On another forum a member started a thread on detail faults, particularly Hornby, he complained that :

- Greater Anglia Class 153

Mix up in the colour of the lettering between blue and grey


- LNER A3 Class "Book Law"
LNER not in line with loco number


- BR Blue HST

Cantrail stripe added and black lettering


- BR Intercity HST

Intercity branding in the wrong colour


- 2014 great goodbye A4s (UPDATED)

Incorrect lettering alingnment

I responded by saying that "The shades of GWR green vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and I'm sure some of the boilers don't have the correct number of rivets, and I'm almost positive the crank rods had cotter pins on the real thing, not countersunk screws".

This has led me to think that people may be expecting too much in a model, which if you include a DCC decoder is available for around £150.
If you really want to there is always the upgrade kits which enable the most ardent of rivet counters to make the model more like a replica than a model.

Do we as consumers expect too much, then when manufacturers respond with even more detail we shun the price.

If you want a "replica" there are specialists out there who build and sell them, but at over £2k each they are out of my price range, but I would never complain about them because of that.

On the one hand, consumer pressure is good otherwise we'd still be enjoying pancake motors and pizza-cutter wheels. On the other hand, sometimes I feel sorry for the manufacturers, especially with the huge range of constantly changing variations of post-privatisation livery.

Personally I'm happy when something I buy "looks right" overall, even if the purple is slightly the wrong shade and the running number is a few scale cm off. I'd rather not pay a premium to ensure the model has the exact same jumper configuration as it did between March 37th and September 50th 19-elventy-3; if I needed that level of detail I'd prefer to have a reasonably-priced range of models suitable for after-parts addition as required.

A lot of modellers (or collectors) seem to want everything bang on, and for not a lot of money.

I think that getting the overall shape of the model is botherable, preferably to end up looking like the prototype it is meant to look like.

After that, I'd like people to think about the realistic settings they run the trains in and on.

For me if it looks right and runs well it is more important than having every detail right.

It's not expecting too much,  just wantlng stuff to be realistic,
reliable  and at a fair price.

I've said many times on this forum... we're just big boys & girls playing with trains. Some folk take it far too seriously, that being a reason (not the only one) I dropped out of BRMA a long time ago.

Quote from: Agrippa on July 09, 2015, 02:06:18 AM
It's not expecting too much,  just wantlng stuff to be realistic, reliable and at a fair price.

Pick two. All three is where the problem arises.

• Realistic and reliable will be expensive (see pretty much any Fleischmann model for example).
• Cheap and reliable will have to make compromises in terms of detailing (Union Mills for example).
• And getting all the details right while keeping costs down can mean compromises in terms of the internal mechanics, whether durability, performance or reliability (the Dapol 9F springs to mind here).

It's called the "iron triangle" and is a well known problem in all sorts of businesses.

Cheers, NeMo

Quote from: Graham Walters on July 08, 2015, 10:17:44 PM
Do we expect too much ?

Yes in most cases, whether regarding toy trains or anything else! It's the way things are now, people 'expect' perfection for minimal outlay. See it everywhere you look now whether it's goods or services, and most serial-moaners don't stop to think that there's some poor sod on the receiving end that is only doing a job to pay the mortgage/rent/bills just the same as them


Paul

I'll be brutally blunt here - I know there are many members into their late 50s and 60s, like me, who will recall things from Tri-Ang, Hornby, Trix and others such as :
(All OO)

the same power bogies used between classes so cab steps didn't line up with doors,
5 axle Class 37 and 31,
different shades of BR Blue even from the same manufacturer,
couplings which left a scale 10' gap between loco and first vehicle and 6' gap between the rest,
no matter how detailed the body the chassis was bare of brakes, sandboxes and other things we take as standard today,
motors filling cabs or (for DMUs) brake vans,
to overcome this steam locos with 'tender drive' but the driving wheels didn't turn,
coaches without interior fittings,
a very limited range of rolling stock made worse because manufacturers never bothered to change loco numbers for years,
fake liveries and vehicles (anyone remember the polo tanker for example?)

and in N all that plus

massively over scale locos (from Lima in particular),
massively under scale coaches,
if you couldn't build kits forget improving anything,

All this was 'standard fare' for the British railway modeller in the 1960s and early 1970s. What today we take for granted in (fairly cheap) r-t-r was massively beyond even the most skilled scratch builder only 30 years ago.
By 'fairly cheap' consider this - I have a Railway Modeller magazine of May 1971 with Minitrix Warships being sold at 100/ - (£5 in today's money) when my wages for a 40 hour week were just 145/ - (£7. 05). To buy a loco then was a major investment Compare with today when a Warship costs around £100 BUT how many could you buy with one week's money? Even on a pension today I could pick up 3 so yes, today r-t-r is fairly cheap.
I for one am not complaining about what we have now.

As ever these are my personal thoughts on the subject.
Greg

I think the standard today is amazing and we are very lucky with the models we are able to buy.
For me though, the detailing is sometimes too intricate and I'd be happy to pay slightly less for a little less detailing.
It is horses for courses though and I'm happy.

Todays standard is excellent but if you want the extra finesse then I would suggest that they kit/scratch build and then they can include all the details they want. Make sure the colours are correct decals are correct

Then if its incorrect they only have theirselves to blame.  Also they will see how much it costs to add that amount of detail to their model.

For me an N gauge model has to have the right 'feel/look' to it. I'm not really interested in the Nth degree (xcuse pun!) of detail because I probably wouldn't notice anyway.
So from a detail point of view I think current N gauge products are generally great.

What I won't put up with are items that don't work straight out of the box. Even yesterday someone posted about a brand new loco where he had to bend the valve gear on one side and glue a bit on the other side. That just shouldn't be necessary. Why not send it back if its not right? If it was a mobile phone or a DAB radio or a pair of shoes with a fault we'd just take the item back for repair or replacement. 

I could, and usually do, go on all day about this but I know you've heard it all before.

N gauge detailing is just fine though.

 

I agree Austin Bob I think one of the most important parts of a model is the roof after all that's what you see most of when the model is running on your layout,It's nice to know that all the brake pipes dynamos etc are there but for instance on a diesel if the roof griles are just molded on instead of etched brass with not even a hint of the fan showing the the whole appearance of the model is spoilt , coaches without roof vents , steam Locos with the wrong size domes or shape of chimney yet the interior has firebox doors pipe work hand wheels and the buffer beam has molded lamps but not painted white .
Having said all that we are very lucky that N gauge has improved so much since it first came out and I for one do appreciate most of the manufacturers efforts.And look forward to even more ,
especially smooth running at all speeds.
Bob

The manufacturers respond to what the market demands; but personally, I think what the market is now demanding and what the manufacturers are now producing is faintly ridiculous.

The problem is that actually, there is not "a market"; there are two distinct markets for the same products, and it is impossible to respond to both. There are the "static display" collectors, whose demands are for ever more precise and accurate detail; and then there are the "wagons roll" modellers, who want to run realistic trains that will be viewed from a distance such that most of the detail currently being applied is too small to be appreciated in any event.

I remember when the Graham Farish Jubilee came out, the marketing director of Graham Farish at a major national exhibition (I can't remember which) putting one alongside a Peco Jubilee and inviting us to agree how much better the Graham Farish model was. I stepped back to the distance from which I had had to view the vast majority of the layouts in the exhibition and you know what? Not only were they indistinguishable at that distance, but half of the detail on the Peco locomotive would not be really discernible if it were running by at the head of a long rake of carriages.

Soooo ... the "static display" collector may be getting much more of what he wants for the enhanced price; but the "wagons roll" modeller isn't. The pendulum has swung out of equilibrium, and is now heavily in favour of the static display collector. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, I suspect your answer to that will largely depend upon whether or not you are a static display collector ...

Seems crazy to spend so much money on locos that will never run.