While I was Sleeping...

Am_Fet writes:

Back in yon old days, our models were all English with large dollops of Hornby and Lima. Running was hesitant at best and was quickly consigned to large boxes when other "pursuits" took over. Hornby suffered from huge gaps in the running gear and those couplers! Lima was powered by "Pancake" motors, so named as they had trouble pulling the cream off one...

And so these English monstrosities were pushed aside for the American ideal of central motors and all-driven wheels and quietly forgotten....Sure, I kept up with what Iain Rice was up to, and I love Chris Nevards blog, but I still thought of English off-the-shelf models as...well, toy like.

So imagine my surprise this week when I purloined a copy of "ModelRail" magazine from the Train Control Lending Library (Swipe Access needed) to find it had all changed! The Chinese (via Bachmann and others) were flooding the market with superb 4mm locomotives....just look at this 7F for example (from Chris Nevard):



That is just superb....and I dont think that many "finescalers" would be able to do better with an etched kit. I think from memory the first RTR that really made me sit up and take notice was the (now quite) old Peppercorn A1 form Bachmann....one of my faves...



In our sphere, one doesn't have to look further than Dapol, now under the Bachmann stable as well. The recently released B1's in N are really just exquisite; Gone are the pizza-cutter wheels, and in fact the whole scale in England is experiencing a bit of a renaissance:



Even the layouts are improving. This is Glenuig by Gary Hinson in 4mm...just love the grunge on those Mk1 carriages:



(Actually, I look at Glenuig and wonder why we dont see more NZR layouts like this...)



I think that the biggest "tick of approval" for this new surge in high fidelity RTR English trains is the fact that Tim Shackleton, one time editor of the erstwhile Model Railway Journal (The Brit one), is now writing articles showing how to weather up the new crop of models, and not a P4 wheel in sight. In fact, after looking at all of these new toys now on the market, I'm starting to find MRJ a bit..."sniffy"...

Anyway, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is....its all about the technology. Brit modellers now have access to the best that CAD/CAM can deliver; They now have sound and DCC. Hell, they even have Nochmaster style grass on their layouts. No longer are they playing second fiddle to their North American cousins, they are almost themselves getting ahead of the curve....and for someone who has a dull hankering for the days of youth and 4mm English locomotives, that's great.

BTW, if anyone has an old Lima J50 top lying around, I'd love to take it off their hands...