Not just a cheesy title to go with a picture I quickly photohacked, the new Austrains NSW 4 Wheel oil tankers are causing somewhat of a kurfuffle on the various Australian forums and news groups.
It would appear that some people are bitterly disappointed with the items that have turned up, siting various departures from the prototype, and basically accusing anyone of buying these things of being a "toy train player"!
Not sure where that places someone who has bought a few "toys" but will run them on hand laid code 55 rail with sleepers laid out to NSWGR branch line specs along with hand laid points to the same NSWGR specs?
I can see both sides of the argume ....... ummm discussion, and some valid points have been raised, mainly relating to the weight factor, with these tankers being unusually heavy, and making the point that there seems to be no real reason to get some basic things wrong like axle boxes, that would have been no harder to get right.
The other point is that these tankers were always advertised as being released under the Basix range, which means that the super accurate details may be missing or more generic than normal. On the plus side metal wheels, kadee compatible couplers, some very fine and yet very strong handrails and steps are features which you wouldn't have gotten not so many years back on RTR stuff. Remember the plastic wheel dunny seat coupler era guys?
Right, wrong or indifferent, I watched these tankers sell like hot cakes on the Saturday at the recent exhibition, and like my wife who bought me an extra set because she simply thought they looked cute, I'm sure plenty of others were rejoicing at having some "near enough" 4 wheel tankers to add some variety and an Australian flavour to their layouts. I dare say if items like these bring more people to model Australian, then it's basix-ly (sic) a good thing.
I'm not a real tanker expert, so personally I'm hoping the tanker experts will point me in the direction of all manner of photo's, drawings, history etc so that I can if I want try to make a better model out of what I already have.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and those who know a lot more about these things should point out any errors and problems, but in a way that educates and enlightens those who don't know as much, not in a way that belittles and divides people. That's no way to promote or bring new people into our mostly enjoyable hobby.
Peace love and mung beans baby!
4 comments:
Well said Darren, I think things like this that Austrains have done keep the scratch builder employed. I beleive this will now give someone the chance to do an article or a detailing kit for these Basix tankers.
Many thanks for the kind words regarding BC and it was a pleasure to meet you.
Cheers untill next time.
Like Andrew said it is now open for people to put there modelling skills to work and fix the Basix tanks. Personally I bought the undecorated ones just for that reason.
Cheers
Chris
There's certainly a valid argument to be made on both sides. It's important to have a lower-cost alternative available for new modelers (although just what "lower cost" is has risen quite a bit in the past few years); but money spent by manufacturers to produce a less-than-accurate model takes away $$ that could be spent on something more correct. However, modelers have been putting up with less-than-accurate models for a long time and using their skills to make them more accurate. Personally, these are too early for my era and there's a couple highly-accurate bogie tankers coming soon that will render my "stand in" US outline tanks surplus. The colors on these certainly are bright, aren't they? Hell, I think a nice black paint job and good weathering will disguise most of the readily-apparent deficencies. . .
I bought them for my VR railway knowing that they were going to be inaccurate. However the weight is a huge problem!
What annoyed me was the huge amount of vitriol poured on Terry Flynn for simply pointing out the errors. Terry is pushing his own barrow of course but his initial post was not so bad and hardly deserved the response he got and the topic was diverted to the never ending argument over standards rather than about the models.
I was always going to weather them and maybe make a few cosmetic changes. Now I now how to remove the weight and will cut it down to size.
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