NZRedBaron wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:31 am
Man alive; the more I hear about stuff like this, the more I start to wonder if... it's just specific to LNER modellers.
I've never heard any complaints like this from GWR or LMS modellers- hell, it always seems to me that the big companies go out of their way, and bend over backwards, to cater to the whims of Swindonites; now granted, this is probably just bias on my part, but sometimes I wonder.
The superior aesthetic of the 'dry side' makes us more critical possibly?
Whatever, there is a least as much complaint from elsewhere, (Oxford Dean goods, Bachmann 812 and modified Hall, Hornby Large Prairie and S15, are a few recent items that come to mind) and once we get to diesel and electric traction it's an absolute blizzard. When the 'better RTR OO revolution' started with Bachmann's Blue Riband product in the late 1990s, most of the then customers were grateful. (At least I was, no need to kit build and finish 200 BR 16T minerals, because Bachmann were making them to 'expert kit builder standard'.)
Standards have improved since the 'better RTR OO' started arriving, and I have noticed an effect on my own perception. A fault that would have been acceptable on a lower standard model is now a 'blot' on a superior model. So there's usually 'something to fix' on RTR.
NZRedBaron wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 3:31 am
... I start to wonder if the big RTR model makers are just contemptuous towards their customers...
I don't believe they are. These are small businesses in 'real world' terms, and have difficulty in maintaining corporate memory as a result: past learning is readily lost. A good example, traction tyres, which are creeping back into RTR OO, some 20 odd years since they were being actively eliminated by not being present on the newly tooled 'better' introductions.
Then there's 'fashion' driven by the growing competition. Each brand is looking to add features that enhance the product, and these unnecessary camming links between loco and tender are a good example. Hopefully this one wil be discarded onto the rubbish tip of 'unwanted'. And it's only an annoyance, which anyone with a little skill can correct; on the positive side, Bachmann have now demonstrated how the fixed rear truck should be handled to enable a sprung flanged wheelset to be accomodated.
Fair notice.
My perspective is formed by long past experience of RTR OO as a sad and shabby thing; those of us wanting good models had perforce to build them, (or if well heeled buy from specialists building to order) and this prior activity forms my perception of present RTR OO as a good deal. I could not build and finish for twice the money spent acquiring RTR: PeppA1, PeppA2, A3, A4, Brit, B1, B12/3, B17, BR Std 5, C1, D16/3, J11, J15, J39, 3F, J50, J52, J94, 3F, 57xx, C, Q1, K1, K3, Ivatt 4MT BR std 4MT, L1, Fairburn 4MT, N2, N7, O1, O2, O4, O7, 8F, BR std 9F, Super D, V2, V3, W1, DP1, Classes 03, 08, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26/0, 30, 37, 40, 47, 55, 105 - and that's just the powered models - that my KX area last 7 years of steam operation and transition to dlesel operation requires, to give a reasonable cross section of what could be seen operating.
Especially so as my interest is timetable operation: I positively don't want to run the loco, carriage and wagon works and paint shops, so decent RTR OO is very welcome, and if it needs some 'correction' then it will get it. There's barely a RTR item on the layout that hasn't been modified to some extent, but compared to the 'build it all yourself'' position before the 'better RTR OO' arrived, this is
so much easier, and thus more fun for me. But as ever per individual, YMMV.