Phil Parker

Sorry. No. Andy is on holiday. You know he is on holiday. Generously, he has answered a few questions, but you have decided that your continuing diatribe about tank wagons is more important than his time off. Trying to make a joke (being generous, I assume this is what you are doing) doesn't make you deciding that your needs are more important than his valid. Good grief - it's just toy trains! @rapidoandy If you'd like, we can lock the thread until you are back home.

Worth a visit for the lovely Bantam tugboat. http://philsworkbench.blogspot.com/search/label/Bantam Tug

Because railway modellers are only interested in steam? You need to get out more, the fashionable area is now blue diesel, and there are lot more layouts representing this era.

ViTrains provided handrails and a few other parts separate, just needing cutting from a fret and pushing into pre-made holes. Modellers screamed this was too difficult, and I got paid for writing an article showing how to fit them. A bigger problem would be packing all those bits so they arrive safely. You can't just lob them in a plastic bag. A couple of years ago, I built Accucraft's Peckett kit for Garden Rail. The effort required to pack all the bits showed why the price difference between this and the RTR version was minimal!

OK, time for the regular reminder that we find bagged copies sell more than unbagged ones on the newsstand. This has been the case for a long while. Either @AY Mod or myself usually posts this, but people have short memories, or maybe don't want to remember. Handily, it also stops this: Spotted in a Smiths, the "gentleman" has stuck the mag on a rack, and is enjoying a jolly good read. For well over 10 minutes. I'm sure he then bought the issue... There is also a requirement from supermarkets and Smiths that we carry out some promotions during the year. The only way to avoid this, is to take the mags off the shelves. If you reckon you could re-negotiate this, something no magazine has ever managed to do, then please get in touch. At last, some news you will enjoy! Yes, while Garden Rail is doing very nicely thank you, the issue of Engineering in Miniature is the final one, the mag is closing. With three mags all chasing the shrinking model engineering market, Warners took the decision to wind it down. There is a little crossover between GR and EiM so we are doing something with that. And the piles - well the issue has only just come out, and we tend to send out plenty so people can buy them over the next four weeks. I was in Tesco the other day, and they had piles of baked beans on the shelf, does that mean they don't sell? Anyway, this pretty much repeats stuff we end up saying every single time a bagged issue goes out. FWIW, thanks to recent promotions since Warley, and a radical redesign, BRM sales are on the up, so maybe we are doing something right?

We have put each video in the free World of Railways newsletter, which is mailed out to over 20,000 people every Friday, so it's not like the thing is hidden. To help, here's a link to the full set of videos - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRS9-yJBXTPCqYiELLrUSBP4y98bSNEwH

A Friday afternoon show is never going have a broad demographic. Some people have to work...

Because there are so many pages, the magazine is perfect bound, so you can't just pull it out of the middle. Run a Stanley knife down the inside of the spine, and it's not difficult to extract any pages required. I've done it many times to reduce my pile and put the results in box files.

Oxford has traded at Warley for many years. It was the only show they did.

Ah, so there are limits to a review even for you. Perhaps a list of exactly what should and shouldn't be included? Lamps obviously are to be commented on. Handrails? Smokebox darts? Markings on gauges in the cab? It's going to be a long list... But, the people who took the time to complain about bolt orientation don't consider this to be minutae, it matters to them or they wouldn't take the time to check and then get in touch. So who is right? You, or the bolt checkers? Precisely. Any reviewer writes for their reader, doing their best to give them what they want. If that means big pictures and only a brief overview, that's fine. The same applies to online reviews, which is why they tend to be a bit shouty as this generates clicks indicating a satisfied audience. Even there we have to deal with the preferences of the reviewer who may (for example) have a bee in their bonnet about cast boilers where many couldn't care less as long as it looks right. Let's face it, RMwebbers can't decide what they want. Lots of detail, or less bits to get knocked off? There are people in both camps . Ultimately, we can't be right for everyone.

Every single model can be criticised to death. It's the wrong gauge, the body isn't made of metal, the prime mover is an electric motor. Should all those be mentioned loudly? Why not? If that's too common, how about bolt heads - lined up or at different angles? I know two different manufacturers who have differing opinions on this, driven by comments from customers. Now you can argue that the reviewer should check this detail out against prototype images from a known date, but that's going to take a lot of time and push the cost of the review up. And you are still competing against internet reviewers who do no research and just scream abuse. "by a person with sufficient knowledge of the subject to make a judgement." - why only one? Because the chances are if you wait for the "experts" to all agree, the review would never go out. Maybe there needs to be no words. Just photos as "the readership is capable of making its own judgement as to whether they should purchase from the facts presented."

In HM mag's defence, they are reviewing it for the people they see as their readers (the people who buy the mag), not a group (who probably don't buy any mag) desperate for a good slagging off of any model. Despite reservations on here, there will be people who are perfectly happy with the model - or don't they count? I suspect @AY Mod might have something to say about this!

Presumably, because there has been no criticism of the model so far on this thread...

Pine car racing is huge in the USA - Scout groups organise races as well as others. I'd not seen it before until I visited the Bachmann MCC store, and now really fancy a go myself! More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinewood_derby Could this be the push that makes it as popular in the UK?

Spotted on the stand today. 20240428_143321.mp4

Unavoidable. When I visited a few years ago, the place emptied every time they heard a train passing behind the offices.

Sorry, I didn't bother giving the full discussion between myself and the exhibition organiser. In over 100 shows, it wasn't an issue, but if I was bringing barriers, I'd normally let them know. The extra space for a rear-operated layout was less than a foot. If your show is so tightly packed that this makes a difference, there is a bigger problem.

The only question I used to ask was "Do you provide barriers?" - if the answer was no, and I really wanted to go, I'd borrow a couple from the club and take them with me. Generally though, it was no barriers, no attendance. People will lean on something, and if it's not a barrier, then it will be the layout, no matter how much scenery gets squashed. As for the rest, I don't care if you rub yourself down with a damp copy of MRJ every morning, uninvited poking of my layout is a capital crime. In my experience, "enthusiasts" are no better than the general public, and older people no better than children, in their respect for the models on display.

Except that 3-legged walking machines fall over as soon as one leg is lifted. The BBC worked this out when making "The Tripods" TV series in the 1980s. Matt Irvine explained that they invented some sort of lifting ray underneath to combat this, but it wasn't ideal.

Paul Martin (NG Trains/EDM Models) talks about the NG7 thing on his excellent blog about the new range launch here: https://ngtrains.com/blog/quarry-hunslets-in-ng7/

On the Statfold stand. Looking good.

As mentioned on at least one layout thread, layouts have been invited already, and the trade is being booked. If we hadn't started by now, we would be in trouble! Don't forget, we already run three successful shows, so this is the same, but a bit bigger.

The Octogenarian Railcar by Charles Carson We didn't have the space on our pages for all the diagrams in Charles's article, so they are posted here to help anyone following the project.

Contents The Fairplex Garden Railroad by Rick Bremer Testing my Mettle by Mark Thatcher The octogenarian railcar by Charles Carson Diary Dates A Bridge Too Far by Peter Charles Bodging a Big Hauler by Nick Midgley Painting Figures The Easy Way by Daniel Cousins A couple of Oddities by Dave Skertchly Product News Seen at the show