I think that Weave's comment about female influence has some truth in it. In the early 70s the reason I got in to N was my wife's excitement at seeing the connecting rods on an H0 Rivarossi engine running around a Parisian shop window. She loved watching connecting rods! As it happened over the ensuing years it was N and SNCF that caught my interest most, although I also have quite a lot of modern British stuff too since the quality improvements of the recent years.

I'm a few years older than Philip (29), but have no interest in steam for the reasons mentioned in the OP - it holds no relevance. I've always been interested in current models. When I was young it was sectorisation, then latterly privatisation. I'm always slightly annoyed when an exhibition guide descibes a layout as 'modern' only for it to be BR blue locos and blue/grey coaches!

That said I think there will always be a degree of nostalgia which people will want to reflect with steam traction.

As for other halves - my wife likes bright colours, EWS bad, Colas and London Midland good! Weathered stock is also a bad thing! Certainly doesn't have any sort of attraction to steam locos. She does like the operating layout in the middle of Gaugemaster though - particularly looking for the little cameos they've set up on it. Graham - I don't know if you do/can have a layout set up?

Again a lot of valid points to pick up on.

I have to agree about the steamers, the amount and complexity of them can baffle some people, my son has asked why is that one a 2-9-0 but you call that one a Brittania, but in diesels it's Class XX and it plainly written on the side for all to see, my eight yer old nephew grasped that with ease,  Ok I know there are the variations of the class with the updates, but a Class 47 is still a Class 47.

** Waits for a lesson in diesel classes from an oil monkey

Quote from: Graham Walters on April 23, 2016, 09:26:34 AMmy son has asked why is that one a 2-9-0

Because one of the driving wheels fell off?

Just coming back to read the further comments this morning.

Further thoughts about the Bachmann Rep's comments. In the true spirit of being a sales person, there being no new steam releases currently available, it feels to me as though there is maybe an element of making the best of situation by saying steam aren't selling, "but we have all these new diesel liveries coming". He can't supply any new steam models if he wanted to, some seem to have been pushed back from being imminent releases to who knows when so let's look at this in more detail: -

B1s All of original production out of stock a long time ago - we still await fresh production in BR Livery.

Duchesses - All originally released livery choices bar the rather odd BR black now out of stock at Barwell. New production awaited but no timescales.

Jinties - Initial run sold out very quickly, fresh run still awaited.

3MT Tanks - Initial run sold out a long time a go fresh run still awaited.

A2s - "Blue Peter" already out of stock.

J39s - Two of the original 4 main releases now out of stock.

Ivatt 2-6-0 - Only LMS livery in stock at Barwell - new production announced but no timescale.

Standard 5s - Seems to have been a recent discounted disposal of stock - only Camelot in stock at Barwell now.

We are told the 64xx will be due in a few months, there are now no dates against any of the other newly tooled models.

From my modelling circle I would most certainly see a big challenge to the statement he made. They are keenly awaiting the new steam releases, most especially the 4MT Tank and J72. They are in the meantime sitting on their cash - they have already bought the previous releases!

Turning to our "Better Halves" It is certainly interesting to read the comments concerning steam locos. My wife lies the steam locos yes, but she also really likes the sound fitted 37!

So, after all of this I conclude that the real issue with steam is to do with the lack of supply currently. It is not fair in my view to say they "don't sell" if there isn't actually anything new to sell!!

Sorry, long post...

Roy

Turning that argument around - if Bachmann knew they would get many sales and much money from getting (for example) the Jinty's to the top of the production queue and into the shops at the expense of (again for example) yet another DMU then commercial logic would dictate that is what they would do.

Quote from: Graham Walters on April 23, 2016, 09:26:34 AM
Again a lot of valid points to pick up on.

I have to agree about the steamers, the amount and complexity of them can baffle some people, my son has asked why is that one a 2-9-0 but you call that one a Brittania, but in diesels it's Class XX and it plainly written on the side for all to see, my eight yer old nephew grasped that with ease,  Ok I know there are the variations of the class with the updates, but a Class 47 is still a Class 47.

** Waits for a lesson in diesel classes from an oil monkey

I had a look through an old (1977!) Hornby catalogue the other week. I nabbed it cheap off flee bay as it was the one we had when we were a kid and our Dad was building OO layouts.

One of the things that struck me was the simplification of detail in explanations and descriptions of the types of loco and rolling stock and how at the time it was easy for me to quickly understand the difference between BR and the "Big 4" for instance. At the back of the booklet there's a simple diagram of the wheel layouts of both diesels and steam locos and I got started in the hobby knowing my favourite engine at the time, the Flying Scotsman, was a 2-6-4 and that I wanted a Pannier Tank

Nowadays, I've picked up a lot more specific information about railways, but coming to the hobby initially, it was a lot easier not being bombarded with information. Thus a separate thread post I made about maybe Graham Farish etc. should consider some more train-set like stuff that's made cheaper and less worried about detail so non hobbyists can get into playing with model railways and become railway modellers. (Fun fact, I restarted the hobby a few years with the decision to get into N Gauge as research for a project by buying the basic Farish set).

Quote from: Zwilnik on April 23, 2016, 12:07:14 PM
...and I got started in the hobby knowing my favourite engine at the time, the Flying Scotsman, was a 2-6-4 and that I wanted a Pannier Tank

They must have made it backwards in the last rebuild because I swear it's a 4-6-2 now!! 

Quote from: talisman56 on April 23, 2016, 01:05:21 PM

Quote from: Zwilnik on April 23, 2016, 12:07:14 PM
...and I got started in the hobby knowing my favourite engine at the time, the Flying Scotsman, was a 2-6-4 and that I wanted a Pannier Tank

They must have made it backwards in the last rebuild because I swear it's a 4-6-2 now!! 

This is why I'm still adjusting my sleep meds Thanks

Roy's reply #19 just re-affirms to me I do the right thing in pre ordering anything I consider a 'must have' as to delay/dither would possibly mean I don't get one and then up waiting to see if there'll be a re run.
With the exception of the A2 on Roy's list I have all the others and the A2 is not one I want for my location.

Quote from: Ian Morton on April 23, 2016, 10:31:45 AM
Turning that argument around - if Bachmann knew they would get many sales and much money from getting (for example) the Jinty's to the top of the production queue and into the shops at the expense of (again for example) yet another DMU then commercial logic would dictate that is what they would do.

I do wonder just how much control Bachmann Europe have over their UK outline production be it 00 or N (but especially N) and whether these delays are planned or imposed by the parent Kader. I suspect with relatively small UK outline production runs the answer is not a lot of control and quite possibly.

What I do not understand though is how someone like Dennis Lovett at the heart of Bachmann can tell me at the MK show mid Feb that the Late Crest 4MT Tanks would be delivered in April and then for them to have no delivery date at all!. To meet that delivery date they must surely have already been manufactured so why did they suddenly drop off the radar? QC checks revealing a fault and rejection of the whole batch? Who knows, but why not tell us...

Roy

Quote from: Roy L S on April 23, 2016, 02:38:23 PM

Quote from: Ian Morton on April 23, 2016, 10:31:45 AM
Turning that argument around - if Bachmann knew they would get many sales and much money from getting (for example) the Jinty's to the top of the production queue and into the shops at the expense of (again for example) yet another DMU then commercial logic would dictate that is what they would do.

I do wonder just how much control Bachmann Europe have over their UK outline production be it 00 or N (but especially N) and whether these delays are planned or imposed by the parent Kader. I suspect with relatively small UK outline production runs the answer is not a lot of control and quite possibly.

What I do not understand though is how someone like Dennis Lovett at the heart of Bachmann can tell me at the MK show mid Feb that the Late Crest 4MT Tanks would be delivered in April and then for them to have no delivery date at all!. To meet that delivery date they must surely have already been manufactured so why did they suddenly drop off the radar? QC checks revealing a fault and rejection of the whole batch? Who knows, but why not tell us...

Roy

It is still April, and he probably didn't say WHICH April, that slow boat from China seems to get slower with every advance in nautical engineering.
A company I worked for would air freight stuff rather than miss a release date, at least that way they kept customers happy.

One other thing which seemed to be implied was that pre-orders have some reflection on how many are actually made from a firts run, mosst first runs are around the 300 mark, which is for world wide sales, the cynical me thinks this may be to keep prices high and punters keen

I was under the impression that Bachmann/Farish did most things in batches of 1000 and that relatively few things got made in smaller quantities. I know the Bachmann Collectors Club models are only produced in batches of about 500, but I thought most runs were for 1000 (though whether that is 1000 of each livery or 1000 total, I don't know, but suspect the former). Someone please jump in an correct me if I'm wrong!

That is my understanding too. Bachmann do 1008 of any livery variant for main production runs, 504 for Collectors Club/limited editions. Dapol on the other hand can sometimes do as few as 300 for some liveries.

Roy

Quote from: Roy L S on April 23, 2016, 04:39:54 PM
That is my understanding too. Bachmann do 1008 of any livery variant for main production runs, 504 for Collectors Club/limited editions. Dapol on the other hand can sometimes do as few as 300 for some liveries.

Roy

Interesting! I didn't know that about Dapol. Funnily enough, I don't read about issues sourcing Dapol steamers at all really. They come back into stock relatively quickly, as far as I've noticed, and don't seem to have the same tendency to sell out. Perhaps they order smaller batches but guarantee to order at least X number of total runs of a class, as livery is probably the final stage before final assembly and testing and likely doesn't require much of a change between runs? Or perhaps order X number unliveried and have them liveried before delivery in batches? Anyone know?