Why are there so few plastic kits of locos?

[OutcastJoel]

It is an interesting point though. We all seem to know(accept?) that there is very little market for static plastic railway models but there is oddly a large and quite expensive array of diecast models. 

I wonder why? 

 

Although whilst musing this point it did occur to me that as a railway modeller who prefers kits to ready to run, it is no real supprise I don't really understand the appeal of models which neither allow you to build or operate. 

As they seem to be the bigger market, I guess that I am the wierd one though.

[ElectroSoldier]

There are a lot of kits out there to make up, mostly wagons Ill admit but then its hardly surprising as there are more wagons than locos and you always need more wagons than locos. Or Wagons and coaches anyway.

 

Dapol to a model of a Class 55 for £10 or you can get a decent RTR for £150.
I know where my money goes... And its not on a static model because unless I want it to sit in a sidings looking pretty all its life its a waste of money.

[cmatthewbacon]

...all this said, we had a goodly number of the Kitmaster/Dapol/Airfix loco models on our Classic British Kits SIG "Civilians" display at SMW last weekend, and they probably got more positive comment and started more discussions than all the rest of the more standard aircraft and cars (and the odd bird) put together... People do seem to be genuinely interested (or at least those modellers who attend SMW are...)

 

(photo: James Perrin)

 

best,

M.

[bigh827]

As has been pointed out, there isn't a big market for engines that don't run.

I've got a Monogram Big Boy in HO, but I've all so stood in the cab of one of these monsters here in Texas.

I don't really want a runner of one because you have to huge curves, even in HO.

I all so have three German engines from Revell and an AirFix Battle of Britan class. I plan to have a track side museum on my layout, so plastic model train kits are use full to me. 

But static trains aren't a big seller.

[Plumbum]

I always wanted to do a model of a GP-35 but there is no plastic models. So I went on

E-Bay and found an Athearn dummy (unpowered) HO and bought it. I painted the shell

and assembled what parts there were and bought decals for the livery I wanted. It's

getting harder as most manufacturers today don't make dummies anymore. So if you

wanted a newer  version such as an EMD-SD70 I guess your best bet would be to check

E Bay for a non running one some one was selling, still not cheap. Here is my Athearn HO

GP-35 in Penn Central colors, these use to run through my town's junction in the late 60s to early

70s. I use to ride my bike to that junction as a kid in the 60s and watch the NYC switchers

work. My grandfather had retired from NYC a few years earlier.---John

[Plumbum]

Here is a picture from the junction I use to bicycle to in the mid 1960s. This is in 1955

a few years before my grandfather retired, I believe he worked at this junction and not

the one in the center of town. A couple of NYC Alco FAs stopped on the tracks.---John

https://imgur.com/uZFNR4p

[Will Vale]

I know there was a bit of an emphasis on UK outline above, but there are some beautiful loco kits from Aoshima in Japan, to 1/45 scale.

 

http://www.aoshima-bk.co.jp/en/product/4905083009987/

 

I have the DD51 and it's huge, detailed, full interior and underframe etc. In every way a proper modern plastic kit. 

 

They do an EF66 which is very handsome as well:

 

http://www.aoshima-bk.co.jp/en/product/4905083054079/

 

I believe there are also older models in that scale (also from Aoshima?) which are slightly less refined but still very impressive if you don't mind a bit of work.

 

[edit: Yes there are - search their site for 1/50 scale.]

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Paws4thot]

On 21/10/2019 at 06:41, Herbert said:

 it would be nice to have a larger range to choose from representing  the major rail companies in the days of steam.

IIRC all the Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol locos except the 0-4-0T, the Evening Star and the Deltic prototype are/could be UK Grouping era or earlier with appropriate decals.

[cmatthewbacon]

On 1/12/2020 at 8:54 PM, Will Vale said:

I know there was a bit of an emphasis on UK outline above, but there are some beautiful loco kits from Aoshima in Japan, to 1/45 scale.

 

http://www.aoshima-bk.co.jp/en/product/4905083009987/

 

I have the DD51 and it's huge, detailed, full interior and underframe etc. In every way a proper modern plastic kit. 

 

They do an EF66 which is very handsome as well:

 

http://www.aoshima-bk.co.jp/en/product/4905083054079/

@Will Vale am I right in thinking that at 1/45 scale those kits would be pretty much O Gauge? 
best,

M.

[Circloy]

5 hours ago, cmatthewbacon said:

@Will Vale am I right in thinking that at 1/45 scale those kits would be pretty much O Gauge? 
best,

M.

 

O gauge in the UK, and I believe Europe, is 7mm to 12" which equates to 1:43.5, In the US it's 1:48 so at 1:45 sits between the two and wouldn't look out of scale against either.

 

 

5 hours ago, Paws4thot said:

IIRC all the Kitmaster/Airfix/Dapol locos except the 0-4-0T, the Evening Star and the Deltic prototype are/could be UK Grouping era or earlier with appropriate decals.

The full list of UK OO gauge loco's produced by Kitmaster K, Airfix A or Dapol D loco's is as follows:

 

Pre 1948

 

Rocket  -  KAD (Suitable for Rocket only at the Rainhill Trials, modified prior to the Liverpool & Manchester railway opening 1 year later, also suits various replica's built over the years)

GWR Prairie - KAD

GWR City of Truro - KAD

SR Schools Class - KAD

SR Battle of Britain/Biggin Hill - KAD

LYR 0-4-0 Saddle Tank - KAD

J94 0-6-0 Saddle Tank - KA - Built for the War department but also used by the LNER & BR also private industrial railways (e.g. NCB, British Steel)

 

LMS Coronation Class Pacific - K

GNR Sterling Single - K

LMS Beyer Garrett - K

 

Post 1948 i.e. BR ONLY

 

English Electric Diesel shunter (Class 08)  - K - Based on a LMS design, many still exist post de-nationalisation

Deltic Prototype - K

Evening star - KAD

BR Mogul - KAD

Blue Pullman - K

Drewery 0-6-0 shunter (Class 03) - AD - Similar designs were used by private industrial railways

Railbus - AD

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by Circloy
Correction (08 shunter)

[Paws4thot]

39 minutes ago, Circloy said:

Post 1948 i.e. BR ONLY

Cheers; I wasn't aware of the EE diesel shunter (at all), but can confirm that I have a Dapol bagged Deltic (well, ok I don't have the glazing but neither does anyone else).

[Ratch]

1 hour ago, Circloy said:

English Electric Diesel shunter (Class 08)  - KA - Based on a LMS design, many still exist post d-nationalisation

Airfix didn't issue an 08 

These are the kits Airfix issued

0-4-0 Saddle Tank Locomotive 1964
0-6-0 Saddle Tank 1963
2-6-2 Prairie Tank locomotive 1963
BR Mogul 1971
Battle of Britain class loco 1968
City of Truro 1965
Diesel Railbus B45 1960
Drewry Diesel Shunter 1961
Evening Star 1964
Schools class locomotive 'Harrow' 1968
Stephenson's Rocket 1964

I appreciate that they bought the Kitmaster range (including the Deltic) and sold what they had onto Dapol, but weren't some of the Kitmaster tools destroyed?

[Circloy]

2 hours ago, Ratch said:

Airfix didn't issue an 08 

 

 

 

I appreciate that they bought the Kitmaster range (including the Deltic) and sold what they had onto Dapol, but weren't some of the Kitmaster tools destroyed?

08 corrected   (humble 🥧)

 

If my memory serves I'd heard that when the moulds turned up at Dapol and an inventory was taken there were more than had been expected. The moulds for the items Airfix had been issuing were obviously there but there were some that Airfix had never used, they'd never looked in detail at what they'd received from Kitmaster. A lot were in poor condition and obviously of no further use whilst others were tested with the thought that one last run might be achievable, of these only the Deltic was of further use hence it's re-appearance after 20+ years.

 

I doubt if Airfix would have been interested in re-issuing the European / American items themselves and these were the wrong scale to be of interest to any of the European kit producers so maybe sat unloved in a warehouse or were scrapped without ceremony.

 

The missing gems were the MK1 coaches, it took Tri-ang a good 10 - 15 years to produce anything close and of course the Blue Pullman.

[OutcastJoel]

Ryfield Models were gauging interest for loco kits on social media a few weeks ago. They suggested if they do anything they would be looking for something of a similar bulk to a 1/35 scale tank (so I suppose O scale or similar would make most sense).

There is a good chance that nothing will come of it but fingers crossed. 

[Mjwomack]

British O gauge is 1/43, though curiously I learnt from @Heather Kay who does this for a living that continetnal O gauge is the cleaner metric scale of 1:48. Gauge 1 is 1/32 but I can see that 1/35 would allow for a crossover into military material where it is firmly established and there's plenty of 'civilian' accessories available.

It would all be a lot bigger than my normal n gauge but I might be intrigued if it came to pass

[Troy Smith]

35 minutes ago, Mjwomack said:

British O gauge is 1/43, though curiously I learnt from @Heather Kay who does this for a living that continetnal O gauge is the cleaner metric scale of 1:48.

1:48 is not a metric scale, (4 feet to the inch) but  1:50 is.  

 

US 'O' gauge IS 1/48 though, as I used to read about being able to use US rail accessories in Shep Paine Monogram diorama leaflets, which is a shame that they are not easy to get in the UK, and that shipping from the US is now prohibitive, as they be great for 1/48th diorama use  

 

I think 1/43 come about being half of 1/87.   I'll be interested to hear any comments fro @Heather Kay though. 

 

Wiki has this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_scale#Scale_and_gauge

 

"Scale is the ratio of a model dimension to the real life dimension. O Scale in the UK is commonly 1:43.5 or 7 mm to the foot, in continental Europe it is commonly 1:45 though 1:43.5 is also used particularly in France,[4] and in the USA 1:48.[3] Each region tends to design models to its own scale.[citation needed] The NMRA and the MOROP maintain detailed standards for a variety of scales to help model makers create interoperable models"

 

1:45 is metric, and 2 x 1:43.5 is 1:87....

 

And you can blame Tamiya for 1:35th.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1:35_scale#:~:text=The roots of 1%3A35,35 a de facto standard.

 

"The roots of 1:35 as a military modelling scale lie in early motorized plastic tank kits. To accommodate electric motors and gearboxes, these models needed to be made in a larger scale. There were many companies making such tanks, but it was Tamiya's example that made 1:35 a de facto standard.

Company chairman Shunsaku Tamiya explains the origins of the scale in his book Master Modeler:[1]

After the success of the Panther, I thought it would be a good idea for us to produce other tanks from different countries in the same scale. I measured the Panther and it turned out to be about 1/35 of the size of the original. This size had been chosen simply because it would accommodate a couple of B-type batteries. Tamiya's 1/35 series tanks eventually got to be known around the world, but this is the slightly haphazard origin of their rather awkward scale."

 

Perhaps of use....

[Mjwomack]

Sorry, it's my age! Yes I meant 1:48 is IMPERIAL, never understood why 1:50 as a metric scale didn't take off- deliberate pun because I've seen a handful of aircraft in it.

Most of the British railway scales are nonsense! 1:43 mixes imperial and metric as 7mm to a foot, then HO as Half O was indeed 1:87 as 3.5mm to the foot, but that din't work so went out to 1:76 as a curious 4mm to the foot, But all of them make the track gauges wrong.

Really, it's best not to think too much about it, but strangely I often do!!!

[Heather Kay]

38 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 I'll be interested to hear any comments fro @Heather Kay though. 

 

I try to stay out of things like this, in the main because it's a confusing mess! 

 

Most of my commissioned railway work is 1/43.5. It is the UK standard called O Gauge. Back in the early part of the 20th century, various UK and European model manufacturers laid down some basic scale foundations. This is where we get the numerical scale system from:

• Gauge 3 is generally the largest, an established scale of 17/32” (or 13.5mm) to the foot, 2-1/2in gauge or 64mm depending on your persuasion.
• Gauge 2 is 1/22.5 scale, but isn't known at all these days, but used 45mm gauge track, which is now widely used for G scale garden scale railways.
• Gauge 1 is 1/32nd generally rounded to 10mm to the foot, and also uses 45mm gauge track.
• Gauge 0 is 1/43rd 7mm to the foot, officially uses 32mm gauge track which is slightly under the correct scale gauge, spawning a finer scale variant a whole millimetre wider called ScaleSeven. If you think about it, H0 ("half 0") isn't half of 32mm.
• S scale is 1/64th and remains an interesting scale between 0 and 00, with 22.42mm gauge track.

Then things begin to get very messy, although mostly in the UK...

• Continental Europe, the US and Japan work to H0 (Half 0), 1/87th 3.5mm to the foot, generally running on track with a gauge of 16.5mm.
• The UK, obviously, should have adopted H0, but Gauge 00 is the most popular UK scale, 1/76th 4mm to the foot, still using H0 gauge track. This is a bone of contention, since it scales to a gauge of 4ft 3in or something, when it should equate to 4ft 8in, and spawned EM (18mm gauge) and ScaleFour (18.83mm gauge) both of which are much closer to an accurate scale gauge). Arguments still rage over why the UK adopted the larger scale, with most generally agreeing that UK outline locos and stock work to a smaller loading gauge than their continental cousins, and electric motor technology at the outset required larger scale bodies to fit them in. 
• Then we drop down to N (Nine millimetre gauge), generally 1/148th, 2mm to the foot, N Gauge in the UK, but 1/160th N Scale in the rest of the world. 

I think we'll leave TT, T and Z for another time! The variations in gauges to scales is often attributed to conversion from imperial to metric measurements. It is safe to say that early model railways were quite crude with regard to track and wheel standards, in an attempt to keep the toy trains on the rails. Things have been refined over the decades (modern 00 gauge stock uses a wheel profile much closer to the EM Gauge Society standards, for example), but the mess of gauges and scales remains to confuse the casual modeller!

 

As you can see, most model railway scales simply do not equate neatly to other plastic modelling scales. With such a mixture of scales across the board, you can probably understand why injection moulded kits of railway subjects are still rare. I have seen Gauge 1 scale kits of German locos and some freight stock, as well as H0 scale. Airfix, née Kitmaster, now Dapol, produced static 00 gauge models in the 1960s, and matched many of their vehicle and figure kits to 1/76th scale.

 

Wikipedia does an admirable job of trying to make sense of the railway modelling world of scales. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_modelling_scales

 

[Troy Smith]

43 minutes ago, Mjwomack said:

never understood why 1:50 as a metric scale didn't take off- deliberate pun because I've seen a handful of aircraft in it.

from metric countries.... Heller and Tamiya are examples

1/48th was really used a lot in the USA., who are not metric.   (Though I think in the UK was also traditionally used for maker's ship models, as in models made by the actual shipyard @iang maybe able to add some info on that) 

 

43 minutes ago, Mjwomack said:

Really, it's best not to think too much about it, but strangely I often do!!!

which is why you, and I,  are here.... keeps us off the streets  

13 minutes ago, Heather Kay said:

I try to stay out of things like this, in the main because it's a confusing mess! 

great round up...  my head i spinning, probably time for a lie down in soft room with no sharp objects...