Worst models?

The message from Kevin Martin contains these words:

You missed out the Lima 4F in N gauge... Luckily I bought it cheaply S/H, and sold it to another dealer a week later for a little bit more. He also took the Lima Deltic and some Lima coaches. All of them seemed to be to different scales.

rds:

Sorry to be a bit vague, but wasn't there a Trix, or maybe early Lima model of what was supposed to be a BR Bo-Bo diesel locomotive released in the 1960s, which was nothing like the original but had a BR number on it?

I remember a caustic review in Railway Modeller, and would Google it if only I could remember enough about it.

Or is my memory playing tricks after all these years?

If not, that would be my candidate for worst model.

I seem to recall Palitoy or similar did a Baby Warship, or at least that's what it looked like from a distance.

Cheers Richard

Yes, maybe that was it, or perhaps the Playcraft class 29.

Sorry Trix, I might have done you a grave dis-service.

John

On 27/01/2009 15:49, Misc said,

No, so don't use polystyrene glues! You wouldn't use Liquid Poly ("Poly"styrene cement) to stick brass, so why use it to stick ABS? I use EMA Plastic Weld or Butanone, both available from C&L. I agree about the resin locos (awful material!) but DC Kits' plastic kits are just fine if you use the right solvent, and put a bit of work into them :-)

I'd say that the whole of the Lima N gauge range was awful. I think the only models that were to scale were the Siphon and CCT.

Fred X

=A0

Graham Farish OO gauge King with AC razor motor and rod drive with bakelite (maybe) driving wheels

any of the Trix twin range

Graham Farish Holden 0-6-0

hornby 9F with the garish steam pipes

Minitrix 9F that was a Brittania body on a german 2-10-0 chassis

Jouef >anything< Lima >anything<

David

"beamends" wrote

Playcraft?

Or was it Joueff?

John.

"Kevin Martin" wrote

Depends how far back you want to go.

In terms of 'recent' models, I'd suggest the revamped 'super-detailed' loco-drive Hornby 'King' was an over-hyped abortion.

In terms of running qualities, the Lima 'Crab' 2-6-0.

In terms of over-priced, over-hyped, poor build-quality diesels, the ViTrains class 47. Shame because it runs so well, and at least they got rid of the class 37 traction tyres.

But my worst recent 4mm scale model would be? Hmm, let me think about that!

John.

It was Palitoy, in HO, before they did the Mainline range.

Playcraft were narrow gauge on 9mm track, along the lines of Eggerbahn. I seem to remember a Decauville and toastrack coaches.

Joueff did a OO class 40.

"Christopher A. Lee" wrote

Playcraft also had a OO/HO range which was crap and which included either a class 22 or 29, Joueff (when it was Irish owned) did a 'Warship' of sorts, from memory. The latter was a useful source of spares for the class 40s as it used many common drive components.

John.

Jouef did a range of british outline HO in the early 70's, it was distributed and sold through Woolworths under the Playcraft banner. And yes, the class 29 wasn't all that good! I know, I had one, but when you were 7 or

8 and Santa gave you an 8' x 4' double oval with sidings and lots of goods wagons you really didn't care about fine detail.... Badger.

Jouef aka Playcraft did one of those! It was sort of HO but expanded to OO+ in width. It modelled something with a flat front and two wind-screens that curved up at the center, giving it (the prototype) a very miserable look. Jouef put it on very badly modelled french bogies and it had 8 wheel drive using slot-car gears.

Greg.P.

Jouef manufactured for Playcraft. Some of Playcraft's models were existing Jouef models with BR stickers (all the bogie wagons for example) Some were Jouef for the British market, and presumably Playcraft commissioned some models.

Greg.P.

The Irish factory was French in conjunction with the Irish government. Much of their output was from old disused Jouef moulds. OTOH there were some BoBo loco bodies designed to go on a standard BoBo chassis so the body length was adjusted.. I bought an assortment of bodies from a shop after the venture ended. German E10(?) Italian E424. French 15000(?) I think I paid a pound each - missed out on a Warship though.

Greg.P.

The message from "Fred X" contains these words:

Those are the only Lima stock still running on my line, but I have them marshalled in a parcels train where I would expect to see height variations along the line of roofs - and they're placed well away from the Grafar Mk.1 full brake...

The buildings were made by Pola and were quite a bit better than the British products of the time. Playcraft track utilised combined points/motors/manual switches so required none of the expensive add-ons of the Triang-Hornby equivalent. The train-sets also included the first track-mats I can recall but they were a bit too French-looking for British tastes.

(kim)

It's quite highly regarded by the Britsh 1/87 society: (kim)