Geodel:
I disagree with you very profoundly here. (And I must apologise to ME20-06 that this seems to have veered off into some very familiar British territory)
In the last 8-10 years we have seen a huge improvement in British outline models in OO, especially on the diesel side. These excellent new models have been subject to unprecedently savage and vicious attack particularly on the internet but also in print as some of the prominent internet critics have broked their way to a print platform.
The "in your face" style of reviewing as practiced by Rail Express , and Steve Jones electricnose.com website has done immense damage to my bit of the hobby in Britain. The orchestrated chanting of "its c*** , it's s***e" against almost every new release has at times obscured the fact that there has been an huge improvement in the standards. An outside observer could be confused by this to the point of thinking things have got worse, not better. Indeed there are clear signs of that happening. I've seen cases of people removing the bodyshell of a controversial Bachmann new release to substitute a Lima one - despite the very substantial inferioirity of Lima models to the current generation of tooling. We also have on this forum the persistant efforts of triangman, which as to what motors are used in newly tooled Hornby OO RTR are frankly incorrect. I've seen triangman and rb277170's efforts in trashing the M7 review - I doubt if they've ever owned an example of the model
This has evidently confused you, geodel , which is understandable as you are unfamiliar with the ground. I'm aware that the traditional British N manufacturer , Farish was pretty basic (Dapol seem to be"setting new standards in N" by taking 25 year old OO models and "cloning" them in N). But really as a Continental outline N gauge modeller, I'm not quite clear what you are doing here targetting British 4mm RTR and one of its manufacturers. Surely its none of your concern - they don't make N? And you certainly aren't familiar with the territory you're discussing
We've recently had a thread attacking British outline layouts at exhibitions as uninteresting from someone living 10,000 miles away , and a Continental modeller citing a single closed society event. For the record I've never seen anyone trying a layout to run to a timetable at a public exhibition. A sequence , yes "Move 1 - Coal train to yard. Move 2. Down Express with Royal Scot. Move 3 ..." To suggest people don't watch the British layouts at shows because they use timetable running with long gaps has no obvious basis in fact.
QUOTE More vigorous and louder criticism (obviously of the constructive kind) is needed, instead of having a mindset accepting that a brand new model will be okay after a facelift and repaint and replaced decoder just because the manufacturer was lazy. Most unfortunate in this respect are the uncritical reviews freqen tly found in several popular railway magazines, who apart from wanting their free samples from the manufacturers, continue to willfully ignore stark errors and failings in the model for fear of putting the readers and potential buyers off. If only they stood up to the manufacturers and pointed out these mistakes and poor quality then they could influence the hobby for the good of the modellers...
So you have been reading electricnose, geodel? Steve Jones never sailed closer to the wind of the libel laws than in that posting.
For the record, Tony Wright has said publicaly (in my hearing at lectures at 2 CMRA Workshop events , and doubtless elsewhere as well) that review samples at BRM are either used as the raw material for projects or donated to charity. In some cases it's obvious - the notorious Britannia article where Tony threw away the chassis , replaced it with a Comet etched one, threw away the tender and replaced it with a kit , then reworked the main bodyshell was clearly a case of "lets do a replace the chassis with a Comet kit article. What have we got in the office - Oh there's that Hornby Britannia". By the way it was the 20 year old Brit in its last production year - not the recently reased state of the art Brit
Similarly if you watch the Detailing RTR DVD you can watch Tony taking apart a teak Hornby Gresley literally and figuratively. By the time he's cut away the entire sides and replaced them with etched ones soldered up in 2 layers and pulled off the bogies and replaced them with MJTs there's not much left. That's a review sample getting the chop. His comments on the model are far more detailed and severe than in Neil S Woods review (and by general consideration the Hornby Gresleys are both the weakest and most expensive of all the "new generation" coach ranges from either Hornby or Bachmann). BRM's editor models in 7mm , so no "freebees" for Gifford Sidings there
As far as Model Rail is concerned , Chris Leigh has stated repeatedly in writing that they buy most of their review samples , and often mentions the local shop who supplied. In the case of one item that got a favourable review (a product from a society I'm involved with) we know he bought the product incognito because the first we knew about it was when we read the review.
But with respect geodel - do you have sufficient knowledge of ex LNER coaching stock to assess the models and their merits - or indeed any range of British coaching stock in any scale? How then can you judge the reviewing?. I certainly can't assess the merits of Brawa - I don't know the German coaches concerned so I can't assess how accurate the models are - and Brawa's selling point is their accuracy
As far as the price comparision is concerned - I compared list price with list price. If you wish to use a discounted price for Maerklin , then we use the cheapest price for Heljan we can find on Hattons or Rails of Sheffield's website . Compare apples and apples and the Marklin loco's still 2.5-3 times the price of the Heljan loco - which is excellent. Geodel saysQUOTE We must not be complacent but demand more and better for the same money, otherwise newcomers will be less attracted to model railways and without new recruits the hobby will gradually decline Well - are Marklin just lining their pockets? Difficult to believe given their financial troubles. Or are they just an inefficient producer, passing on their inefficiencies? Or what? What exactly do we get extra for 2-3 times the price?? Sound is frankly a luxury item and dispensible. Is it good for the hobby if locos are twice as expensive ??
The Pendolino is an odd one - because Hornby took the odd step of saying when they announced it that this would not be a high spec model , because it was not for scale modellers , it was for the trainset market and had to be kept down to a price. Therefore this is not "Hornby's major release of the year". Those are the Rebuilt Scot, the Rebuilt Patriot, the 56 , and the Maunsell coaches
Critism of the decoder should be tempered by the fact that there will be a DCC Ready version for £10 less shortly, which looks a far better option. As far as the mechanism is concerned - they said they were going to cut corners to keep the price down and this is the corner they cut. No , the model is not as good as Bachmann's Voyager. Would we be better off without it? No - the most important group of mainlines in Britain would be unmodellable after 2001. Is it better than the dire Dapol effort? Vastly
I've seen a Pendolino and seen it run. It appeared to run entirely adequetely at slow speed on DCC and fine at speed., though not as well as say the new Bachmann 108, and nobody believes it will take 9. The REx review , written by a reviewer supposed by some to be their hatchet man, found the running acceptable. The review is measured and no hatchet job. It would therefore appear some Pendolinos may run better than others -I'm inclined to suspect the decoders not the model itself (Duff solder joint somewhere??). Again geodel - before you criticise the reviewing , have you seen the model? As for build quality, see Nigel Burkin's review of the Vi-Trains 37 in the current MRM
And if we'd flamed Hornby to hell and back - would they have been more likely to bother? Or would they just say "we don't need the hassle. Lets stick a decoder in the dire Lima deltic , spray it purple and flog that to the kiddies for Christmas as a DCC set"
The flamethrower is not an instrument of persuasion. Repeated applications produce scorched earth. Bachmann , after 3-4 years of savage attack, have slashed their new diesel development and focus on steam
There's a pattern here . First they attacked the manufacturers. Then they attacked the magazines , and anyone else who didn't agree with them [before setting themselves up with specialist magazines in competition] . Then they turned on each other. We are currently in the second half of phase 3.
Some of us don't think this does the hobby any good at all
There has never been better support for British outline modelling, and it would perhaps be better if we got on and did some instead. Campaigns against sections of the British trade by people who don't model British prototype don't help
[With apologies to the members with interests in Continental modelling who must wonder what this thread now has to do with their interests.]
