GCR Plans

[John Bateson]

Just received TIFF files of the 11D (LNER D9) and 9P (LNER B3) from NRM York. While I have become accustomed to easy download of files (in exchange for money) their method of selling files is right back in the steam age.
First glance shows the D9 is probably the easier of the two, the eccentrics for the B3 would be horrendous in a 4 mm model so I would be inclined not to model these except for my own satisfaction, the main problem would be the friction in so many parts.
Over the next few months I shall be searching the archives for pictures of various parts. Pictures inside the cab are useful but they are usually hard to come by.
These two models will have to be made '00' buildable as well just to get anywhere near recovering the development costs, my daughter the bookkeeper keeps frowning at me!

But it will keep me out of the hair of the Lady Downstairs!

John

[iak]

Super news John.
D9's could be à winner...

[John Bateson]

Perhaps it is time to inject a small dose of reality into the operation of the nuts and bolts behind Great Central Models.
Company accounts for the past year have been filed and will be available for anybody to view from a number of sites in a couple of days. While I always expected that GCM would be a loss making enterprise, give the niche within a niche sort of market, the amount owing to The Lady Downstairs is more than I would like it to be.

Simply filing company accounts is quite expensive. My bookkeeper tells me the real cost for this year is a minimum of £600 and for the expected sales over the next 12 months for the two new locomotives, that will be around £20 per locomotive just for the bookkeeper. A small part of setting up a limited company was to give her experience in filing accounts for a limited company and such experience has indicated where her next steps in career progression are to be directed.
Fortunately I can keep her sweet (and inexpensive) simply by baby-sitting when needed and feeding her Sunday lunch from time to time, but it is a contingency that need to be factored into any future cost projections.
What is less controllable is the huge increase in materials and etches over the past 12 months...

A long and very active thread on RMWEB over the past two weeks (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63208-the-future-of-loco-kit-building/page__st__450) has raised all sorts of issues, not the least of which is the cost of kits and whether there is still a market for them, or indeed whether modellers still want to build them. I hold the view that the need is still there, and will be there for some considerable time, although the technology is changing and the way kits are presented needs to change with that. Many of the views about the usefulness or buildability of kits seems to stem from an era when white metal ruled the roost and that sort of entrenched postion is very hard to update.

I intend to continue with the new designs (LNER D9 and B3) over the next 6-9 months but this will have to be done perhaps a little bit more slowly than before so that future raids on the purse of The Lady Downstairs may go unnoticed, but I enjoy the work and have had a great deal of fun over the past 2-3 years - and isn't that what life is supposed to be about.
Especially in retirement!

John