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I ask this question because yesterday the post brought me a Hornby Black 5 that is to replace a much older one whose tender drive has just about died. I immediately started to dismantle it to put in a decoder. Within seconds I had broken a very thin piece of plastic that runs along the left hand side of the body. I realise that it was the way I handled it and it is only my fault. Actually since that piece is held in several places, I found that just pressing the ends together made a pretty good repair without glue or anything else.
There are some other very delicate parts on the new engine that could just as easily be broken (and may be one day with my clumsy handling). This got me thinking about whether the latest R.T.R offerings are unnecessarily detailed. I wish that I had the facilities to do an experiment in which, during an exhibition, an engine was changed for the same type but with less detail to see how many people noticed.
As it happens, a couple of hours earlier I was reading a magazine, in which there was an explanation of how to put very fine detail on the underside of a passenger coach (admittedly O gauge) and my first thought was, "you won't even see that in normal operation."
I'll stick my neck out and suggest that in normal model railway use (as opposed to static display in a showcase) you don't really see VERY FINE detail and it is just the general look of the engine that you perceive. Obviously I'm not suggesting that I would prefer to buy the sort of engines that I had as a boy 50 odd years ago. My first engine at the age of about 10 was a Princess (I think) that had no outside motion and you would notice that! But have we now gone too far the other way?
I'll now sit back and wait for people to shoot me down. Cheers, Robert.
There are some other very delicate parts on the new engine that could just as easily be broken (and may be one day with my clumsy handling). This got me thinking about whether the latest R.T.R offerings are unnecessarily detailed. I wish that I had the facilities to do an experiment in which, during an exhibition, an engine was changed for the same type but with less detail to see how many people noticed.
As it happens, a couple of hours earlier I was reading a magazine, in which there was an explanation of how to put very fine detail on the underside of a passenger coach (admittedly O gauge) and my first thought was, "you won't even see that in normal operation."
I'll stick my neck out and suggest that in normal model railway use (as opposed to static display in a showcase) you don't really see VERY FINE detail and it is just the general look of the engine that you perceive. Obviously I'm not suggesting that I would prefer to buy the sort of engines that I had as a boy 50 odd years ago. My first engine at the age of about 10 was a Princess (I think) that had no outside motion and you would notice that! But have we now gone too far the other way?
I'll now sit back and wait for people to shoot me down. Cheers, Robert.