Consumer satisfaction

QUOTE Generally i am quite satisfied with the current model railway market. but not the UK modelling market.
I think there is far too much emphasis on bread and butter models that do nothing to inspire me. I would agree with this, there have been sone good releases from the Continental manufacturers but I don't see anything in UK outline other than the Scotrail coaches that I really want.

QUOTE I also felt the poll is too general. Is the question aimed at modellers of UK outline or at modellers who reside in the UK or at modellers who reside in the UK and only model UK outline?
It seems unreasonable that those who have little interest in UK modelling or who are from outside the UK and have little idea of the UK scene should be invited to vote. Gary, Doug mentioned continental releases in his opening question. Yes it would have been good to separate Continental from UK and US as some of us are satisfied with the Continental offerings but not the UK but why do you continuously try to exclude people whos views do not coincide with yours? Some of us model both and are entitled to an opinion regardless of where we happen to live. You have been told before by the moderators that this forum is an international forum for people of all races.

QUOTE Its like asking somebody who lives in Scotland to vote on how my English taxes should be set (Dig at Gordon Brown there)! Don't open this one up. We've had your english colonial rule for 300 years and had to put up with that despite a majority of us wanting to remain independant. Better stick with railway modelling Gary. Don't start on politics. It's really not appropriate.

QUOTE model railway community at large Not "at small" as some would like to think. I have no right to vote? You've got to be out of your f**king mind.

QUOTE It seems unreasonable that those who have little interest in UK modelling or who are from outside the UK and have little idea of the UK scene should be invited to vote. There's a big world out there and for the rest of us things couldn't be better.

To be quite honest, a solid diet of high quality bread and butter models is what I'd like to see as a layout builder.

High quality models of RODs and Buckjumper 0-6-0Ts please, not more LNER Pacifics

Bachmann's 12T BR vans are very welcome. That's a lot of Parkside kits I won't need to build over the next 20 years

I'm disappointed that the majors seem to be standing back from modern image in the conventional sense (as a result perhaps of all the muck that has flown round the D+E scene), and Falcon is no real use to me. I'd have swapped it eagerly for a state of the art 86 (more bread and butter - just 100 locos, just 40+ years of service)

But whatever any possible reservations about the mechanism of the Pendolino and whether Hornby will prove to hit the bulleye in terms of capturing the prototype faithfully, the Pendolino is groundbreaking and opens up whole new areas for modelling

I'd missed the fact Hornby had announced TGV Lyra in the same year as the Pendolino...

The ultra high speed electrics are very much flagshipsat the cutting edge of modern European railways. This is where the action is and by my count the modelling support is:

Hornby : Pendolino (new)
TGV Lyra (new??)
Eurostar (HO ex Jouef, OO)

Mehano Thalys
TGV Reseau

Plus a slightly dodgy early ICE from one of the German manufacturers, and the Kato N gauge Eurostar

The traditional majors seem to have opted out of this area, leaving it to the more thrusting second division players

I just hope TGV Lyra is done properly , with sufficient vehicles to make a proper length train

It would perhaps make sense to have separate categories for UK , Continental , and arguably US outline. Each scene is different, and the mood in one is not the mood in another.

I may not be on cloud 9 at this years new tooling, but overall things in the UK look pretty healthy. The long boom must end sometime and surely we're on borrowed time as far as the flood of new tooling is concerned but still useful new stuff keeps coming. There are no real gaps in OO (unless it carries passengers and runs on electricity or is pregrouping) N gauge is back from the dead with a steady trickle of good new stuff, we have RTR in O.

really we shouldn't complain too much- "You've never had it so good"

QUOTE The ultra high speed electrics are very much flagshipsat the cutting edge of modern European railways. This is where the action is and by my count the modelling support is:

Hornby : Pendolino (new)
TGV Lyra (new??)
Eurostar (HO ex Jouef, OO)

Mehano Thalys
TGV Reseau

Plus a slightly dodgy early ICE from one of the German manufacturers, and the Kato N gauge Eurostar

The traditional majors seem to have opted out of this area, leaving it to the more thrusting second division players

So whats this then?


Trix and Maerklin have the ICE3 and the AVE, Roco have the ICE diesel unit, Fleischmann have the ICE1, ICE2 and ICE T. That last one sounded like a rap star?