Oxford Rail - LNER Cattle Wagon

[TheSignalEngineer]

Is this a OO RTR first, a movable brake lever?

O_C_3.JPG

Surprised the rivet counters haven't pointed out that it doesn't have a pin and chain.

[31A]

It's a shame about the design errors as the chassis has some nice details, apart from the missing brake cylinder.

O_C_1.JPG

O_C_2.JPG

Does anyone know what the pipe next to the coupling mount is supposed to be? It doesn't line up with the vacuum pipe on the body, but that could be wrong.

 

It's the steam heat through pipe, so that the loco could heat coaches if the wagon was marshalled at the head of a passenger train.

[Nile]

That makes sense. They're at an odd angle, that may be to keep them well clear of any couplings.

[jonny777]

Surprised the rivet counters haven't pointed out that it doesn't have a pin and chain.

 

 

I shall not be satisfied until the wagon comes complete with smelly animal manure.

[31A]

That makes sense. They're at an odd angle, that may be to keep them well clear of any couplings.

 

In reality, when not in use they were hooked onto a chain attached to the headstock.

[micklner]

Interesting from a ABS post  via LNER Forum site , a good reason why the Vacumn Cylinder maybe  missing,  maybe because they stuck the Oxford branding just where the Cylinder should be , thats must be more far more important to them at least !! At least everyone know where to locate one !!.

[Neil]

I'm a little perplexed by some of the views expressed here. It would seem that some have a desire for accuracy not matched by their desire to do some remedial work on a model to achieve it. It rather smacks of the person who would like to be able to play the piano but is unwilling to put in any practice. At a modest ten and a half quid I'd suggest that if you want an LNER cattle wagon you buy it, see if you can live with its faults and if not have a stab at correcting them. Even if it all goes horribly wrong you will have lost comparatively little. However you may succeed and even if you only get part way there you will have gained some practice and insights into model-making.

[Willie Whizz]

I'm a little perplexed by some of the views expressed here. It would seem that some have a desire for accuracy not matched by their desire to do some remedial work on a model to achieve it. It rather smacks of the person who would like to be able to play the piano but is unwilling to put in any practice. At a modest ten and a half quid I'd suggest that if you want an LNER cattle wagon you buy it, see if you can live with its faults and if not have a stab at correcting them. Even if it all goes horribly wrong you will have lost comparatively little. However you may succeed and even if you only get part way there you will have gained some practice and insights into model-making.

 

If we were talking about an older model, or what was clearly intended to be a "generic" vehicle suited to be a fair approximation of a number of broadly similar prototypes (such as an open wagon or a fuel tanker at this price [don't mention Bachmann's Anchor-mounted tank at nearly twice this price, though!]) then I'd agree.

 

However, it isn't "any old cattle wagon", it's clearly meant to be a very specific LNER prototype.  As such, one would have thought their research would not just have enabled them, but would practically have compelled them, to produce something accurate - the old cliche: "surely it's as easy to get it right as it is to get it wrong?" was made for situations like this.

 

Therefore, barring some technical manufacturing obstacle to accuracy, which doesn't seem the case here, it seems to me either they were misled by their research and simply but genuinely got it wrong, or they  were entirely too casual about the whole thing and incurred the errors by something in between inexperience (possibly compounded by a slapdash approach) and outright negligence.

 

The former is unfortunate, but let's be fair, it occasionally happens to the best of them.  The latter would be deplorable if it becomes clear it represents Oxford's attitude to their whole range as it develops.  At the moment it seems to be still too soon to say for sure, but the "benefit of the doubt" for Oxford with serious modellers will only last them so long ...

Edited July 10, 2016 by Willie Whizz

[coachmann]

It's a tip out of box ready to run model for ten and a half smackers.

Edited July 10, 2016 by coachmann

[davefrk]

It's a tip out of box ready to run model for ten and a half smackers.

 

Even so Coach, it could have been much better for the money if they had been paying attention.

 

Dave.

[jonny777]

If they had paid more attention to detail, it would have cost £20 a throw and people would be muttering "I'm not paying £20 for a wagon".

[davefrk]

Sorry but note I didn't say 'more attention to detail'. Just checking the detail at the design stage might have caught these obvious problems in time to correct them before the moulds were made so no price increase incurred and more sales to those that accuracy does matter to.

As a manufacturer myself (on a smaller scale) that is what I do and when I was in engineering we had a saying - measure twice and cut once.

 

Dave.

Edited July 10, 2016 by davefrk

[Willie Whizz]

Sorry but note I didn't say 'more attention to detail'. Just checking the detail at the design stage might have caught these obvious problems in time to correct them before the moulds were made so no price increase incurred and more sales to those that accuracy does matter too.

As a manufacturer myself (on a smaller scale) that is what I do and when I was in engineering we had a saying - measure twice and cut once.

 

Dave.

 

Exactly.

 

Look, as I understand the criticisms being made on here, they are not that the model has been 'manufactured down to a price'; nor that there are unacceptable Hornby-style 'Design Clever' compromise making it look clumsy; nor that it is a 'generic' cattle van that the manufacturer thinks will be 'near-enough' to give an impression of several similar prototypes.  We're not talking about wanting masses more detail and lots of fiddly separate extra parts.  The complaints are simply that the vehicle as modelled, i.e. of a specific and identifiable prototype and with a reasonable and fair level of detail for the price, is noticeably incorrect.

 

I fail to see therefore why getting it right would have made it cost £20 or so.  These things are meant to be sorted-out in the pre-production process; that's what it's for, and if the original effort had to go back for corrections then yes it might have delayed things and added a fraction to the overall project cost at that stage, but not remotely near to virtually doubling, so I don't accept that.  They certainly did enough research to get it to the point where it's recognisable as what it's supposed to represent; therefore twice as much cost of research wouldn't have doubled the accuracy; yet we're not talking the positioning of just a couple of rivets here either.  The point is that a couple of major errors have been made when everything else was all right.  We don't know how or why, but it's disappointing.

[Nile]

Meanwhile after some actual modelling I've increased the wheelbase to 10 feet and added a vacuum cylinder.

I haven't done anything to the body yet.

[mikeharvey22]

One problem with the Oxford Rail business model is that they intended to announce models after tooling had commenced, so what you saw at announcement was very much what you were going to get. With the Mk3 coach announcement this may have changed, but I suspect that this will generally hold in future too. If so, then the accuracy of the model will still depend a lot on their early research and very little on input from the discerning market. It does serve to fill a lot of pages on here though.

[Nimbus]

If they had paid more attention to detail, it would have cost £20 a throw and people would be muttering "I'm not paying £20 for a wagon".

 

But the detail's already lovely! It just needed putting in the right places...

 

The Nim.

[Arthur]

 

after some actual modelling I've increased the wheelbase to 10 feet and added a vacuum cylinder.

 

Good grief man, 'some actual modelling', what sort of forum do you think this is?

 

Seriously Neil, very nice.

 

How did you go about extending the wheelbase?, that looks very neat indeed.

[Wickham Green]

Easy to sort the wrong side, simply run them on a oval layout  and you will never see the other side.

 

Might just look a wee bit - shall we say - unexpected if a long train of cattle wagons all happened to have been shunted out of the sidings facing the same way ?

[coachmann]

I know RMweb is a wide church these days, but those people expecting perfection for a measly £10.50 really do need to step back for a moment. I suggest that all the nay-sayers tell us how accurate their Bachmann, Hornby and Dapol cattle, coal, van and tank wagons are compared with this cattle wagon.

[davefrk]

I know RMweb is a wide church these days, but those people expecting perfection for a measly £10.50 really do need to step back for a moment. I suggest that all the nay-sayers tell us how accurate their Bachmann, Hornby and Dapol cattle, coal, van and tank wagons are compared with this cattle wagon.

At least they would have a vac cylinder when it purports to be vacuum fitted and maybe the details that are there might be in the right place.

Or is that expecting too much perfection?

Come on Coach!!!!

 

Dave.

[Skinnylinny]

At least they would have a vac cylinder when it purports to be vacuum fitted and maybe the details that are there might be in the right place.

Or is that expecting too much perfection?

Come on Coach!!!!

 

Dave.

Actually, the three-packs of fitted opens Hornby are doing in BR Bauxite don't seem to have them (or brake pipes!) fitted, nor do many of their fitted vans... but their wooden-chassis 7-plank PO wagons often do, moulded solidly as part of the chassis!

[Ben Alder]

I know RMweb is a wide church these days, but those people expecting perfection for a measly £10.50 really do need to step back for a moment. I suggest that all the nay-sayers tell us how accurate their Bachmann, Hornby and Dapol cattle, coal, van and tank wagons are compared with this cattle wagon.

 

R-T-R cattle wagons seem to be an afflicted species - there is not an accurate one amongst the lot of them so far. Anything Hornby produced over the years bore little semblance to a prototype; the Bachmann LMS originated with Mainline, is far too short and very heavily moulded; the Dapol one has origins with Hornby Dublo,IIR while the current Bachmann BR one is too long. Presumably the Hornby  SR version will be accurate, but the main two operators of cattle wagons - the LMS and GW - still do not have boxed versions of these types. Parkside did a nice kit of an earlier LMS one last year, and David Geen does  the later version that is more apt for BR layouts, but a train of these white metal wagons would need hefty motive power. As far as I know the only plastic kit of a GW type is Coopercraft,which appears to be unobtainable at the moment. The venerable Airfix kit still stands as a very good representation of the standard BR wagon, and with a bit of tidying up makes a rather nice model but there is still scope for further types to appear R-T-R.

 

I haven't laid my hands on one of the Oxford ones yet, but may have a go at bringing it up to scratch if and when I do, so won't add anything to the thread  with not having seen one, but as a more general observation, I think that the omission of tiebars from so many commercial wagon underframes is a far more glaring fault than the vacuum cylinder here, which is easily added if felt necessary.

[Willie Whizz]

Actually, the three-packs of fitted opens Hornby are doing in BR Bauxite don't seem to have them (or brake pipes!) fitted, nor do many of their fitted vans... but their wooden-chassis 7-plank PO wagons often do, moulded solidly as part of the chassis!

 

 

coachmann, on 11 Jul 2016 - 10:51, said:

I know RMweb is a wide church these days, but those people expecting perfection for a measly £10.50 really do need to step back for a moment. I suggest that all the nay-sayers tell us how accurate their Bachmann, Hornby and Dapol cattle, coal, van and tank wagons are compared with this cattle wagon.

 

 

But how old is the tooling of those vehicles?

 

And the brand-new Bachmann anchor-mounted tank, which is also generating a certain amount of 'critical heat', is priced at about £20 - but that it seems is effectively meant to be a "generic" model suitable for a variety of liveries, so should we let Bachmann off?

 

The new Oxford cattle wagon isn't meant to be "generic", but highly specific; therefore the price as such is hardly relevant.  Several years ago now Hornby Gresley coaches, costly in their day, received quite a panning for their profile despite the fact that from side-on as usually viewed it's barely noticeable, and generated numerous magazine and internet proposals for how to overcome such inaccuracy; I wonder how many people wrecked their models trying to 'rectify' those problems?  And manufacturers' standards are supposed to have risen since then.

[57xx]

If they had paid more attention to detail, it would have cost £20 a throw and people would be muttering "I'm not paying £20 for a wagon".

 

Kinda missing the point, the main "attention to detail" people are alluding to is getting the simple basics right, not adding a multitude of fiddly little bits that add to the cost.

 

I know RMweb is a wide church these days, but those people expecting perfection for a measly £10.50 really do need to step back for a moment. I suggest that all the nay-sayers tell us how accurate their Bachmann, Hornby and Dapol cattle, coal, van and tank wagons are compared with this cattle wagon.

 

Larry, please do tell us how many of your coach kits you decided to make by just drawing up one side and saying "sod 'em, I can't be bothered to do the other side so I'll just use 2 of the same side in one packet and tell anyone who complains that it'll do" ...? 

[micklner]

The fly in the ointment for Oxford Rail is the phrase 

 

"In pursuit of excellence" which is on prominent banner on their webpage. 

 

They very sadly have failed on this one, people are talking about modifying etc etc but why bother ? .

 

Buy the Parkside kit for the same price and build some . A lot simpler than changing one sides plank layout etc of the Oxford attempt.

 

Some excellent info here re LNER Cattle Wagons and building the kit. For BR modellers info the 9ft version as done by Oxford was virtually extinct post war.

 

http://www.steve-banks.org