Last week saw several new partwork magazines hit news agents and supermarkets. Along with Star Trek and Doctor Who was Your Model Railway Village which came with a piece of track and the above mk1 coach for just £3.99.  Since then some of the forums have been awash with the usual ‘im buying 50 of them’ while others argue that they shouldn’t be so greedy and leave them for the new entrants to the hobby (yawn!).  While the mag is little more than a pamphlet if im honest and I would doubt many would follow this through to the end anyway (including the publishers I expect), issue 1 has apparently done quite well for them.  Ok you are not going to find a jinty stuck to the front of a forthcoming issue, you have to buy that separately (timed around Christmas if the publishers have any sense) the Mk1 is quite a surprise.

I do wonder who its intended for.  Kids with train sets already who just want some cheap coaches or newbies who will probably find themselves in a crumpled heap on the floor of a model shop when they pop in to add another coach to their new collection and find them something like 7 times the price without a magazine!

The coach itself isn’t actually that bad.  Id go as far as to say if it wasnt for the Bachmann mk1’s it might actually be one of the best RTR Mk1’s out there.  Sure its crude but look at what we had before with Lima and Triang.  At least it’s flush glazed, the gangway is roughly the right shape and the bogies are about the right size (the lima ones werent).  It’s a tad long and the underframe is hopeless but it’s not that bad really.  It is perhaps what Hornby’s railroad range should have been rather than re-released lima items at not far enough from top end prices.  It certainly makes the gap in the market for Hornby’s own mk1s a lot smaller than it was.

But, and this is a bold statement, I do think this might be the most significant RTR release for a good few years.  Before you think ive gone completely mad let me explain.  We have had some excellent models recently, class 85, 350 blue pullman etc with increasing accuracy, detail and value added paraphernalia such as lights sound etc.  Obviously the above mk 1 is nothing like them but the effect it seems to have had on a lot of forumites is enormously encouraging.  People are talking about improving them themselves, converting them to other things and even at the price having a go at weathering with not a lot a lot to loose. That is why I think it’s so significant, it seems to be getting people thinking about doing stuff for themselves rather than expecting it done for them.

So to anyone who has brought this mag with a view to getting their scalpels or paintbrushes out give yourselves a pat on the back, THAT is what the hobby is all about!