What locomotives and rolling stock should be produced first?

[mdvle]

9 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

But they have not stuck with the GWR. They have produced many non-GWR items as well. They have produced "enough" GWR items, from one perspective, but they certainly haven't gone all-in on one region.

 

Nobody was saying that it would be exclusively GWR (or any other choice of Big Four), but rather that is where you start because it avoids the chicken/egg problem of "I don't buy loco X because there is no stock / I won't by that coach because there is no loco".

 

Once you have that base a manufacturer can expand out into other regions and see if there is a market or not.

[whart57]

40 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Yes, you find assembling, painting, lining, etc. a 3D print easy. I would say most modellers - the one who primarily buy RTR at least, which is probably most of them - do not.

 

You know Airfix kits used to be popular, in fact I still see them in hobby shops. (Well perhaps not Airfix but you know what I mean). I was sticking Airfix kits together when I was nine years old, as indeed were most of my peers. I was quite good at it by the time I was a teenager. Working with a well designed and finished 3D print is no harder than putting together the Airfix Hawker Hurricane. The key is "well designed and finished". A cludge job is hard even for an experienced modeller, but that is not where we should go. A body that requires little more than some rattle cans of paint and water slide transfers to finish can be made.

[whart57]

6 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

A couple of years ago, the multicolour 3D printer was developed...  now we have printers like the Mimaki 3DUJ553 which uses a technique to blend resin and ink to achieve a max number of over 10 million colours. 

 

Can it print white though? I'd settle for 256 colours if one of them was white.

[Moria15]

2 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Can it print white though? I'd settle for 256 colours if one of them was white.

 

Yes, because as with paper printers, you use a base resin,  which can be white or transparent  (kinda like Inkjet or Laser Decal sheets), so printing in 3DColour white is not an issue :)

 

Of course, this also means, that if you use clear resin, you can print completely flush glazing as well :)

 

Graham

Edited June 18, 2022 by Moria15

[eldomtom2]

11 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

You know Airfix kits used to be popular, in fact I still see them in hobby shops. (Well perhaps not Airfix but you know what I mean). I was sticking Airfix kits together when I was nine years old, as indeed were most of my peers. I was quite good at it by the time I was a teenager. Working with a well designed and finished 3D print is no harder than putting together the Airfix Hawker Hurricane. The key is "well designed and finished". A cludge job is hard even for an experienced modeller, but that is not where we should go. A body that requires little more than some rattle cans of paint and water slide transfers to finish can be made.

Again - you underestimate how much expertise rattle-cans and transfers actually require. They can never replace RTR.

[britishcolumbian]

I also think it's a bit... questionable... to be complaining about this. TT - in any outline except German - is not ever going to be a scale in which disinterested parents get their kid a train set for Christmas. Anyone who gets into it is going to be not afraid of the effort needed to build a nice layout, put some kits together etc.

[eldomtom2]

16 minutes ago, Moria15 said:

Actually, that's not quite true.

 

The new generation of full colour 3D printers actually can print in full colour down to a resoultion of 0.2mm.  Whilst currently, they are a little outside the price range of the home enthusiast, it won't be long, as we saw with the move from black and white home printers to full colour printers some years ago.

 

A couple of years ago, the multicolour 3D printer was developed...  now we have printers like the Mimaki 3DUJ553 which uses a technique to blend resin and ink to achieve a max number of over 10 million colours knoown as a full colour printer.  This was released in 2017 and is currently around $200,000...   however, there are other options now, down to aout $30,000  and the price is decreasing.

 

I would say give it a couple of years :)

 

Graham

We shall see. However, there's a reason why colouring the plastic itself fell out of favour in model train manufacture...

 

Just now, britishcolumbian said:

I also think it's a bit... questionable... to be complaining about this. TT - in any outline except German - is not ever going to be a scale in which disinterested parents get their kid a train set for Christmas. Anyone who gets into it is going to be not afraid of the effort needed to build a nice layout, put some kits together etc.

Again - you vastly underestimate how far above the train set level loco kit-building is. You can build a perfectly good-looking layout in OO or N without touching a spraycan or transfer.

[mdvle]

1 hour ago, britishcolumbian said:

But it's getting there. There's one small-series manufacturer in Hungary specialising in building kits and miscellaneous other details for scenery (transformer boxes, rubbish bins, etc) that uses 3D printing extensively; .

 

Using 3D printings for detail parts for scenery is very common at this point, with at least one of the major manufacturers in North America using it for that purpose.

 

It has also been used for very limited runs of OO rolling stock through the partnership between Dapol and Rails of Sheffield - where the limitations of 3D printing have been very apparent.

 

But it is a very big leap to go from that to mass market RTR locos and rolling stock.  That is still quite a ways away.

 

13 minutes ago, whart57 said:

You know Airfix kits used to be popular, in fact I still see them in hobby shops. (Well perhaps not Airfix but you know what I mean). I was sticking Airfix kits together when I was nine years old, as indeed were most of my peers. I was quite good at it by the time I was a teenager. Working with a well designed and finished 3D print is no harder than putting together the Airfix Hawker Hurricane. The key is "well designed and finished". A cludge job is hard even for an experienced modeller, but that is not where we should go. A body that requires little more than some rattle cans of paint and water slide transfers to finish can be made.

 

The people currently in UK or North American TT (whichever version of TT it is) are currently the type of people who are quite happy building kits and doing the painting and decorating - it essentially is a necessity.

 

But the goal of Heljan, Peco, and potentially others is to open up TT:120 to the vast numbers of us in the hobby who aren't interested (for whatever reason, including lack of time or skills) in building kits and then ruining them with a poor paint job because we don't have your skills.

 

Thus the reason why we are being dismissive of the idea of 3D printing items - that isn't the type of modeling we are looking for.

[Moria15]

17 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

We shall see. However, there's a reason why colouring the plastic itself fell out of favour in model train manufacture...

 

 

 

Of course, it has yet to be proven fully one way or the other.. however.. this is a pic from an exhibition I went to where Mimaki were exhibiting which I certainly found impressive as they were straight off the printer with no post-processing.

 

This is not like injection moulded plastic where you can only inject one colour at a time and then put the bits together :)

 

 

Graham

Edited June 18, 2022 by Moria15

[mdvle]

5 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

 - is not ever going to be a scale in which disinterested parents get their kid a train set for Christmas.

 

I would agree, but history has shown me that the unthinkable often happens, so I will leave this one as a "I think probable but never say never"

 

5 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

Anyone who gets into it is going to be not afraid of the effort needed to build a nice layout, put some kits together etc.

 

Which is where I think we will need to disagree.

 

The guess/assumption here is that Peco/Heljan/others are viewing this as an attempt to repeat what Heljan (followed much later by Dapol, and with some smaller operations like Lionheart and Minerva) achieved with 7mm/O - creating a RTR market that can meet the needs of say 90% of the modelers in that scale.

 

 

[D9020 Nimbus]

3-d printing has been used in 009 to a fair extent — a sophisticated version or something like is used by Fourdees to produce a range of 009 locos on proprietary chassis (mostly Farish or Kato).

[britishcolumbian]

3 minutes ago, mdvle said:

 

Thus the reason why we are being dismissive of the idea of 3D printing items - that isn't the type of modeling we are looking for.

 

To reframe an earlier comment of mine in railway terms, on the way from Stephenson to HST we're at the Mallard. Nothing happens overnight, but we'll get there.

[Moria15]

2 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

 

To reframe an earlier comment of mine in railway terms, on the way from Stephenson to HST we're at the Mallard. Nothing happens overnight, but we'll get there.

 

Not sure we are even at Mallard yet...  it seems to me we are more likely at the Rainhill trials waiting to see what is likely to be available...  but thats the pessemist in me :)

 

Graham

[mdvle]

4 minutes ago, britishcolumbian said:

 

To reframe an earlier comment of mine in railway terms, on the way from Stephenson to HST we're at the Mallard. Nothing happens overnight, but we'll get there.

 

Don't think we are even close to Mallard yet based on the evidence of what has come to market so far.  A large number of us are very happy in OO that Rapido announced their model of the GWR Iron Mink given that it is cheaper and much more accurate / finer detailed than the 3D printed version offered by Dapol/Rails of Sheffield.

 

Will we get there?  Perhaps.  But people have been predicting 3D printing would "imminently" replace injection plastic models for 10+ years now and we really aren't any closer to that actually happening.

 

And the predictions tend to also overlook the side effects of development in 3D printing - like say perhaps the ability to 3D print the injection molds at 1/100th the cost of current tooling changing the economics entirely...

[Vanguard 5374]

I think we will see a boom in cottage industries thriving on the success of TT120, as I’ve been looking into it myself for what I plan on creating and what to do in doing so. A 0-6-0 chassis for a Jinty can easily be adapted for other locomotives using a close or similar wheelbase, it’s just a case of making do for now, using items that are there to be used and helping nurture the scale into something great.

 

At this point in time I’d be grateful for any British outline stock, regardless of origin or manufacture. I’m curious as to how far the chassis from an Austerity or a English Electric shunter can be adapted, hopefully if one of them (or both) do come to the market.

[whart57]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

The guess/assumption here is that Peco/Heljan/others are viewing this as an attempt to repeat what Heljan (followed much later by Dapol, and with some smaller operations like Lionheart and Minerva) achieved with 7mm/O - creating a RTR market that can meet the needs of say 90% of the modelers in that scale.

 As much as 90%? When you see the wishlists and realise they are all different then I'd say 40% would be closer.

[spamcan61]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

 

 

The guess/assumption here is that Peco/Heljan/others are viewing this as an attempt to repeat what Heljan (followed much later by Dapol, and with some smaller operations like Lionheart and Minerva) achieved with 7mm/O - creating a RTR market that can meet the needs of say 90% of the modelers in that scale.

 

 

This is a very different situation though, there was a wide variety of O gauge products before Heljan joined the fray, people had been creating O gauge layouts for decades. Heljan brought O gauge back into the commercial RtR mainstream, particularly for D&E period, but they weren't starting from ground zero in a new scale.

 

I'm struggling to understand how this new TT:120 British outline will gain traction unless a 'significant' size range appears in a few years, which will cost millions. A high risk investment IMHO.

Edited June 18, 2022 by spamcan61

[whart57]

1 hour ago, mdvle said:

But the goal of Heljan, Peco, and potentially others is to open up TT:120 to the vast numbers of us in the hobby who aren't interested (for whatever reason, including lack of time or skills) in building kits and then ruining them with a poor paint job because we don't have your skills.

 

Thus the reason why we are being dismissive of the idea of 3D printing items - that isn't the type of modeling we are looking for.

 

If it isn't the sort of modelling you are looking for then should you even be considering TT:120 this early in its (British) evolution?

 

Heljan are talking of late next year for the Class 31, if the Austerity and 08 do appear that will be 2024. No-one else has announced product other than Gaugemaster doing a Lazarus job on a failed Class 66 project of Mehano's (I think). A reasonably complete sub-range of RTR is at least five years away. Already people are asking "why a class 31 why not a class 47". If Heljan had announced a 47 the question would be the other way about.

 

Using 3D printed components is not ideal, but the ideal is twenty years away. With a following wind and no rocks in the way. When OO and N were at a similar stage in their evolution gaps were filled by white metal and resin kits and etched brass. That sort of thing is harder than taking a 3D print so TT:120 is lucky to have an improved technology available. For the first decade the choice will either be a very limited selection of RTR or being creative with what the CAD bunnies come up with. If you don't like that choice then you will have to stick with OO.

[eldomtom2]

3 minutes ago, whart57 said:

the first decade the choice will either be a very limited selection of RTR or being creative with what the CAD bunnies come up with. If you don't like that choice then you will have to stick with OO.

The history has generally been that most people stick with the limited selection of RTR...

[mdvle]

17 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 As much as 90%? When you see the wishlists and realise they are all different then I'd say 40% would be closer.

 

Wishlists don't reflect the wider market, they reflect a small subset of the subset that participate online.  And even with that those people buy what is available to use for a layout in addition to do the wishlisting.

 

7 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Heljan brought O gauge back into the commercial RtR mainstream, particularly for D&E period, but they weren't starting from ground zero in a new scale.

 

True enough.

 

7 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

I'm struggling to understand how this new TT:120 British outline will gain traction unless a 'significant' size range appears in a few years, which will cost millions. A high risk investment IMHO.

 

Only if it was a single manufacturer.

 

Spread out over 2 or 3 manufacturers and while still risky it is no longer high risk.

 

But you are right, there is no guarantee that this will be a success - but even in OO we are now seeing models brought successfully to market (even if not as accurate as some would like - see Fell) that have long been considered too financially risky.

 

[britishcolumbian]

9 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

This is a very different situation though, there was a wide variety of O gauge products before Heljan joined the fray, people had been creating O gauge layouts for decades. Heljan brought O gauge back into the commercial RtR mainstream, particularly for D&E period, but they weren't starting from ground zero in a new scale.

 

I'm struggling to understand how this new TT:120 British outline will gain traction unless a 'significant' size range appears in a few years, which will cost millions. A high risk investment IMHO.

 

The potential market for British outline TT scale is easily as big as the market is at present for Hungarian outline in TT, and all the major manufacturers (Tillig, Roco, Piko, Kuehn) have produced a (ever-increasing) variety of models. It will not ever replace OO but it *will* find its niche.

[Wagonmaster]

Seems like we need a full range at once! Years ago, we modern image modellers only had a shunter and classes 31, 35, 37, 77 and 81 from Tri-ang Hornby for quite a few years.

 

I would throw in a Class 47, but the myriad variations over their life could be a problem. A Class 57 would be a logical follow on. The other, for me, would be a Class 25.

 

It will be very interesting to see how this develops.

[mdvle]

7 minutes ago, whart57 said:

If it isn't the sort of modelling you are looking for then should you even be considering TT:120 this early in its (British) evolution?

 

Absolutely one should.

 

It all comes down to a variation on the chicken/egg and the need for "early adopters"

 

If people don't buy the Heljan 31 now - and any other items that come along - then we won't get to the point where Heljan and others decide it is financially viable to proceed with the 2nd round of products.

 

And while it won't necessarily be one's dream layout a 31 and some rolling stock will allow for a layout of some sort as mentioned by someone else in this thread.

 

7 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Heljan are talking of late next year for the Class 31, if the Austerity and 08 do appear that will be 2024. No-one else has announced product other than Gaugemaster doing a Lazarus job on a failed Class 66 project of Mehano's (I think). A reasonably complete sub-range of RTR is at least five years away. Already people are asking "why a class 31 why not a class 47". If Heljan had announced a 47 the question would be the other way about.

 

Again we come back to that this is all only days old.  It is far too soon to know what other manufacturers may or may not have planned for TT:120.

 

You are right that we will have a better idea in a couple of years, and who knows maybe the reason Heljan didn't announce a 47 is because someone else is working on it (or maybe not).

 

7 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Using 3D printed components is not ideal, but the ideal is twenty years away. With a following wind and no rocks in the way.

 

RTR 7mm/O matured in about 10 years.

 

7 minutes ago, whart57 said:

When OO and N were at a similar stage in their evolution gaps were filled by white metal and resin kits and etched brass.

 

We live in a different world from back then though - anyone with the desire and the financial details can simply go to China and get something made - this is how KR Models started up for example.

 

We also have a number of existing companies bringing out 30 or so new tooled items a year into OO and N, any of whom could dip a toe into the TT:120 market.

 

[rue_d_etropal]

I was surprised they chose a class 31. S class 47 might have been better, as at least some of those were used on construction trains in France, do increasing potential market. A class 20 would also have a French market. An Austerity tank would be useful, and those were also used on the continent. Two them were used on the Peugeot internal railway, with what also looked like British wagons. 

3d printing is way forward. I am adding the scale to all my new designs and also workng through my existing collection.

Just completed resized designs for standard 16 ton coal trucks, 3 different types, as well as a 9ft  and 10ft chassis. In this small size only offering finer grade plastic. Details on my website.

[britishcolumbian]

37 minutes ago, rue_d_etropal said:

Just completed resized designs for standard 16 ton coal trucks, 3 different types, as well as a 9ft  and 10ft chassis. In this small size only offering finer grade plastic. Details on my website.

 

I've gone ahead and ordered one of the 16 tonners to get my fingers wet with something British... estimate says I should have it in the beginning of next month some time.

 

I looked through the rest of the stuff you've got listed and have to ask: would you consider scaling the Class 120 to 1:120 at some point, or drawing up a Class 121 or 122 someday?