What the hell ever happened to TT?

For the same reason VHS beat out Betamax. Both are about the same, but the market spoke...

Z is good for modelers who travel alot. There is the guy who literally carried his entire layout with him on business trips and then worked on the layout between business meetings in his hotel room.

Dunno about the rest of the world but in the UK there was just one manufacturer with very limited range that duplicated a small subset their OO stuff.

British TT had the same problem British OO did - it was built to a larger scale to accommodate the mechanisms. So it was 1:100 not the more usual 1:120 which is equivalent to a full size 4' gauge.

There is however a UK specialist society whose members model it in fine scale with craft kits, fairly easy to do when you can just re-scale the brass etchings. They use the same scale on 14.2mm gauge track.

And "the market" here in Europe has given a new live to TT. There are only a few manufacturers, but quality has improved immensely, there is a new track system and the number of users is increasing.

During the US convention in Rodgau, Germany, there was an large Z-scale modular layout of US trains.

Kitmaster also made plastic kits in the scale. Only one loco got produced and was suitable as a static display the British Railways MK1 coaches like the OO ones were excellent for their time provided you changed the wheels.

The Kitmaster offerings in TT may have been a sign that the scale was expected to take off but on the other hand the Company had some strange policies in regard to scale.Amongst their range were models of European prototypes but produced to British 00 scale rather than H0 which limited the export market potential they could have had.

G.Harman

I forgot them. Their OO coaches were better than anything from Hornby Dublo or Triang.

Attempts by European manufacturers to enter the British market suffered the reverse problem. Rivarossi (I think) made an unrebuilt Royal Scot and some rather nice LMS coaches, and a Warship diseasel and Bulleid coaches (Warships were used out of Waterloo at the time) but neither took off because the potential buyers were already in 4mm scale not 3.5.

I bought the Deutsche Bundesbahn passenger coaches - they were HO. They were offered to go with the DB BR 23 which was OO scale.

I still have the Swiss Crocodile which is OO scale and the Royal Scot in 3mm/ft. scale. That does duty as my sample model to pull out when anyone mentions TT around my layout.

Greg.P.

It's Fleischmann who does the Warship Diesel and three Bullied coaches in HO. These are still in their catalogue (2008) presumably as they are slow sellers. Roco does the British Rail 0-6-0 Diesel shunter in Dutch liveries. Cut off the European headlights and repaint. Rivarossi did the Royal Scot and LMS coaches in 3.8mm/ft scale, thereby making them out of scale for either HO or OO. :-( Lima did their British range in HO 1974-76 before changing to OO scale. Some of the models are not too bad if one tosses the wheels and couplers.

Greg.P.

I was in a very good model shop in Barcelona last Autumn and they had a Fleischmann Warship in a display case,so those who really want one should be able to find one somewhere.

G.Harman

The stuff I mentioned turns up occasionally. When they were made they were streets ahead of contemporary British models. The carriages were equal in quality to the best of the European HO.

But they were the wrong scale for existing modellers and the range was too limited for new modellers.

At least, in Europe (especially Germany) there is a big enough market for TT (judging from Nurnberg fair report news).

The quality is very good, judging from photos, and running quality should be better than most N-scale stuff (more space for mechanisms)

Surely 1:120 scale is more easy to handle, compared to 1:160, but the market decided otherwise in the USA.

N.F.

I run the odd British train on my German layout. I think the British Ffyfes banana van could almost be justified :-)