LMS Twins

It's a bit better with LNER in general, the Gresley LNER Group Standard designs have been particularly well covered by Bachmann but there isn't a great deal of pre-grouping stuff.

Regarding livery, LNER modellers are somewhat more fortunate as after the 1928 painting economies the liveries remained the same until during WW2. Isn't an additional complication with the LMS that big renumbering scheme they did around the 30s?

On Thorpe Thewles (a station near Stockton, LNER 1923-1939) we have the following RTR engines that would fit a pre-1935 period:-

K3 no. 2934, the one on which Bachmann forgot most of the lining. That particular engine went to traffic in September 1934 but the tooling is good for ones built after No. 135 in February 1925.

J39 no. 1467, this is actually a repainted BR one but I think Bachmann have brought them out in LNER livery before. Class introduced 1926.

While our V1 No. 466 is a Wills / Nu-Cast kit, Bachmann have brought this engine out RTR before. To traffic October 1936, but class introduced 1930.

A1 No. 4475 Flying Fox. Hornby with Great Northern tender, condition as modelled covers period September 1934 - June 1935 and March 1937 - February 1942 if I've interpreted the table in RCTS 2A correctly.

A3 No. 2505 Cameronian. Hornby (Ringfield). To traffic October 1934, originally had 'New-Type' non-corridor tender, GN tender after November 1936. I have a sneaky feeling that Hornby made ours with a corridor tender, which would be incorrect, but it's been a while since I've seen it.

Everything else is kit-built, mainly Dave Alexander ones.

The only NER engine available RTR is Bachmann's J72 and the chassis is well overdue a re-work even if you don't use DCC. Hornby is the usual story of random shunters or huge pacifics and nothing in between.

Someone's brought out an N2, in GNR livery. Looks lovely, but even if they did it in LNER livery it's out of region for us. Rather have a G5.

Bachmann are listing it under catalogue ref. 31-003, the livery being LNER black (number on cab) which is good for roughly 1928-1939 or possibly longer depending on when it got repainted during WW2. Its number of 6190 is good for roughly 1924-1946. I suspect it's one of the Great Central ones, and I'm not familiar enough with the class to comment on the detail on the actual model.

They're also listing a GWR version under catalogue number 31-129 but no release date as yet.

Bachmann's Era scheme is bollocks anyway, Era 3 covers at least four reasonably long-lived LNER livery periods (24-28, 28-39ish, WW2, post-WW2) and it's daft seeing the A2 'A. H. Peppercorn' lumped in the same period as the Robinson O4.

Reply to
Graham Thurlwell
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Era scheme also has the problem of trying to remember which era is which.

Ignoring the initial experiments and partial cover ups of pre-1928, there were 4 different sets of standard liveries on LMS until 1948. The insignia colours changed so wether a loco was Red, lined or plain black didnt matter. Suspect theres only a Crab and Fowler 4P tank RTR in pre-1935 as they were first produced in LMS red then changed to lined black when repainted after

1930.

Cheers, Simon

Cheers, Simon

Reply to
simon

Back in Tri-ang days when molds were made by little men chipping train shapes out of blocks of sandstone the research costs probably weren't too high. Then we started to want the right number of wheels, actual holes were the windows might be etc and the designers had to look for plans and photos etc - greatly increased costs. Computers/CAD meant we could have wire handrails. CAD/CAM meant we could have mold variations and customers could demand them. Does getting things made in China actually reduce costs? Where the European manufacturers had gone to snap-together construction and lots of details loose in the bottom of the box the Chinese use self-tapper screws. Prices haven't come down. Seems to me the big change has been that model firms have been able to get rid of troublesome employees and sell off lots of real-estate.

Greg.P.

Reply to
Greg.Procter

SNIP...

Difficult to compare prices, have to take into account inflation and quality - especially detail, will leave that to others.

But didnt Hornby move production in order to survive. They needed to seriously upgrade their models very quickly in order to compete with bachmann - esp the new blue riband range. That meant they needed a lot of capital in a very short time frame - the chinese were making models for a number of companies. Economies of scale so able to invest more in new tooling and get back that money much faster than Hornby could have done in the limited market of the UK.

CHeers, Simon

Reply to
simon

I guess the most logical comparison is with car companies, in that standards improve over the years. Some companies with enough turnover "improve" their models every 2-5 years. Smaller ones keep much the same model in production for 10-20 years. (eg Subaru) New products are introduced every x many years and the best seller gets minor improvements regularly. Everyone knows a major upgrade of the main products has to come at some point or the firm is a goner. Volkswagen in the mid70s was like Hornby and just about ran out of options. (we won't mention BLMC etc ;-) Hornby should have seen the market trends way back when Airfix/Mainline etc moved the standard so far above Hornby's. They could have introduced a model per year without selling their business. Moving production to China will come back to bite all these firms when Chinese wages and oil prices climb.

Reply to
Greg.Procter

I agree. It was the appearance of Airfix and Mainline that got me back into the hobby.

When I moved into my first house I unpacked boxes that had been packed away years earlier, including the model trains. I'd play with them but that was all. Even to my teenage eye a decade or so earlier they hadn't been very good. The Airfix prairie and 14xx were a breath of fresh air, and their carriages were orders of magnitude better than the thick plastic sides with flat glazing behind them.

It puzzled me why Hornby didn't bother to compete. Although when the LBSCR 0-6-0T came out that was a bit better but still not up to the standard. And they destroyed the tooling to make Thomas.

Reply to
Christopher A. Lee

True about Hornby falling behind, but was it Hornby or the parent company ? The change to super detail didnt happen until after the management buy out. Moving of production may well become a problem, but had they not moved then there may not have been a Hornby brand now.

Cheers, Simon

Reply to
simon

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