Do we need a current day BRMSB?

[Ravenser]

12 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

Setting standards is one of those things The Double O Gauge Asscoation has been working on for many years - with some success.

 

I suspect @Ravenser can provide more details.

 

 

The current standards are here  DOGA standards

 

When they were drawn up (1993-2003) the people concerned went to some trouble to avoid re-inventing the wheel. After fairly extensive consultation (involving going to shows with a stand and talking to people , not to mention extended correspondence from members in the Journal, they found  there were two options for a wheel profile which commanded support on the ground - the NMRA RP25/110 wheel profile, and those folk using Gibson and Ultrascale wheels for OO .

 

The latter are in practice the 1979 EMGS wheel profile , with the back to back closed up for 16.5mm gauge , and this , with a track to match was being touted in the 1990s  by people like Iain Rice as "the way forward for finescale OO"  (

 

I strongly suspect that this was a way for C+L, Alan Gibson, and Ultrascale to make their EM products commercially viable - sell the same wheels/ track components to OO modellers and your volumes/ production runs dramatically increase, with consequent economies of scale).

 

So the RP25/110 profile was duly adopted by DOGA as the Standard for wheels on commercial models . Word of mouth said that Bachmann were already using it. In those days we were faced with Lima "pizzacutter" wheels , and heavy coarse wheels from Hornby , so this new standard was labelled OO Intermediate , being significantly better than most RTR wheels then available. (Nobody then or now believed Hornby or Bachmann were going to adopt  the 1979  EMGS wheel short of a Frost Fair in Hell,  or that Peco would ever consider making track tailored to fit it.)

 

It subsequently became apparent that the exact interpretation of the data/figures on NMRA track sheets for 16.5mm gauge was pretty opaque, and there seemed no-one available to provide an authoritative guidance

 

DOGA therefore drew up a revised OO Intermediate track sheet, which defined the envelope of track which fully fitted RP~25/110. 

 

It then became obvious that track built to the old BRMSB track standard fell just within this envelope - meaning that there were already quite a lot of OO modellers who were de facto workin g to this track standard.

 

At this stage Peco were making the proverbial brick wall look flexible and resilient  (Things have changed) . In the early years, they wouldn't even tell anyone what the actual flangeways used on Streamline were ... Did you know that the flangeways on code 75 and code 100  Peco Streamline were (and probably still are) exactly the same??   Or that the flangeways on Peco Setrack code 100 were (and possibly still are) significantly coarser than for Peco Streamline code 100?? 

 

So things moved to "build your own points to fit modern RTR properly"...

 

1. It's clear to me that we do not need new wheel and track standards drawing up. 

 

We already have 2 wheel standards which are widely - if nominally - accepted , in the form of RP25/110 , and 1979 EMGS (approximately equivalent to NMRA RP25/88)

 

We do not need  the invention of a third wheel profile that nobody is currently manufacturing  as a "standard"

 

A track standard to match RP25/110 has already been defined. - see OO Intermediate

 

A track standard for EMGS wheels set to 16.5mm also exists (DOGA OO Finescale ) . This package is simply 1979 EM minus 1.7mm 

 

2. The problems lie in securing full adherence to these existing standards.

 

- Although all manufacturers of RTR OO now claim adherence to RP25/110, in practice they deliver their own interpretation of it, which is very often thereabouts rather than there.

 

We have left the era when different manufacturers used wildly different wheel standards and some brands would jam on handbuilt track to any standard so that rewheeling was a matter of course in OO. What we now have is a fine play of "near enough/good enough" not exact compliance. Whether the US HO scene is actually any better on the ground I don't know, not handling the stuff.

 

- Manufacturers' and factory quality control is approximate .

 

Anyone who steps away from the theological debates about 0.1mm more or less on a nominal standard and takes a set of dial calipers to some actual models will find they've opened a large can of juicy wriggling worms ... Variations of 0.2-0.3mm between the back to backs on different axles of the same loco are not at all uncommon. This ignores the worst cases of manipulation. Bachmann issued their Deltic with a B2B of 13.9mm on the outer axle of each bogie and 14.4mm on the other two axles. Hornby have been known to fit wheels of two different profiles on a model.

 

How this kind of tightening up of manufacturing tolerances is to be achieved, when production is spread across multiple Chinese factories, intercontinental QC is already an issue, and China has closedc its borders to foriegn travellers for 2 years and counting, I don't quite know

 

- Some people in the hobby - for their own , varied, reasons - do NOT want to see effective standards in OO , and are determined to obscure , delegitimise , and subvert those standards which do exist by whatever means they can  in order to prevent them becoming effective. If that sounds a touch paranoid,  older members will recall the episode in which a OO track standard poll on RMWeb was systematically sabotaged by outside parties who had strong views of their own on what should happen in OO, which the poll threatened to challenge. There seems rather more of that sort of thing around than you might expect.

 

As for PMP's suggestion of a tension-lock standard:

 

- The tension-lock originated as a Lines Bros /Rovex proprietory item . When Lines bought the wreckage of Meccano Ltd and G & R Wrenn acquired the Hornby Dublo tooling , Wrenn were part of the Lines Group , so their fitting of the Lines Group's coupling wasn't an issue. As the 2 Lines Bros companies held a near monopoly of OO RTR from 1964-77 the tnsion lock became the de facto standard OO coupling. Airfix, Mainline and Lima duly adopted it, but I wonder if Airfix's slimline version may have been intended to avoid any patent/IP issues with Rovex Ltd

 

An outside standard for a historic proprietary device might raise complications.

 

-  Hornby Hobbies are visibly incapable of maintaining a single version of the tension lock within their own production. How an outsider could make them do so, let alone corrale all the other players (who keep popping up) and keep them singing the same musical line from the same hymn sheet, I'm not sure , in the face of investment in existing tool banks.  It was historic RTR tooling that rendered the BRMSB OO standards marginal in the post-war world 

 

The reason people in the 1990s wanted NEM pockets was that they felt easily demountable plug in couplers would at least allow individual modellers to standardise on a version of their own choice

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by Ravenser

[Clive Mortimore]

Hi Mick

 

I would say yes to a set of standards. I look forward to reading them when you have finished.

[newbryford]

10 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

Hi Mick

 

I would say yes to a set of standards. I look forward to reading them when you have finished.

 

Simple - it's all painted yellow.

 

[Ruston]

On 18/04/2022 at 08:49, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

It should be mandatory that all manufacturers, retailers and all involved in the model railway trade should belong to trade association which has clout, the fees paid could always be passed on to the customers/modellers, I'm sure no one would complain!

 

Mike.

I'm not sure if that's tongue in cheek or not but I would complain. I don't want the price of goods to go up to pay for someone to oversee and enforce a standard size of tension lock coupler. I remove and throw those things in the bin on every engine and item of stock anyway. On the other hand, I'd be happy to pay the extra if they enforced the ditching of the same ridiculous appendages and then we could finally get engines that have deep buffer beams without a great big hole for the coupling to poke out from.

[The Johnster]

We probably need a new type of standard RTR coupling, one that can be mounted on the buffer beam like real couplings are so that there is no mounting on bogies, pony trucks, etc, and of course it has to be capable of automatic coupling up and remote mechanical uncoupling, and look like a prototype coupling, with sideplay provided prototypically by a swinging drawhook where appropriate, and it should be adjustable so that it can be set for the best buffer gap possible on your layout's tightest curve/reverse curve, and it must prevent buffer locking on setrack when propelling, even through revese curves.

 

Meanwhile, back in the real world, The Johnster sighs and carries on with his life because the above is never going to happen, and realises he needs to STF up until he comes up with a viable proven workable cost-effective proposal for such a coupling, which is also never going to happen!

[drduncan]

I can’t help feeling that the question is rather do we need or want a UK version of the NMRA that covers all the modelling scales/gauges and speaks with one voice for all of us (when needed) and does a lot of the other things the nmra does too?

 

A way forward for an umbrella organisation- lets call it the UKMRA - is for the scale societies to  work together but in a way that doesn’t require mergers (let’s not go there - it seems even the EMGS and S4 soc can’t merge because their members allegedly won’t accept it even though they cover the same ground, so it’s a too painful issue).
 

Perhaps the weighting for voting on policy issues could be proportional  to scale society membership? Ie if the EMGS has 2000 members (for sake of argument) it will have twice the weighting of another society with 1000, but if the DOGA has 10,000 members it will have 5 times the weighting of the EMGS…clearly there would have to be rules to prevent spiking of policies that fall outside the scale societies purview so the collective 4mm scale societies couldn’t vote on n gauge matters…
 

It also seems that there could be 3 paths to membership:

through membership of a scale society 

through membership of an affiliated local club

through individual membership 

 

Fundamentally, though, any move for a national voice can only work if it has the support of the scale societies and the local clubs.  Is there willingness to do this by them? I don’t know. 
 

Something to think about.

Duncan

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 minutes ago, drduncan said:

A way forward for an umbrella organisation- lets call it the UKMRA - is for the scale societies to  work together but in a way that doesn’t require mergers (let’s not go there - it seems even the EMGS and S4 soc can’t merge because their members allegedly won’t accept it even though they cover the same ground, so it’s a too painful issue).

 

Just to leap to the defence of the EMGS, it is a society with both P4and EM modellers, the stores stock P4 and EM items, and offhand I can't remember a fight between the opposing factions, although I might have been washing my hair that day!, so it can be done.

 

Mike.

[Ravenser]

May I suggest that what the hobby  doesn't need is a current day BRMSB ? 

 

That is because the BRMSB was a qualified failure. To be specific, it proved quite unable to get its standards generally adopted and adhered to. As the famous quotation attributed to Einstein puts it, "Insanity is keeping doing something you know doesn't work."

 

I remember Cyril Freezer's comment when I mentioned the subject to him once: "The BRMSB was a cabal!" CJF would know, because he was actually a member of the BRMSB in its latter stages. And that - the fact that it was a cabal - is the main reason why it failed.

To be specific, the BRMSB as set up during the Blitz comprised 3 people: the editors of MRN, MRC, and Trains (later Trains Illustrated) . They rapidly co-opted the proprietor of the Constructor, one FW Chubb, and a well-known finescale modeller of the time  "in the smaller gauges", Micheal Longridge, who pre-war modelled in HO and belonged to Wimbledon MRC along with AR Walkley and A Stewart-Reidpath, and post-war modelled in EM and was a member of the MRC along with FW Chubb and Peter Denny . (If you look at Peter Denny's books on Buckingham you'll find the photos of Buckingham Mk1 and its stock in the late 40s are credited to Messrs Chubb and Longridge...)

 

The BRMSB was set up in response to a high-powered letter calling for clear, coherent and consistant standards for OO goods made by the specialist trade so that they were actually compatible. When the BRMSB actually convened (possibly in an air-raid shelter - this was the winter of 1940-41) they decided firstly to broaden their remit to cover Gauge O , and secondly that they would not draw up standards for 4mm scale /16.5mm gauge at all - and would instead recommend that post war modellers work in either a new gauge of 4mm scale/18mm gauge or in HO, for both of which they would provide standards .

 

This was not at all what they had been called in existance to do, and it is possible to detect the muffled echos of a loud explosion in the hobby in the pages of the Constructor when people found out what they were intending to do. The backlash was evidently strong enough to force them to concoct  OO standards after all.

 

This wasn't an accident . A "compromise gauge" of 18mm as the solution to the HO/OO gauge war was the pet idea of Mr Chubb, the proprietor of the Constructor - and no doubt his employee the Editor, fell quietly into line. Meanwhile JN Maselyne of MRN was very impressed by the work of WS Norris in 7mm and seems to have made that the basis for the Gauge O Finescale standard.

 

Effectively the BRMSB as a cabal meant that a couple of eminent people were able to hijack a standards project and try to railroad the entire hobby into their own personal visions of finer standards. They failed.

 

And the idea of magazine editors as "the unacknowledged legislators of the model railway world" was tested to destruction in the 1950s. The BRMSB had no means of ensuring anyone complied with its standards, and they assumed that commercial RTR - "the toy trade" - had little or nothing to do with railway modelling. In fact it turned out to be the core of 4mm modelling - and the BRMSB had precisely nil influence on any of the RTR manufacturers when it came to standards.

 

(In fairness the BRMSB did produce a O Gauge Coarse standard aimed at the specialist RTR trade like Leeds and Bonds - and the postwar demise of anything other than very basic Hornby Gauge O cleared the field of tinplate)

 

The  1960s saw another handful of modellers form a cabal and try to set the hobby to rights with a finescale agenda. This time they gave themselves the fine name of the Model Railway Study Group . They weren't very impressed with Mr Chubb's "compromise gauge" of EM so they  decided to replace it in the spirit of "this time we'll get it right" - the result was P4. What isn't generally remembered is that they also decided to issue new exact scale standards for S gauge, 3mm (they wanted to change the scale to 1:100 I think) and probably also 2mm and 7mm. Needless to say nobody gave them a mandate for any of this...

 

The MRSG had a plan for enforcement and compliance . Unfortunately it blew up in everyone's face. The 4 or 5 of them set up a group called the Protofour Society, which they, the MRSG members, owned. They also set up a company called Studiolith to make approved components to the official standards (there may have been an IP angle here). Studiolith would only sell to members of the Protofour Society, and members of the Protofour Society had to undertake to use only components from the approved supplier (Studiolith)

 

The whole thin g blew up when Studiolith proved unable to meet the needs of a single large exhibition layout, The N London Group's Heckmondwike. The layout leaders stepped outside the approved supply chain in desperation to meet an exhibition deadline, the Management Committee of the Protofour Society (=MRSG) found out, expelled the Group - en mass, and barred them from Studiolith supplies , and in the resulting bust-up the entire senior membership of the Protofour Society resigned or was expelled.

 

It got ugly. The original RM article of Heckmondwike is the only modelling article I have ever seen prefixed by a formal legal disclaimer - because the MRSG sent a solicitors' letter to Cyril Freezer and Sydney Pritchard threatening legal action if the layout was described in print as Protofour.  (That put me off P4 for life). The refugees formed the Scalefour Society. Studiolith I think became Exactoscale in the end - certainly for some years afterwards they required you to sign a formal disclaimer that you were not a member of S4Soc otherwise they would not supply you.

 

In my view almost the last thing we need is another self-appointed little clique of 4-5 people to generate their own lofty vision for the future of the hobby and try to impose it on the hobby at large.

 

We've been there before. It does not work.

[newbryford]

So what you're saying is that each of the mainstream 00 [*] manufacturers pretty much tread their own way with the only common factor really being 16.5mm gauge?

 

Is it possible that one of the DOGA standards would cover the majority of the wheels/track already in use?

Or do we need possibly two - one for the likes of Peco Code 75 (I suggest that as I'm pretty certain that's the clear market leader in that form of track) and then a coarser set for other tracks/wheels?

(Waits for the response of the other 00 standards such as 00-SF - but I'm suggesting RTR stock with RTP track, not handbuilt track)

 

And the manufacturers can be "encouraged" to say their stock conforms with one - or maybe even both if possible) - of those standards?

 

I suggest DOGAas a starting point as they are the most well known supporter of 00 causes, but I don't know how much influence or persuausion DOGA has with the manufacturers.

Or - is this too simplistic?

 

[*] Yes - I will repeat my leaning towards 00.

[Ravenser]

4 hours ago, drduncan said:

I can’t help feeling that the question is rather do we need or want a UK version of the NMRA that covers all the modelling scales/gauges and speaks with one voice for all of us (when needed) and does a lot of the other things the nmra does too?

 

A way forward for an umbrella organisation- lets call it the UKMRA - is for the scale societies to  work together but in a way that doesn’t require mergers (let’s not go there - it seems even the EMGS and S4 soc can’t merge because their members allegedly won’t accept it even though they cover the same ground, so it’s a too painful issue).
 

Perhaps the weighting for voting on policy issues could be proportional  to scale society membership? Ie if the EMGS has 2000 members (for sake of argument) it will have twice the weighting of another society with 1000, but if the DOGA has 10,000 members it will have 5 times the weighting of the EMGS…clearly there would have to be rules to prevent spiking of policies that fall outside the scale societies purview so the collective 4mm scale societies couldn’t vote on n gauge matters…
 

It also seems that there could be 3 paths to membership:

through membership of a scale society 

through membership of an affiliated local club

through individual membership 

 

Fundamentally, though, any move for a national voice can only work if it has the support of the scale societies and the local clubs.  Is there willingness to do this by them? I don’t know. 
 

Something to think about.

Duncan

 

This bristles with problems.

 

1. A fairly fundamental issue for me is that standards for any gauge should be set by those actually working in the gauge or to the standard concerned. The people directly concerned - who know what the practicalities are, and have skin in the game, and want the thing to work - are the voices who matter.

 

Taking your Federation of Scale Societies - why should standards for P4 or S be set by a group in which the bulk of the votes are wielded by 7mm, N gauge EM and OO9 modellers, most of whom have no experience of the practicalities of working in P4?

 

(To the best of my knowledge , GOG and NGS are the largest scale societies . EMGS and OO9 must be among the larger ones)

 

Come to that , the combined weight of GOG , EMGS and S4Soc would heavily outweigh NGS. Why should standards for N gauge RTR be largely driven by the voices of those in other scales, most of whom are committed to non-RTR modelling?

 

I'm acutely aware that the combined membership of EMGS + S4Soc  substantially outnumbers the membership of DOGA. PMP wants a standard for the tensionlock . How would that  proposal fare in a committee dominated by 4mm finescale modellers who reject the things???

 

2. Some folk are opposed to certain other gauges.

 

If you are in EM ,  you have presumably chosen not to work in P4 , and vice versa. If you are in P4 , you do not want to do OO RTR...

 

Some years ago DOGA had a stand at Watford  Finescale . The late Ray Hammond was also exhibiting, and I remember he wandered round to our little stand , contemplated it and remarked "Of course you eealise OO is a complete abomination" . Ray created the S4 standard which I understand is even more deadscale than P4. I doubt the Boxfile impressed him....

 

In the original Heckmondwike article, Bob Essery declare "we call EM the half-way house. We don't even mention OO".

 

True to his word, for the 2000 BRM/MRC show at Wembley Bob Essery wrote a bookazine history of the hobby in which OO was simply not mentioned at all after the early 1950s. All the layouts pictured had their scale and gauge carefully listed in the captions - except a few which were just described as "4mm"

 

Those were the OO layouts.

 

If you were a committed OO modeller , would you want people like Ray Hammond and Bob Essery to have a key voice in drawing up standards for the gauge? Would they actually want effective standards for OO RTR to exist??

 

As a OO modeller I don't want to have the standards kindly people in other scales who don't know my issues think that I should work to being imposed on  me.

 

 

[newbryford]

1 minute ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

 

If you were a committed OO modeller , would you want people like Ray Hammond and Bob Essery to have a key voice in drawing up standards for the gauge? Would they actually want effective standards for OO RTR to exist??

 

As a OO modeller I don't want to have the standards kindly people in other scales who don't know my issues think that I should work to being imposed on  me.

 

 

 

A very good point regarding standards being set by those not using them. 

 

If I were a N gauge modeller, I wouldn't want DOGA involved.

 

Hence my suggestion for DOGA trying to take the lead for 00 (as in 4mm/ft and 16.5mm gauge) as the vast majority of 4mm RTR is to some form of 00.

 

[PMP]

7 minutes ago, newbryford said:

So what you're saying is that each of the mainstream 00 [*] manufacturers pretty much tread their own way with the only common factor really being 16.5mm gauge?

(snip)

 

I suggest DOGAas a starting point as they are the most well known supporter of 00 causes, but I don't know how much influence or persuausion DOGA has with the manufacturers.

Or - is this too simplistic?

 

[*] Yes - I will repeat my leaning towards 00.

Regarding the first paragraph that’s pretty much my understanding of how OO RTR manufacturers work, with no disrespect to any of them. Unlike the NMRA standards there’s no similar UK 4mm OO gauge ‘Body’ that provides such a system or co-ordinates common protocols within the industry.

 

Regarding DOGAS, I don’t know any of my OO modelling compatriots that are members of the society, and only one who has been in the past. By comparison, friends whom model in other gauges and scales including RTR N and O, are notable by their membership of the respective societies. Likewise those societies carry a noticeable profile at exhibitions, with stands as well as layouts ‘advertising’ they’re associated with them. We hear virtually nothing of DOGAS, which as they theoretically represent the majority of UK outline modellers, (OO 4mm) is odd. I’d like to know for example roughly how many members they have, I believe O/EM/P4/N societies are in the low thousands, and have their own social media/forums. I have no idea of the OO group, which again for a group acting in the ‘OO’ modellers interests, would be good to know.

[PMP]

11 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

This bristles with problems.

 

1. A fairly fundamental issue for me is that standards for any gauge should be set by those actually working in the gauge or to the standard concerned. The people directly concerned - who know what the practicalities are, and have skin in the game, and want the thing to work - are the voices who matter.

 

PMP wants a standard for the tensionlock . How would that  proposal fare in a committee dominated by 4mm finescale modellers who reject the things???

 

Apart from being an ad-hoc reviewer tension locks (T/L) aren’t of any use to me I don’t use them. However what is clear is that the standard OO coupling by default is the T/L and that it makes sense for all OO RTR to be able to join to each other. And join without issues like the bar being too low/high and hooks engaging/disengaging accurately. Those factors aren’t of interest to P4/EM modellers as they don’t use them, so there’s no point engaging those modellers in the setting of a T/L standard, that’s would be a waste of everyone’s time. There’s no point in having a standard mounting point location, if the coupling that fits that mount, won’t engage other similar T/L couplings, in an opposing identical mount. That’s why there’s a need for a standard type of coupling that manufacturers could adopt as best practices.

[Wheatley]

36 minutes ago, newbryford said:

So what you're saying is that each of the mainstream 00 [*] manufacturers pretty much tread their own way with the only common factor really being 16.5mm gauge?

Yes, and it kind of works despite the fact that it ought not to. Most stuff works reasonably well on most track, most of the stuff which doesn't really work can be made to if you are so inclined, and if it really bugs you there are two very good scale societies who will help you get it just ('just' +/- 0.63mm). The rest of us amble along changing the odd droopy coupling or tweaking the back to backs on that one vehicle which always derails on that particular crossing nose. 

 

I admire those who can build stuff 'just right' to the extent that I'm a member of the S4 Soc, for me its essentially a subscription to a very good magazine full of lovely shiny things, with a free society attached. I'm also a committed OO modeller, largely because Hornby and Bacnmann can do Walchaerts valve gear better than I can (and belive me I have tried) and life is too short to worry about the rails being a bit too close together. 

[Ravenser]

1 hour ago, newbryford said:

So what you're saying is that each of the mainstream 00 [*] manufacturers pretty much tread their own way with the only common factor really being 16.5mm gauge?

 

Is it possible that one of the DOGA standards would cover the majority of the wheels/track already in use?

Or do we need possibly two - one for the likes of Peco Code 75 (I suggest that as I'm pretty certain that's the clear market leader in that form of track) and then a coarser set for other tracks/wheels?

(Waits for the response of the other 00 standards such as 00-SF - but I'm suggesting RTR stock with RTP track, not handbuilt track)

 

And the manufacturers can be "encouraged" to say their stock conforms with one - or maybe even both if possible) - of those standards?

 

I suggest DOGAas a starting point as they are the most well known supporter of 00 causes, but I don't know how much influence or persuausion DOGA has with the manufacturers.

Or - is this too simplistic?

 

[*] Yes - I will repeat my leaning towards 00.

 

 

Oh dear. I want' going to post again but this is such a tangle  I have to . Sorry.

 

1. No. The manufacturers' standards today are pretty close in terms of wheel profile . There is nothing like the huge differences of the 1980s and 90s between Hornby, lima and Bachmann

 

But the manufacturers are "thereabouts " , not "spot on for RP25/110" 

 

Back to backs are more divergent, and range between 14.1mm and 14.5mm (sometimes on the same model) 

 

At least some of that divergance is factory QC / manufacturing toierances. We can split hairs over nominal B2B standards, but if Regal Way or Kadar turn out models with varying B2Bs I'm not sure how we can get them to be more consistant.

 

2. OO Intermediate standard mandates an RP25/110 wheel profile . In theory every manufacturer is signed u;p to this, and it is the nearest thing to a global standard for 16.5mm gauge wheels.

 

So that would be the wheel standard to cover OO RTR. 

 

The issue is that Hornby's idea of RP25/110 is not quite the same as Bachmann's or Heljans or Dapol (themselves different) . What Cavalex and Accurascale are doing  I dunno. I might hope they would read the relevant datasheets and be quite tight in enforcing them on the factiories, but I've not handled any of their stuff.

 

And if different Chinese factories have their own take on RP25/110....

 

3. There is NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL between Peco Streamline Code 100 and Streamline Code 75.

 

Streamline Code 75 is NOT FINER than Streamline code 100

 

Sorry for the bold , but this is a total misnomer than needs nailing. The ONLY difference is the height of the rail.

 

Both have used 1.39mm flangeways for the last 30 years This was to cope with old Hornby wheels at 13.9mm B2B . The idea that code 75 Streamline is "finer" is a marketing illusion. 

 

After the last bout of DOGA/Peco contacts a few years back, I understand Peco said they would tighten up the flangeways to modern standards (=1.27mm or less) as tooling fell due for renewal  (These are second hand reports - I've never had any contact with Peco, for the record)  . Starting with some Code 100 items as that tooling wears out faster. (I presume this is liked to introduction of the new /Unifrog items)

 

So it is now entirely possible that parts of the code 100 range are finer than the code 75 range... Though the concrete sleeper ;points seem to be about 1.25mm flangeway

 

Not quite how I would have done it - leave code 100 as a deadfrog legacy range maybe - but they are the ones with the capital investment at staker, and they are still in business

 

Meanwhile Setrack c1990 used a 1.55mm flangeway. Anyone trying to run Gibsons or Ultrascales on that would get into trouble. Possibly they have tightened Setrack up since - I haven't measured any recent examples

 

Meanwhile the DOGA Journal editor has reported that the new Bullhead points are disconcertingly tight . That may be why the medium and small radius points have taken so long - I'd expect trouble with HJ models especially a 2-8-0 at those radii.

 

Getting manufacturers to admit what they are doing is well-nigh impossible. Hornby reduced the B 2B on their rolling stock wheels from 14.45mm to 14.2mm a few years ago - I routinely adjust Hornby wagon and coach wheels with a B2B gauge before using them. (Martin Wynne is opposed to any form of B2B adjustment, and did not seem to regard Hornby and Bachmann wheels as an alternative to Romford for rolling stock kits, even though Romfords are nearly twice the price and much harder to get hold of. Martin doesn't model in OO or so far as I'm aware in 4mm, and I doubt if he's bought any RTR in decades)

Edited April 19, 2022 by Ravenser

[Ravenser]

16 minutes ago, PMP said:

Apart from being an ad-hoc reviewer tension locks (T/L) aren’t of any use to me I don’t use them. However what is clear is that the standard OO coupling by default is the T/L and that it makes sense for all OO RTR to be able to join to each other. And join without issues like the bar being too low/high and hooks engaging/disengaging accurately. Those factors aren’t of interest to P4/EM modellers as they don’t use them, so there’s no point engaging those modellers in the setting of a T/L standard, that’s would be a waste of everyone’s time. There’s no point in having a standard mounting point location, if the coupling that fits that mount, won’t engage other similar T/L couplings, in an opposing identical mount. That’s why there’s a need for a standard type of coupling that manufacturers could adopt as best practices.

 

 

Since couplings are available as a spare part, you as a modeller can simply  standardise on one type , remove the others from the socket, and you have compatibility in the fleet. Total cost £10-£20 and a couple of evenings work with the fleet. 

 

A fraction of the cost of a single loco.

 

Not perfect , but definitely an option today

 

I was pointing out the flaw in drduncan's proposal of a federation of scale socities.

 

Drawing up data sheets is easy. How you apply leverage onto the manufacturers - and the factories - to adhere to those datasheets is another matter

 

[newbryford]

15 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

Since couplings are available as a spare part, you as a modeller can simply  standardise on one type , remove the others from the socket, and you have compatibility in the fleet. Total cost £10-£20 and a couple of evenings work with the fleet. 

 

 

 

Not if they fit sockets at different heights......

[newbryford]

40 minutes ago, PMP said:

Apart from being an ad-hoc reviewer tension locks (T/L) aren’t of any use to me I don’t use them. However what is clear is that the standard OO coupling by default is the T/L and that it makes sense for all OO RTR to be able to join to each other. And join without issues like the bar being too low/high and hooks engaging/disengaging accurately. Those factors aren’t of interest to P4/EM modellers as they don’t use them, so there’s no point engaging those modellers in the setting of a T/L standard, that’s would be a waste of everyone’s time. There’s no point in having a standard mounting point location, if the coupling that fits that mount, won’t engage other similar T/L couplings, in an opposing identical mount. That’s why there’s a need for a standard type of coupling that manufacturers could adopt as best practices.

 

I agree. Whether anyone likes it or not, it's almost a given that the T/L coupling is the de-facto standard for RTR 00, so commonality of coupling from one manufacturer (and between different vehicles of the same manufacturer) would be considered a "good thing".

 

There could be nothing more off-putting to newcomers to the hobby to find that stuff they buy to extend their system doesn't couple to their existing stock - yet they run on the same tracks.

 

Surely it's in the best interests of all manufacturers to have some conformity with what is arguably the standard coupling for RTR 00?

[Ravenser]

37 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

Not if they fit sockets at different heights......

 

Very true. There is a standard for that NEM pockets

 

As Bachmann are also lilliput they should have known perfectly well what the relevant NEM says...

 

Rumour has it they're fitting a modified cam arm on current Mk1s that puts the pocket at the correct heights.

And Keen Systems sell a resin replacement

[The Johnster]

Ravenser's history lesson was most illuminating; I'm old enough to remember the P4/S4 Heckmondwike kerfuffle, but not the BRSMB shennanigans.  Seems reasonable to comment that BRSMB, EM, P4 &c were all attempts by modellers to impose a set of standards on other modellers, with varying degrees of success or otherwise, and were possibly unproductive given the amount of schism and bad feeling caused.  Modellers are by definition obsessed with detail and fidelity to the prototype, something which is needed to produce good models but tends to 'go with' entrenched and robustly held opinions, which no doubt also didn't help matters...

 

What seems to be being promulgated by the OP of this thread is the setting up of common standards across RTR manufacturers' products by the RTR manufacturers themselves (if you think they'd take any notice of a standards body that they had not formed themselves, you are dreaming). Any such standards body, association, committee, group. or whatever would have to be funded by and staffed by the manufacturers, and there is no way that they would let us tell them how to spend their money or organise their production; they'd rightly regard it as none of our business!

 

This is a very different proposition to attempting to impose standards on modellers by other modellers with the intention of making their output standardised to the extent that a club's members can supply stock for a club's exhibition layout.  At home, if you are a modeller capable of scratch building to a reasonable scale standard (I'm not!), it doesn't matter what standards you impose upon yourself, only that they are uniform across your layout!

 

There are some commonly accepted standards across 4mm scale RTR 00 manufacturers.  The NEM box-mounted tension lock coupler is universal (although it defies standards in terms of mounting, height, profile, material, and distance from the buffer beam), as is a wheel profile suitable for running on Peco setrack and Streamline, and a standard buffer height is used (I can remember a time when Hornby did not conform to this).  12vdc power supply to 2-rail track is also universal in 00.  Back to backs are less rigidly conformed to, but we are getting into QC territory now; the fact that we can adjust our B2Bs means that they can go out of adjustment. 

 

I don't think we need a standards body for RTR, because the manufacturers do reasonably will with producing compatible 00 models without one.  But I'd like to see better coupling compatibility, and I don't hold out much hope of this as long as the manufacturers continute to manufacture their own tension locks.  It could be done by buying in the couplings as a product from a third party manufacturer that supplied the same couplings to all the RTR firms, but that's not going to happen...

[Enterprisingwestern]

6 hours ago, Ravenser said:

At least some of that divergance is factory QC / manufacturing toierances. We can split hairs over nominal B2B standards, but if Regal Way or Kadar turn out models with varying B2Bs I'm not sure how we can get them to be more consistant.

 

By the manufacturers making some sort of effort, either singularly or as a co-operative, to standardise on one set of dimensions.

What it needs is some sort of central clearing house to agree what those standards are.

Oh, hang on a minute,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

Mike.

[PMP]

9 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

Since couplings are available as a spare part, you as a modeller can simply  standardise on one type , remove the others from the socket, and you have compatibility in the fleet. Total cost £10-£20 and a couple of evenings work with the fleet. 

 

A fraction of the cost of a single loco.

 

Not perfect , but definitely an option today

 

I was pointing out the flaw in drduncan's proposal of a federation of scale socities.

 

Drawing up data sheets is easy. How you apply leverage onto the manufacturers - and the factories - to adhere to those datasheets is another matter

 

 

8 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

Very true. There is a standard for that NEM pockets

 

As Bachmann are also lilliput they should have known perfectly well what the relevant NEM says...

 

Rumour has it they're fitting a modified cam arm on current Mk1s that puts the pocket at the correct heights.

And Keen Systems sell a resin replacement

The standard pocket and mount location is almost an irrelevance, it’s putting the cart before the horse.

 

If Mr smith, returnee to hobby buys a supertrain locomotive he expects it to couple to other supertrains items and wondertrains rolling stock out of the box without any problems.  In an ideal world they would, but they don’t. Telling him to replace his couplings with another type, or try different T/L’s shouldn’t be happening. If there were a UKMRA standard for T/L dimensions and location ’in space’ all manufacturers could aim for that, ensuring within range and inter-range compatibility. Win win.

 

*T/L = tension lock

 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by PMP

[PMP]

7 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Any such standards body, association, committee, group. or whatever would have to be funded by and staffed by the manufacturers, and there is no way that they would let us tell them how to spend their money or organise their production; they'd rightly regard it as none of our business!

 

 

Why would it need to be funded by manufacturers?, NMRA isn’t.

https://www.nmra.org/about/national-organization

 

 

[The Johnster]

Because the manufacturers won’t take any notice of any other sort of body; those in the  00 trade never have and have no reason to start now.  They are content with the current situation. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

1 minute ago, The Johnster said:

Because the manufacturers won’t take any notice of any other sort of body; those in the  00 trade never have and have no reason to start now.  They are content with the current situation. 

 

True, if they can sell all/most of what they produce to a b@st@rd set of dimensions why would they go to the expense and grief to adopt a "standard".

 

Mike.