Willie Whizz

Sounds as though investors - very sensibly in my view - are declining to try to "catch a falling knife" at this point. Having backed more than one loser on the Stock Market in my time (though only in a very small way, and most certainly no longer a 'hobby' I can afford!), I would suggest (though this does not constitute 'financial advice'!) that anyone seriously contemplating buying should wait a while. If the company as an entity (as opposed to its brands and products) survives, it remains unlikely the share price is going significantly further back in the other direction any time soon, so time is on your side and you can afford to wait and see, without foregoing too much of any potential longer-term gain. If the company fails, you have probably lost your whole investment in very short order, as 'ordinary shareholders' are the very last in the queue to benefit from a liquidation, and usually find that after the Bank, the Accountant/Liqidator, the VAT Man, HMRC and the business's trade creditors have had their share of the debris, there is almost certainly sweet FA left for you.

On what basis are you making that assertion? It seems to be the general understanding that it's impractical for anyone outside the business itself to be sure about this, since the published financial information doesn't specify it down to this level of brand segmentation; and although Hornby themselves will (should!!) certainly know, the information remains within Management Accounts that are produced 'for internal use only'.

The Nu-Cast J6 was my own first attempt at building a white-metal loco kit, many years ago now. I was following C J Freezer's advice to start with "something straightforward such as an 0-6-0 tank or tender engine, before moving on to the complexities of valve-gear", which made complete sense both then and now. I seem to recall the body and tender going together quite well, even with my primitive attempts at soldering most of the components. But working out how to install and affix a motor and gear into that solid great lump of a chassis, and then wire-up pickups to it, proved to be utterly beyond me with only the kit's instructions and whatever I could glean from a couple of generic text-heavy construction articles in the modelling press of the day. Eventually a lady colleague at work mentioned she had a cousin who kit-built locos on a semi-professional basis and I paid for it to be finished-off by him - after which it ran reasonably well (albeit with a slight yet distinct 'list to starboard'!). It's lain undisturbed in its box in the loft for 20+ years now, so whether it'll still run when I finally fish it out (hopefully later this year) - let alone whether it'll still sufficiently cut reasonable mustard against more modern equivalents - remains to be seen! So I look forward to reading the article if one comes out of your test-build, Tony - if only to see where I was going wrong! And yes, a K2 would indeed be lovely, if you can successfully encourage one to emerge but with a better chassis and decent instructions ...

Looking increasingly unlikely, I'm afraid, as we have some health issues in the family. But if I do get there, I'll be sure to say hello. Cheers for now. Malcolm

Hello Tony. It was great to make the acquaintance of you and your good lady at the weekend. There are some interesting photos of the ... event ... now on Facebook, though (thankfully, perhaps) neither you nor I are heavily featured, and certainly not in the more embarrassing ones(!!). My word though, the Welsh really can sing ... I've started to look at your thread here as you suggested, and although only up to 2011 so far, I'm well-impressed with what I see, and there's clearly a lot to learn on here even though I work in OO. I will certainly continue to follow. Keep it up! Kind regards Malcolm

Can't wait to see it 'in the flesh' at Nottingham!

Can't wait!

Agreed - plus of course with the Airfix-type kits you got a set of clear instructions that, if followed correctly, would enable at least one recognisable variant of the subject model to be built satisfactorily even if you were a beginner or novice. And by doing so a few times you then gained the confidence and experience to start experimenting with modifications, techniques and making your own parts or cross-kitting to make different variants. And so your expertise grew ... mine certainly did. But the point was, they were complete (other than the proverbial paint and glue) and buildable from the word go. So many railway-related kits around 'back in the day' were (and some still are ...), frankly, so amateurish in concept, manufacture and design standards that they were neither, except by an 'expert' with years of experience and the proverbial well-stocked 'spares box' and 'reference library' - but they didn't say so on the box or in the shops; and in those days the magazines and articles they printed wouldn't tell you so - possibly out of fear for lost advertising or worse, but possibly also out of the same 'machismo' approach that we still see examples of from time to time. The point at issue here is (or certainly should be) not that a few of us got past that and became (largely) self-taught master craftsmen (and maybe a few more could yet become so - which I freely acknowledge); nor even that there are certain areas of the hobby some of us 'honest triers' just prefer not to go any more, having got our fingers too badly burned - but that how many more young (or not so young) and inexperienced would-be potentially good or even just average modellers from the same period (certainly say before the last 10-12 years) gave up outright in despair because proper help, guidance and teaching, by whatever methodology, simply wasn't available - and indeed is still only patchily available now (though thank heavens for RMWeb). Railway modelling shouldn't have to be about "survival of the fittest", but I'm truly sorry to say that's what some of you guys make it sound like. That may produce masterpiece models, but it is not going to grow the hobby, nor will it raise the average skill level by much.

Perhaps. But what Peter Denny et. al. seldom told us is how many times they got it wrong before they got it right. Didn't he only end-up modelling the Great Central because his attempts to make signal posts for at least one other railway had failed, and he thought the solid GC type would be easier to fabricate? The editor of Model Rail is saying that he is having to change the balance of the magazine and show less layouts, because the magazine market requires between them c. 200 'fresh' layouts a year to feature, and they just aren't out there in the right numbers and quality any more. That suggests to me that the number of 'top quality' modellers is in decline for reasons only partly due to the better quality of R-T-R and R-T-P now available, but a great deal I believe to do with the increased demands on peoples' time these days. If I had nothing much else to fill my days with, I'm sure I'd like nothing better to spend them all at my work-bench trying to work-out intuitively how to do something, and caring nothing that this was my sixth attempt. I tried that technique with the spreadsheets too, and my employer wondered why my work wasn't very productive and I was spending all day long gazing blankly at a screen in search of inspiration. It's a good job I wasn't trying to do that on a self-employed basis! I'm certainly not suggesting one should slavishly 'copy the techniques of others' indefinitely. But if one can be taught the basics properly (and we all have different 'learning styles', so it will vary whether group tuition, one-to-one mentoring, watching a video or reading an article are most effective for us as individuals) one then has the building blocks and the confidence to go-on and do one's own thing at an acceptable level without wasting an awful lot of time, effort and money. Leonardo da Vinci was a largely self-taught genius, but I expect even he began with someone showing him how to do sums and to draw.

I used to work in jobs that involved quite a lot of numbers, and analysis of those numbers. I was self-taught at doing Excel spreadsheets. I was rubbish! I did get better over time, and unlike many with this program I didn't just give up and consider it beyond me - but I was still only a lesser degree of rubbish - doing things in ineffective or inappropriate ways, going all around the houses to get a result and thinking "there must be a better way than this", or simply not trying things at all. And the so-called "Excel Help" screens largely don't; and the so-called 'For Dummies' books merely seemed to reinforce my fears that I was one). Then I was sent on a training course. Just a one-day course, but I was taught how to do things properly; and that there were simple short-cuts to effective results that were dead easy to use once you knew they existed, but you'd never have been able to work them out for yourself ... And afterwards all of a sudden, I became confident, competent and, to my colleagues at least, I was now a Guru. What this says to me is: "Why struggle, if proper tuition is available?" And before anyone says it would stifle creativity - most artists get taught the basics of their craft, as do actors, and they can still produce excellent individual work afterwards. I wouldn't find it easy these days to be able to spend several days away from home; but if there were proper railway modelling courses in my neck of the woods I for one would sign-up like a shot and consider it time and money well spent.

... and (half) the story of my life!

I don't have any problem with articles about old or 'difficult' kits as long as the author makes it emphatically plain that they are indeed such, and therefore not suitable for the beginner or novice. What I do object to is articles (though admittedly they're less common than they used to be) which don't mention that a kit is almost impossible to build correctly from the supplied parts without major modification; or that the construction instructions as supplied are grossly incorrect or misleading; or that the parts as supplied in the box are insufficient to produce any identifiable variant of the subject loco without resort to the notorious "spares box accumulated over 20+ years" because correct parts required to remedy the situation are not currently available from any supplier. Where they are available - and it is not asking too much - potential current supplier(s) should be identified, If all this is made entirely plain, fair enough. If it isn't, then it isn't just the kit that is unsuitable, it's the article too. It's not saying "look what you could do, too"; it's saying "look what I can do, but you almost certainly can't". It is highly debatable whether a magazine with 30-40,000 subscribers should realistically be printing such project-based articles aimed at a likely engaged audience in single figures, other than perhaps as a very occasional demonstration of 'excellence in the face of adversity' (TW's big Welsh tank engine last Autumn perhaps representing such an exceptional instance). I'm not asking for 'dumbing-down', I'm asking for realism and honesty.

Some beautifully "natural"-looking stuff on there. The Jinty with the block-and-tackle is a wonderful piece of observation, of a kind you perhaps see on only a fraction of layouts.

I must admit that when someone posted that much-derided picture on here a few days back of a semi-derelict V2 that was being offered for sale on e-Bay, my thought was that this as in the 'Southern' picture may well have been the effect that modeller was trying for - in which case maybe we should have been kinder; he might have been 'having a go' at something few others have attempted ... Though a shockingly-poor shot (what do you expect from an 11-year old and a Brownie 127?) this picture of WOLF OF BADENOCH does show the habit of occasionally just cleaning the cabside numbers. Yup, that's exactly how I remember my one and only sighting of a pacific in actual service (see my post on here 4th December). If I ever manage to buy (or even build) one I want it exactly like this! WW

On the subject of 'professional', another definition might be: one who has passed an appropriate level of relevant qualification to equip him/her to practice their chosen activity to a suitable standard. (Or, in a few 'restrictive' professions, to be allowed to practice it at all). I used to work for a bank, in the days when banking was also considered a profession, but not a 'restrictive' one' (whereas nowadays I'd often rather own-up to having once been a piano-player in a House of Ill-Repute, but that's another story ...). In my early-20's I began to get frustrated that promotion wasn't coming along despite my getting good reports, so I tackled my Personnel Manager about it (no such thing as "HR" back then!). "Well, Malcolm", said Mr Cheaney, "the thing is, you haven't yet finished taking your professional banking examinations, have you?" So I buckled-down and finished-off the last few subjects; and as it happened got excellent results. But still no promotion came. So I tackled Mr Cheaney again, saying: "I'm a qualified A.C.I B now; Please Sir, why am I still not getting promoted?" "Ah, Malcolm", he responded, "you have to remember that exam qualifications aren't everything!" I did get there in the end, despite him, but any of you lucky enough to remember getting letters from your own bank manager a couple of decades back will have noted that unlike letters from your solicitor, surgeon, even estate agent etc., the signature typed at the foot was never, ever followed by any "letters after the name" - this was not allowed, I was told, so that the Customers wouldn't be upset by thinking they were being dealt with by an "unqualified" manager! You may also recall the incredulity a few years ago at the time of the Banking Crash when a newspaper asked what the difference was between [The names of ten Chairman and Chief Executives of the struggling Big 5 Banks] and Terry Wogan from Radio 2 ... the answer being that 'Tel' was the only one out of the whole lot of 'em actually to hold a professional banking qualification ... Make of all that what you will; my own view is that 'professionalism' has more to do with a state of mind and an approach to the task than it ever does to a paper qualification - or, come to that, to the ability to get away with charging large fees irrespective of the quality of the work.

We don't live in an 'ideal world' though. Isn't it preferable that people do this than that they don't build at all? Time, space, money and ability are all restricted, to a greater or lesser extent (but with varying proportions in every single case), for - I'd suggest - 97% of railway modellers. Virtually all of us have to compromise somewhere; the issue of where comes down to individual choice. I have heard of a couple of cases where a modeller became so deeply committed to his ideal that those compromises were made in other aspects of their life that should have been just as important if not more so; resulting in relationship and financial breakdowns. Show us what is possible yes please; aim to inspire us by all means; but at the risk of my sounding like the Devil's Advocate, please stop telling us we can all 'have it all'.

In the endless RTR-vs-kit debate, the things that are so often not given enough weight are: Time, and [That which so often 'dares not speak its name', even on these usually so open and honest Boards ...] Money. Given sufficient of either, plus of course the third element of the overall railway modelling 'Wheel of Opportunity', space ... almost anything would be possible, as most of us recognise in principle; but we all of us have to live in whatever amounts to our own personal version of the "Real World", and we all of us must (and do) compromise accordingly.

There are occasional crossovers ... I seem to recall there was extensive debate in one of the magazines many years ago (involving, IIRC, the late, great Jack Nelson who certainly knew a thing or two about the 'art' side of model railways) regarding what specific shades and colours various bits of a LNWR station would have been painted, "back in the day". Paint specifications only tell you so much, and attempting to identify specific colours from Victorian and Edwardian b/w photos is a mug's gane as we all know. The clincher anyway seemed to be a painting of some sort of romantic farewell between a young couple by one of the great artists of the period, set at just such a station. It was eventually accepted that, because he'd got so many of the technical details of the railway infrastructure spot-on, it could be concluded that he must have got the details of the structural painting right too, and "honour was satisfied".

I've found the discussion of prototype train formations with catering vehicles and the extent to which they can be compressed and yet still "look realistic" really interesting. May I suggest though that in terms of estimating whether there's a sufficient market to persuade the major manufacturers to produce more catering vehicles, those posters with the luxury of anything more than 20 feet layout length (personally or within a club or consortium) may be coming at the issue from the 'wrong end of the stick'. I do not think any robust research has ever been done (e.g. by magazines or websites like this) into "how many coaches can your trains handle and not look stupid or make your layout inoperable" - and if it has been done I've never seen it - but I believe the main determining issue for a majority of modellers is the available space they have to get a reasonably realistic station in, plus suitable access pointwork for runarounds and goods yards, and trying to avoid too-sharp curves on either end and then get 'off-scene' round the bends and/or into fiddle yards. In that context, if you still want to run main line express trains, you are inevitably constrained. If you only have a medium-sized garden shed (say 12' x 8' nominal) - and many modern back gardens would be half-filled by just that! - then I doubt if more than five or six coaches plus Pacific loco is feasible, and even that may start to look distinctly forced. If you want to try and incorporate a prototypical track plan for the station, as we're told we should, that may raise further spatial complications affecting train length. Take a look at a Great Central island platform station (especially one with goods loops and lay-by sidings running through it) and realise what the need to have crossovers lying beyond the platform ends does to the overall length of the station area; then ask yourself why hardly any of the magazine track plan designs ever incorporate anything in the GC style ... (I know, I've been looking for many years!). OK, so compromise on a un-prototypical station track plan ... but many of the published ones from which we're asked to take inspiration are, on closer inspection, drawn for about 3-4 coaches plus loco only. Tony agonises over having to 'selectively compress' a couple of feet off the end of Little Bytham (less than 10% I believe), and from his perspective I do entirely understand why. Others agonise over having to drop a carriage or two from a prototype rake of 12. But I suspect a sizeable majority of those home-based modellers who want to run at least a moderately authentic-looking representation of main lines and express trains, and are the people who would account for the majority of sales of Restaurant Cars, are having to look at something like 50% compression of their stations and 50% compression of their expresses. That should be the starting point for working out what might sell. It probably accounts for why the Hornby Buffet Cars (and Sleeping Cars) seem almost invariably to be the ones left in the "reduced to clear" bins at most of the model shops I visit. People would like them, and (usually) know they should have them, but just don't have the space. If it's a choice between a catering vehicle or losing one of your brake end coaches, which is going to look the more 'realistic' then? Of course, there are "ways around" some of this in modelling terms e.g. don't have a station at all; build from kits and accept the cost and the impact on time available for other modelling [we can't all work at Coachmann's pace!]; or one could always give-up the dreams of decades and build a Great Western branch-line or something industrial with two dead-scale sidings instead ... The answer, it seems to me though, is that we shall have to start agitating for RTR Limited Editions of such catering carriages - and indeed other specialised rolling stock such as the LNER specials - and just have to accept the price-hike for those specific models that will inevitably result. If modellers dedicated to achieveable quality and excellence will really pay perhaps half as much again for a RTR limited edition GN Atlantic in a special livery as for a conventional mass-market loco about that size, why wouldn't they do so for a limited edition Gresley RC + Open Third, or a Silver Jubilee set?

You know, I just don't care about the coal consumption ... that man Robinson knew better than anyone else, ever, what to do with curves in all the right places ... (well, except perhaps Marilyn Monroe, but that's another hobby!). Beautiful. No other word, Season's greetings to all and sundry. WW (Malcolm Swift)

One wonders why Robinson kept on 'getting it wrong' (allegedly) with his several 4-6-0s, especially when some of his other designs could stand comparison with pretty much anything that was around anywhere else at the time, and indeed for some while afterwards. Or was it perhaps the case that they did what the GC asked of them so, in their own time and their own Company, there was no criticism; and that such only emerged later, by "real world" comparison with other designers' work on the same duties? In any event, his designs were almost without exception things of real beauty. I don't see it happening any time soon but if they ever do bring out a R-T-R Jersey Lily then "Rule 1" will apply and one will somehow have survived in BR lined black till the mid-50's, that's for sure!

Actually there is a resin body kit available for the L3, Designed I believe to run on a R-T-R chassis but no doubt the skilled among us could knock-up their own (!!). I was tempted a while back but didn't succumb; a bit too far out of my period. Here is a link to a thread on this Board: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/97315-kit-build-2015-dean-sidings-ex-gcr-l1l3/

Interesting isn't it, how the 'successful' locomotive designs of various companies, once one starts digging a bit, appear to have no shortage of claimants as to who did the 'real work' of the design process - and yet Thompson's 'failures' are never anyone's fault but his! Pardon my slight cynicism therefore if this particular post and some others suggest to me that it is quite feasible Thompson's opponents within the LNER were not averse to doing what they actively could to undermine his position and reputation, both at the time and after his retirement - almost irrespective of how well or otherwise his locomotives have actually performed. In that sense, whilst as Tony says, the railwaymen themselves may have had little room for 'sentiment', those responsible for managing the allocation and utilisation of the locomotives probably did - or they were reporting to and anxious to please those higher-up the Company, who almost certainly did. If a class of locomotives is relegated to subsidiary duties before there has been chance to iron-out its problems, and if "the Word from On High" is persistently negative, is it any wonder no-one has a good word for them? Yet, remind me again how long it took for Gresley to get the A1s 'right'? That Thompson may have had a fair few such opponents within his own company, and that perhaps they felt they had good reason, doesn't make it any less of a hatchet job. Those of us who have worked in a large-scale corporate or public sector environment (and I can claim both!) - and especially after an unwelcome merger or amalgamation when reasonable career expectations have become warped - will recognise the signs. For well-known examples from another field one needs only look at what became of the RAF's Dowding and Park after their victory in the Battle of Britain; or the way the real problems and lessons with both the tactical handling and the design of the Royal Navy's battlecruisers and their ammunition during the Battle of Jutland (1916) were comprehensively fudged to protect the reputations of certain people who had better skills of self-promotion and the ears of the politicians.

If I recall correctly, wasn't Stanier out of the country while most of the work on the LMS Duchesses was done? But he gets the praise ...

Nice. But far too clean, I'm afraid, from my vivid recollection of it as the only LNER pacific I ever saw 'in traffic', as a small boy - see my post a few days back.