this existed – or is likely to

42 minutes ago, Porfuera said:

 

Apologies for being slightly off-topic...

 

I'm not expecting a lot more in that, to be honest. The 00 announcement had a lot of emphasis on "catch up" for delayed releases so for April's TT:120 announcement I'm guessing they will just be giving dates for the phase 3 and 4 stuff that's already in the catalogue (or even for the phase 1 and 2 stuff that hasn't been released by then, like the Class 66, HAAs).  Possibly there might be information on developments to come in the future but I'd be surprised if they give any timescales for that.

 

As you were, folks...

A key factor is that when the initial big TT:120 announcement was made , there was extreme scepticism about how much of it would ever be made.

The atmosphere was such that anything past Phase 2 was liable to be treated as an aspiration or wish-list rather than a real announcement , even by optimists. (The pessimists ranged from those saying  that they did not believe anything beyond the launch range would ever appear to those allowing that some of the Phase 2 items might eventually see the light of day in 5 years or so..). "Vapourware" was a widely used word.

Therefore Hornby need to confirm the go-ahead for the Phase 3 + 4 items and demonstrate that these are actually going into production.

April's announcement will be about liveries, prices and numbers for the items already confirmed but not yet available to preorder. That, I think , will be when they go up  on the website for pre-order. They also need to bulk things out with some more coaches and wagons being confirmed as going into tooling for production, and there may be one or two more locos from the initial list confirmed as going forward for tooling.

By April Hornby might hope to have the first batch of many of the Phase 2 models arriving in modellers' hands; at which point they can start to move on to the later Phases

Graham Muz's blog is interesting in that it says "nothing here for Southern modellers" and then goes on to list a string of previously announced Southern locos due to arrive in the shops over the next 6 months..... A number of them date back to 2019-20

That I suspect is what is bulking out the catalogue . From Hornby's point of view, you get the money when you deliver the model, not when you announce it. So in practice there should be plenty of new tooling for them to sell

Am I correct in thinking the 21T minerals are new tooling???  This might explain the choice of 21T for TT:120.

A lot of minor light railways had varnished teak 4 wheelers . Its a difficult livery to do. I suspect the IWCR coaches should be viewed as generic teak coaches for minor railwqays - I bet quite a few will end up with the IWCR lettering carefully removed on freelance light railways

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

Good point, can't think of any mainstream kits newer than a 1960s Airfix Presflo. ( apart from some departmentals)

There's a few in the Cambrian range

4 hours ago, Porfuera said:

 

I don't follow coaches but the catalogue has plenty of wagons for Phases 3 and 4 that we haven't heard anything about yet.

 

I'm guessing we'll be hearing something more about these and I think they'd be daft to be announcing any other wagons that are entirely new unless they're scrapping this and redoing their plans completely.

 

There is similar Phase 3 and 4 info for coaches in the catalogue but these are the wagons:

 

The shape of things to come... TT:120 Phase 3 and 4 Wagon releases

BR, Conflat with Container No.1 - Era 4

BR, Conflat with Container No.2 - Era 4

BR, Conflat with Container No.3 - Era 5

BR, Mk1 Horse Box - Era 4

BR, VEA Van - Era 8

BR, Railfreight, VEA Van - Era 8

BR, Subsector, VEA Van - Era 8

KFA Container Wagon - Era 11

KFA Tankertainer Wagon - Era 11

YGB, Seacow, EWS - Era 9

YGB, Seacow, BR Bauxite - Era 8

YGB, Seacow, BR Civil Engineer - Era 8

YGB, Seacow, Mainline - Era 9

BR, VGA Van - Era 8

EWS, VGA Van - Era 9

Railfreight, VGA Van - Era 8

BR Railfreight Distribution, VGA Van - Era 8

The KFA has recently been released via Arnold I think. The VEA and the Seacow might be plausible candidates, with 66, 37, and 47 coming

2 hours ago, No Decorum said:

The K1 was only green in preservation, so in my book, not properly authentic. All the same, it would look so good (provided Hornby didn’t mess up the shade of green) that I would buy one like a shot. Colour sells. It always has, even to someone like me who thinks that not enough black locos are offered.

But K1s don't sell. 

Just the sort of medium sized black engine that everyone says Hornby should be making - and which has piled up in the warehouse when they did and proved a devil of a job to get shot of.

There is a sort of pattern emerging. There will be a OO announcement on 9/1. But TT:120 will not get an announcement until April. . We might therefore be talking about 6 monthly announcements in each scale, alternating

How quarterly announcements would work for Airfix, I don't know

I suggest we will get:

- 1 new loco tooling

- either one or no new-tooling coach

- a couple of new wagon toolings

Everything else will be reissues, and subjects that have proved very difficult to sell (J15, D16/3, K1, Dean Goods, Adams Radial, Class 71) will be off the agenda

And for a summer announcement - one new loco and one new wagon. The rest to be reissues/new liveries

More liveries for the generic 4 and 6 wheelers, maybe

I still think Hornby missed a trick not binning Oxford Rail in order to rationalise their brands. I still think the J26 project is a recipe for more unsold stock in the warehouse being dumped at fire-sale prices. But as it has survived a review , perhaps there's something I don't know to sustain it, like a big pre-order book

47 minutes ago, Fair Oak Junction said:

It looks very "generic loco" shaped to me, same with the other vehicles in the picture.

Very clearly a rebuilt Drummond Paddlebox   

15 minutes ago, Fair Oak Junction said:

So 79, and it must be getting close to that on the FS model version front by now 🤔

Not sure how many more versions of the same loco people need, but hey ho 😉

You need some of the other 78 locos.

There is is this myth that every original A1 /A3 is 4472, and that every original A1 /A3 Hornby make is 4472.

How many versions of a 37 or a 47 or a 66 do people need? (The answer seems to be "quite a lot")

14 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

Well I hope the do some LNER coaches soon as three locos in the range with no appropriate coaches is just  🤪

Do they announce the trailed Gresley BTK/ CK to go with the Pacifics?  Or the trailed Collett BTK/CK to go with the Castle? Or the trailed Mk1 TSO/SK and BG??

Whichever way they go , I'm sure there will be plenty of people posting on here that they've got it obviously and completely wrong....

On 04/01/2024 at 12:17, Fair Oak Junction said:

We must be at a point now where there are more versions of the Flying Scra.....uhhh, Scotsman in model form than there were A3s in total 🤣

There were 79 non-streamlined Gresley Pacifics . One A1 didn't make it to A3 - I'm guessing that was Great Northern , butchered by Thompson as an act of spite.

Only the Bulleid Light Pacifics were more numerous, and the Gresley Pacifics had over twice the service life (1922-1966). They covered the entire ECML from KX to Aberdeen and Glasgow, plus Manchester-Marylebone, the Waverley Route, and in their dying days Leeds-Carlisle. That's possibly a wider range than the Bullied Light Pacifics

There were twice as many A3s as the entire fleet of LMS Pacifics....

(Come to that, there were nearly as many A4s as the entire fleet of LMS Pacifics)

If youre modelling the ECML, you need at least 3 A3s to be credible (plus 2 A4s, an A1 and arguably 3-4 V2s)

Since they have product available to order but not yet released (50, Duchess, 66, HST, Stanier, Mk2 aircon , & Mk3 coaches), and product announced but not yet available to order (57xx, J94, C astle, 37, 47) it's not surprising the announcement side has gone quiet.

By April the Phase 2 stuff will be in people's hands or at least in a container. I'd expect the announcement to amount to Phase 3 going up on the website to pre-order, with prices and liveries and TT numbers. That will probably include bulking out Phase 3 with the announcement of some coaches and wagons, and confirmation of the 9F

While Hornby have been doing a number of "one-offs" , particularly in recent years, so has everyone else....

Rapido's Stirling Single and Met No 1 are exotics that very very few will buy two of . The Jones Goods is almost as exotic. KR Models produce almost nothing else..  Heljan's Worsborough Garrett looks "courageous" to me ,  and their ES1 electric is not going to be a regular seller.  The Ivatt Bo-Bo 10800 is at least moderately easy to justify on your post war branchline layout but again you'll only buy one. Bachmann have largely steered clear (could they successfully re-run the Ivatt Co-Cos now???), though LNWR Precedents are a bit exotic, but even Accurascale have chipped in with the Class 89.  (Buckjumpers are a very much better commercial prospect)

I tend to agree with those saying that this sort of thing has only a limited future, but it's not a Hornby issue, it's general across the whole of OO RTR . To me it really does signal that we are running out of road in terms of new tooling, and the medium term  future for OO RTR is going to be largely about re-runs from existing tooling.

It seems to take anywhere from 18 months to 3 years from actual release before it becomes obvious that a given model is hanging around and didn't sell very well. Therefore assurances that everything is totally fine and this is proved because X have just announced an ABC in 4mm are wide of the mark. We will only have a decent idea whether the market  took X's ABC about 2 years after it is finally released. I do think that some of these exotics are going to find the market isn't quite there