Perhaps a good place to start is Doug's posting, with which quite a few people will identify:
QUOTE I started out modelling my local railway network.
The vast majority of people do - and the great majority of people will continue to do so.
QUOTE This is an English board with a large British membership (Gary)
QUOTE The About box states that "Model Rail Forum is an English language Model Railway Portal", I think you forgot the "language" bit and by doing that put yourself into the "little englander" camp and prove why this thread was started in the first place. (dwb)
The main countries where English is the/a native language are the US (290 million) , the UK (60 million) Canada (25 million) Australia (just under 20 million) SA (not sure the number of English speakers but some millions), Eire and NZ (both 3+ million)
MRF has few North American posters, and there seems to be very little discussion about North American prototype modelling on MRF. The N.American market is the largest in the world for model railways. The fact that Neil's suggestion in another thread that US HO was totally unreliable went without comment or challenge except from me , tends to prove that nobody on here models the US scene. Had those kind of comments been posted on pretty well any other active English language forum on the east side of the Atlantic (RMWeb, DEMU forum, uk.rec.model.rail , MREMag, relevant Yahoo groups etc etc), there would have been a deluge of posts from people with US modelling interests pointing out that he was a long way wide of the mark.
Take North America out of the English speaking world, and to put it bluntly, the British Isles account for the overwhelming majority of what remains
You would therefore expect a very large predominance of British modellers on MRF and the overwhelming interest to be in British prototype. If this isn't a North American forum, it would be natural and normal for MRF to be essentially a British forum
This isn't the case. MRF has a vastly greater proportion of non-British prototype material than any other English language forum on the east side of the Atlantic - and almost none of it is US outline, even though that is the biggest overseas interest in UK railway modelling . There's no Aussie outline either. I would almost go so far as to say that Continental HO is the largest single interest on MRF - most of the people posting in this thread work in HO, and have no real US interests
Frankly dwb's posting can be taken as suggesting that British modellers with British interests aren't especially welcome round here , and that in his opinion they aren't really what MRF is about. Yet logically MRF would seem like an obvious home for such people
Indeed this whole "British modellers' attitude problem" thread can be said to make British modellers of British prototype feel pretty unwelcome round these parts . (I personally take considerable exception to comments like "openly racist" and "little englander", especially when I suspect I am one of the intended targets)
And it is quite noticeable that there are relatively few regular MRF posters who are British modellers of British prototype . The UK club-and-exhibition scene people who form the overwhelming mahjority of members of other boards just aren't here. If they turned up, I think they'd be made very unwelcome by some folk here
Then there is the "H" word. Some of those whose interests lie outside the UK seem to be assuming British prototype = Hornby = British prototype, and anyone who attempts to defend British outline modelling is liable to be dismissed as a bagman for Margate
This is a totally distorted view of British modelling
I don't even have anything from Hornby on my current shunting plank , and Bachmann scores one chassis and two 16T minerals. Most of the stock is kits
There are 3 commercial gauges in British outline - O,OO , and N. Hornby don't even do O or N
I am not claiming that current British models are the finest yet seen on the planet, just that they are pretty good. I'd accept the average standard of Continental HO is still a little higher than the average standard of British OO. The average standard of US HO is a bit higher too. However Continental HO seems to cost nearly twice as much as OO, and US HO seems to be about half the price of OO (Maybe this is wh6y British modellers tend to go US not Continental)
But I am throughly sick of the endless attacks on British modelling and modellers as substandard, the continued protrayal in various quarters (many outside this board) of British RTR as the global pits and the suggestion that anyone who choses to model British prototype has something wrong with him
And I am tired of the general claim that all HO is orders of magintude better than all OO
2 Continental manufacturers have taken a serious sustained interest in OO - Lima and Heljan. The British models they produced are frankly no better than the models being produced by Hornby and Bachmann at the same time.
I think the rivet counters criticism of the Heljan 47, 52, and 33 is way over the top and anyone needing a model of those classes should get one. But they are on a par with Bachmann and Hornby, and not significantly better, and Heljan drop clangers on detail along with the rest of them. The Bachmann 66 is a better model than the Heljan 47, and its cheaper.
Please explain why I should believe typical Marklin , Fliesschmann and Roco HO locos are significantly better than the Heljan 47 or 33 , let alone the Bachmann 66 or 9F or the Hornby 60
I was particularly struck by Doug's posting as it's a familiar story - except usually it's a modeller explaining why he switched from OO to overseas HO. If Continental HO is so much better - across the board - , especially mechanically , what do we say about this poor running Jouef ?? (And I hope Hornby sort it out before rerelease).
If certain HO brands are better than current OO , but others are not , then we need to be specific , range by range . And generalised assertions of the superiority of HO to British 4mm are best left aside
On the more general point, one magazine , Modern Railway Modelling, was launched specifically on the premise that younger modellers would refuse to buy magazines which contained a predominance of articles on British steam but would welcome a magazine which mixed articles on British diesels with articles on US and Continental diesels.
I have to say the dominant feeling seems to be that the overseas material is a drag on the magazine (Model Rail seem to do it better with their international supplement). But having got in quite serious trouble with one person associated with MRM for having had the temerity to suggest on another forum that the overseas coverage in MRM should have a broader range, that Continental Europe is not far and there should be more European material and not 95% US stuff - I'm not taking any charges of "little englander"
Model Railroader is widely available in WH Smiths. I may not bne interested in the prototypes, but the apprach and philosophy is often interesting
Continental and US building kits are used quite widely by British D+E modellers. I'm afraid to my eye they do reflect their origins and the archetecture is a bit too angular, but they are a known resource
From what I can see British modellers are far more open to modelling overseas prototype than modellers from most other countries (try finding non-French content on the Loco-Revue forum) . But the dominant element is US, not Continental. My own club has an active US layout group - and an unwanted Roco DCC trainset lying in a corner
