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Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Has To Pre-Order, or How Come The Brits Don’t Have To?

Between 1987 and 2002, I took quite a few trips to the UK, some of which were business trips and others of which were purely for pleasure. Just last month my wife and I (joined by our youngest granddaughter and her parents0 made the trek across the pond. Every trip, whether for business or pleasure, has had a rail component to it. I bring this up as background to some observations. I only really started thinking about this on the flight home (mostly because there’s not much else to do stuck in an aluminum tube at 35,000 ft for hours on end).

  1. Demographics: Britain has 1/5 the population of the US, but has no fewer than 5 general interest model railway and four of those generally run 140 to 160 pages/month per issue. This would seem to me to indicate to me that incidence of railway modelers per 100,000 population is vastly greater than in the US. Then there is the popularity of the “exhibition circuit” wherein layout builders bring their work fo show to each other and the general public. They’re all over the place, and (at least the ones I’ve been to) well attended by a cross-section of the population.

  2. History. To the best of my knowledge, the US and Britain.are the only 2 countries to ever have over 100 privately owned railways. However, in Britain, most of the 100+ private railways were consolidated into 4 in 1923 (Southerrn, London Midland & Scottish, Great Western and the London & North Eastern). Of the 4 only the Great Western existed as such prior to the Grouping. Something like that could have happened in the US (see Transportation Act of 1920), but never did.

As a result of the Grouping, for 25 years there were only 4 systems and rather than have a 100 different standards for, say, locomotive design, there were only 4. While many pre-grouping designs lasted well into nationalization (most notably the LB&SC Stroudley “Terriers” http://en.wikipe

2

… and the Germans don´t have to pre-order as well!

The situation is quite close to the British. Until the end of WW I, each state within the German Empire had its own Railroad. There was the Royal Prussian Railway Administration (KPEV), the Royal Bavarian State Railway, the Royal Württemberg State Railway, the Grossherzoglich Badische Railway, the Royal Saxonian Railway - just to name the bigger ones. Each railway followed their own design principles and standards, leaving the country with a prototype variety similar to the US. In 1920, all of these railways were amalgamated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which developed a standardization program over the next years.

Quite a lot of the pre-WW I locos survived well into the 1950´s and 1960´s, and it is notable, that one of the last steam locos to go out of service in 1977 was a design from 1906.

For many years, the German model railroading industry focused on those post-merger standardized steamers, but since about 20 years, they have discovered that there is a market for those pre-WW I locos. Of course, production runs are smaller, as a modeler following northern German prototype won´t probably buy a Bavarian loco for his layout. But even with smaller production lots, we don´t have to pre-order.

One other thing is release dates. Usually, new models are announced at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, which is held each February. With only a few exceptions, you can be assure that these models will hit the market in time for the Christmas business.

Other than in the US, model railroading is not a niche hobby in Germany. Shows like Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg or Loxx in Berlin have provided a boost to the hobby, which, after many years of a constant decline, is growing again.

3

This is an extremely accurate and legitimate point. Being a bit of a british railway enthusiast I am also very aware of the very different situation our friends across the pond have when approaching the hobby. In England it’s much easier to model, well just about anything due to the high availabilty of models of a considerable number of the locomotives that ran there, and where one may not find an RTR model of a specific loco or class, it probably exists in kit form. This also points out the plight of some of us trying to model certain roads here in the states. Take myself for example. Trying to accurately create a model of the ACL in the 1940’s is no easy task, particularly due to the fact that it is a seldom modelled road that doesn’t often become the subject of very many models. It also doesn’t help that most roads, while in some cases receiving locomotives built to the same plans, then went on to heavily modify their equipment to deal with the special conditions their railroad faces, creating enormous diversity when it comes to North American steam equipment, which makes it very hard for the manufacturers of model locomotives to produce a product that accurately represents a prototype, while being sure that that particular model will sell enough for them to make a profit. It also the reason why so many manufacturers make the likes of Big Boys, SP Gs-4s, and Pennsy K4s. These are all very popular locomotives that many people know of and that sell well, meaning the manufacturer can produce extremely accurate models of these engines, while still selling more than enough to make money.

4

The real difference is that the Britts would have none of the preorder bull but they got away with it here. As another note just because you have fewer options for locos unless you are strictly into proto, the other stuff dosn’t matter

5

I made the same point about Japan back when somebody wanted Kato to tool up and build his favorite HO locomotive.

Japan ran 2-8-2s - and rearranged the springing to add a two-axle trailing truck and make a matching set of Berkshires. Forward of the trailing truck, ALL of them had identical wheel geometry. There were only 2 variants of valve gear hangars, an easily adjusted detail. The only other differences were that the D50/60 classes had their Elesco heaters on the pilot deck, separate steam and sand domes and spoked drivers. The D51, D52, D61 and D62 classes were identical from the running boards down. (My Adachi D51 kit included the canoe fairing if I wanted to model the first sub-class, with its skyline casing.) Now, how many variants of the 2-8-2 were operating in the US during WWII?

Japan ran 4-6-4s - the three C6X classes, all identical from the running boards down. Two were modified C57 and C59 class Pacifics, the other put a new 4-6-4 frame under the boiler of a surplus D52 class 2-8-2 - 49 times! Except for the trailing truck, the wheel geometry was the same as that of the box-pok drivered Pacifics I cited and three earlier spoked driver Pacifics.

The Imperial Government Railways didn’t run a few locos each of a bunch of designs, they chose one good design and built it in the hundreds (in the case of the D51 class Mike, over a thousand.)

So, with only two basic chassis assemblies a Japanese manufacturer can produce five 4-axle freight haulers and eight 3-axle passenger runners which, together, account for 75% of the Japanese modern steam fleet. Then he can add a couple of 2-6-xx chassis, each good for a tender mogul or a tank loco or two, a 2-8-0 chassis (9600 class, 770 locomotives) and a 2-6-2 (C58 class, 427 locos.) All that’s left is the B20 class, a miniature 0-4-0 shop switcher and the E10 class 2-10-4 (or 4-10-2, since it usually ran bunker first under load.) those two classes

6

Andre,

Just for the record, the Bachmann Spectrum light and heavy USRA Mountains did NOT share a common drive, even though they could have. Bachmann chose to improve the drive when it came out with the Heavy version.

They did however capitalize on the idea of making various proto specific versions of the Heavy Mountain which required two different cabs, two different sets of running boards, two different smoke box fronts, two different steam chests and valve/running gear, three different tenders, some with optional trucks and some later production runs included an optional trailing truck.

In various discussions, of various related topics, I have previously pointed out this same basic fact regarding UK/Europe vs North America when it comes to railroad history - without as much detail as you offered.

The extreme diversity of North Amercian railroading is largely a result of the vast physical and political size of North America - and a few simple principles of human nature and politics.

Americans, until recently, generally held to the idea that they possess various sovereign property rights and that they functioned under a multi tiered government that reserved most most of the power to the people and the States - not the “everybody should do everything one way” central government. As of yet the 9th and 10th Amendments have not been repealed - even if they have been weakened by abusive interprations of the commerce clause and the 14th Amendment.

Standardization sometimes has advantages, sometimes disadvantages, but considering the nature of steam locomotive technology in the early 20th century, and the vastly different operating conditions of the ATSF vs the B&O, for example, I can’t see where government consolidation and standardazation would have improved rail service in the US in 1920 - maybe that’s why it did not happen.

Personally, government regulation of the railroads has done just as much harm

7

For British OO scale there are 2 major players, of course there are several companies selling models, but for the most part the big 2 are what you see everywhere in the hobby shops. Bachmann Branchline is the UK sibling of Bachmann US, a subsidiary of Kader in China. Since they have not adopted the Pre-order sales model in the US, it is not altogether surprising that they have not in Europe. However, they are not adverse to pre-announcing models with expected dates and prices, even if you can’t order them from them directly. http://www.bachmann.co.uk/prod1.php?prod_selected=branchline&prod=3 Since catalog numbers and prices are given, I imagine that a local dealer would be happy to take your pre-order? There are LHS’s everywhere in the UK. Much greater density than here in the US and it is clear to me that companies like Branchline are very supportive.

The other biggie is Hornby. Through numerous ownership changes, Hornby has offered an annual sales catalog of its range. This has gone on for decades (there are some who just collect the catalog). Each year the range is announced http://www.hornby.com/shop/2012-range/ many product roll from one year to the next, but not always. Production runs end, because in the end they are all limited to some extent. Some are announced as such indicating that they will be a limited run of 1500 or 2000 units.

Now it could be argued that the catalog is effectively a pre-order sales vehicle because not everything that is announced for the year is actually available at the start of the year. However, I think that the “sneak peek” http://www.hornby.com/shop/2012-range/sneak-peek/42xx-class-and-72xx-class-steam-locomotives/

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And that’s one big reason why I refuse to model the steam era.

9

… and the Germans don´t have to pre-order as well!

The situation is quite close to the British. Until the end of WW I, each state within the German Empire had its own Railroad. There was the Royal Prussian Railway Administration (KPEV), the Royal Bavarian State Railway, the Royal Württemberg State Railway, the Grossherzoglich Badische Railway, the Royal Saxonian Railway - just to name the bigger ones. Each railway followed their own design principles and standards, leaving the country with a prototype variety similar to the US. In 1920, all of these railways were amalgamated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which developed a standardization program over the next years.

Evern with the various Laenderbahnen (sorry, it’s a pain to try using an umlauted “a” with an English keyboard) that were folded into the DRG in the twenties, there weren’t nearlly the number of railways that were found either in the UK pre-grouping or the USA. I really can’t think of any other country in the world were there was such a proliferation of railways (running into 3 digits in both countries) as in the UK and USA. As far as France goes, I can only think of the PLM, PO-Midi, Ouest, Est and Nord and IIRC those were actually built under government auspices and leased to private operators until nationalization in 1938.

I don’t think people realize how much easier standardization makes it for the model manufacturers. Except for paint, the only real visual difference between a Pennsylvania RR SD9 and a Southern Pacific SD9 is the light cluster on the SP engines. That’s not the case when it comes to PRR K4’s and SP P-10’s. The standardization brought about by dieselization (most notably by EMD) is what makes it possible for a guy like Clark Propst to model the Minneapolis & St. Paul relatively easily. Modeling the M&StL in steam days would essentially involve scratchbuilding and heavy kitbashing as no one’s going to offer a commerc

10

The real difference is that the Britts would have none of the preorder bull but they got away with it here. As another note just because you have fewer options for locos unless you are strictly into proto, the other stuff dosn’t matter

You know that for a fact? British railway history has got far more to do with it than just about anything else. If the commercial situation was such that British manufacturers felt it necessary to require pre-orders, they’d do it. There’s no reason to require pre-orders unless there are underlying business reasons for insisting on it. There aren’t those reasons in Britain (or, as Sir Madog points out, on the Continent, either). I realize the Brits stood up to Hitler by themselves, but they had a very good reason for doing so. National survival is a pretty good motivator. Getting all upset about pre-orders is way down there on the list or motivators.

That second sentence makes no sense, but I’m going to comment anyway.Except for narrow gauge, Brits don’t free-lance, at least not the way it’s done here. There may be fictional locations, but the equipment is prototype and it’s painted and lettered according to the era being modeled. If you’re modeling standard gauge in the period 1923-1948, you’re modeling Great Western, Southern, London Midland $ Scottish or London and Northeastern. Nobody’s going to take a Gresley A3 and paint it and letter it for a fictional line (or even for one of the other 3 railways). It’s going to be lettered for the LNER and it’s going to have a proper number for the engine class.

Amdre

11

Standardization sometimes has advantages, sometimes disadvantages, but considering the nature of steam locomotive technology in the early 20th century, and the vastly different operating conditions of the ATSF vs the B&O, for example, I can’t see where government consolidation and standardazation would have improved rail service in the US in 1920 - maybe that’s why it did not happen.

Sorry, Sheldon, but that argument won’t wash. If the operating conditions were so all-fired different, why did both the AT&SF and the B&O use EMD FT’s, F3’s, F7’s, GP7’s, NW2 switchers, etc. There is absolutely no reason that steam locomotives couldn’t be standardized. All EMD did was translate GM’s knowledge of the automobile market and apply to to the railroads. In some respects, it was the reverse of Henry Ford’s dictum that you can have it in any color you want as long as it’s black. With EMD you could really have any color you wanted and you could buy as many units in whatever configuration you deemed appropriate. However, each unit was going to have the same engine, generator, cooling system, traction motors and horsepower as every other unit. Back in the day when radios and heaters were optional on cars, dynamic brakes and mars lights were optional on road locomotives.

I’m not talking government fiat, either. While the railroads were temporarily nationalized in WWI and the USRA came out with standard designs, there’s no reason those designs couldn’t be used by just about any class 1 railroad in the country (and a number of them did). If EMD can sell the same locomotive to the D&RGW, the C&NW, the Cotton Belt, etc, there’s no reason why Baldwin, ALCO and Lima couldn’t have done the same thing. It was EMD that standardized motive power in the US, not the gummint. The USRA designs were state of the art at the time they were designed and they were capable of improvement. Standardized light and heavy 4-8-4’s and other wheel arrangements could have been des

12

Sorry, Sheldon, but that argument won’t wash. If the operating conditions were so all-fired different, why did both the AT&SF and the B&O use EMD FT’s, F3’s, F7’s, GP7’s, NW2 switchers, etc. There is absolutely no reason that steam locomotives couldn’t be standardized.

That’s easy, contrary to your tag line, diesel electrics are simply superior and more versitle.

The closest thing to a unversal steam locomotive was the LIMA Berkshire, LIMA 2-6-6-6, or the N&W J, all built at the end of steam long after the advantages of diesels were clear.

Why were there no 80" driver Northerns in the east? Because they simply would not work well on those track conditions. Why did the western roads build lots of them?

Why does an N&W J only have 70" drivers or why was a LIMA 2-6-6-6 not a 4-8-8-4? Because long wheelbase locos don’t work well in the eastern mountains.

Why did the C&O move backwards from 2-10-4’s to 2-8-4’s? AGAIN, long wheelbase locos proved to have too many disadvantages in the east. But long wheelbase, high drivered steam was very usefull and productive in the west.

These are facts, with only a very few exceptions, most of those exceptions ran in limited locations. Example - the B&O only used its large 2-10-2’s on the line thru Pittsburg, a long steady grade with easy curves. When they tried to use one on the winding line to Ohio, they laid it on its side! Look it up, or I can send you a picture.

Why did the ATSF not keep the N&W Y3’s it had during WWII? They were too slow.

But what do I know?

Sheldon

13

Wow–twilight zone–I often don’t agree with Sheldon, but I must agree with most of what he said in the post immediately above.

Based on all the materials I’ve read, Sheldon is pretty much historically accurate here.

The Y-3’s were great at helping trains up Raton Pass, but too slow to get out of the way of traffic when running light–so they were gone quickly once traffic subsided. Likewise the magnificent Y-6B would have been too slow out west in a region where speed was a necessity to be competitive. However, Santa Fe recognized the tremendous steaming characteristics of that N&W/USRA Y-3 boiler and actually considered salvaging and plopping the boiler(s) on a 4-8-4. A sketch drawing exists and has been published!

Santa Fe had Baldwin build a magnificent 2-10-4 for high speed fast freight running. However, in actual practice in the western Arizona desert, on what at that time was one of the wickedest sustained helper grades with lots of horizontal curves in the entire country, the ATSF preferred their 2-10-2’s over the 2-10-4’s–so they sent the 2-10-4’s to the New Mexico Desert, where they could really roll the mile long trains of reefers.

The other elephant in the room was that during the steam era, the individual American railroads had so much pride in their own individuality that they generally refused to share designs (with limited exceptions like NKP/PM/C&O). The had to be different from their competitors just because. Once WWII came along, with the diesels, only then did that attitude begin to fade.

For example, during WWII Rio Grande was allocated 6 perfectly wonderful UP Challengers but hated them because what they really wanted were more of their own L-105 Challengers (which did offer higher tractive effort in the mountains than the UP ones). However, I think most people realize they hated the UP engines simply because they were not their

14

I think lost in the discussion are the concepts and trade-offs of optimization and standardization.

Standardization in manufacturing is a great cost-containment tool. But greater standardization in manufacturing almost always leads to greater sub-optimization of the product for the end-user. The example of the trim levels vs individual options is a a great example of the principle at work. By bundling options at trim levels the manufacturer reduces costs. But the product is not the optimal one for any given individual buyer, who wants some of the options, but not others, at a given trim level.

In the 19th Century, the wide disparity between operating conditions on various railroads, and the limited versatility of early steam locomotives forced the railroads and builders to custom designs more suited for specific conditions. The closest thing to a 19th Century standard design - the 4-4-0 - was a failure in the Colorado mountains. Similarly, the D&RG 2-8-0s built to haul bigger loads over the mountain passes were useless for passenger service on the NYC water-level route.

Even thought Porter and Baldwin had catalogs of “standard” steam locomotives, these were essentially starting points for optimizing designs. The steam manufacturers work closely with their customers to give them designs optimized for their situation.

Although a steam plant can be inherently more fuel-efficient than a diesel electric, steam development in the US was pretty much halted by WW2, where production efficiency became the more important criteria. After WW2 steam development continued for a while in places where coal was plentiful except the US - South Africa and Europe come to mind.

Diesel electric is an inherently versatile power system - the electric motors and gearing are adjusted to the specific situation, but the diesel generator itself doesn’t need to be modified. The same genset can be used in a wide variety of di

15

Huh? I’m not understanding this one. From my thermodynamics class in college, the maximum thermal efficiency of a steam engine is in the 8% range. With modern appliances and optimization of their designs, PRR allegedly achieved 9% with some engines (so I’ve heard claimed). This means that about 91% of the theoretical energy is still going up the stack. I don’t know how on earth a diesel electric locomotive would not be more efficient than steam power. If one looks up thermal efficiency on Wikipedia, it becomes very clear that gasoline and diesel engines are significantly more efficient than steam power.

On the Nickel Plate Road, highly efficient though they were at turning road freight power back out on the road in 2 hours or less, the labor costs to operate and maintain steam power doubled between 1950 and 1957 (as reported in either Rehor or Hirsimaki’s book). Even if you could have dramatically improved the thermal efficiency of steam power, the labor costs alone still would have buried steam.

Respectfully submitted–

John

16

Hi

just thought this thread could do with some input from a real life Brit.

Personally I’m quite happy to pre-order stuff. I have pre-ordered hornby items before, and yes even in the UK the scourge of delayed production exists. A number of items in the Hornby 2012 range have been cancelled completely much to the dissappointment of some. Do I have to pre-order though? Probably not, pretty much everything does end up in stock somewhere so you’re unlikely to be disappointed unless you really hold on before buying.

Yes there were fewer wheel arrangements used and perhaps that makes things a little easier, but it isn’t as as simple as Andre makes out ‘all the LMS Pacificis use an identical chassis’. Let me assure you they do not! This is a picture of an example of one of the latest Coronation Class locomotives and a Princess Royal class, both LMS pacifics.

Cleary different. The trailing truck on the top loco (the Coronation class) is a fixed cartazzi type assembly, the princess class has a swivelling truck like US models, only this is not accurate a it should be fixed like the Coronation. The wheel spacing is also different, on the Princess you can see the front driving wheel is spaced slightly further forward. Valve gear is also different.

Now onto the tenders…

First glance they look identical, but if you look closely the tender for the Princess on the bottom has rivet detail on the side which is absent on the Coronations tender above.

Most of the LNER pacifics though, I’ll give you, did have identical chassis. Do remember though some of these locos had up to six different liveries throughout their working lives, so depending on the time you’re modelling…

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It did already! I’m one…

Love those A4’s

Here is Mallard running in Illinois with another Pacific with a very different chassis behind it. It is not like Hornby took the exact same chassis casting and dropped a different body on it,

18

A pleasure to make your aquantance sir! I missed that you also replied in the running Hornby in the US thread also. I really like those Peco points!

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The cited efficiencies appear to be comparing apples to oranges. Theoretical Rankine cycle Carnot thermal efficiency (superheated steam) is cited as 63% with stainless steel turbine blades. Modern coal-fired power plants get above 40% efficiency.

Wet steam (not superheated) does have poor thermal efficiency (the 7-8% range you cited). Which is why the adoption of super heaters was such a big advance circa 1912.

Diesel electric appears to have typical operational thermal efficiencies in the 25-30% range, topping out at about 45% in smaller power plants.

I said steam plants can be more fuel efficient, but steam locomotive development was essentially halted during/after WW2.

I agree with labor costs. But a more careful analysis of maintenance man hours per operational hour shows that the differential in man-hours was not nearly as great as many have painted. What was a killer is the difference in the skills required to operate and maintain steam plant as compared to diesel - especially since automated operation of steam locomotives was essentially locked out by union labor contracts. One example - operating a steam locomotive without a stoker required two hig

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Word for word one of the most interesting forums I have read, jolly marvelous mates.