Cannot agree about the plastic comment as today's locos are so very much better in every respect than 15, 20, 30, or 40 years ago! Yes they need handling with care BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TOYS. The older style robust "outline" models were often a mere nod in the direction of the prototype and although built like tanks were poorly engineered and not great runners unless you like your locos to career around at ridiculously high scale speeds. I model LSWR/SR and GWR together because of where I grew up (in Exeter) and therefore feel relatively unbiased in my plea for more Southern models. Most of us have plenty of metal locos anyway because we have built our own while waiting for the big companies to re-issue or get around to introducing those we are missing.
