As someone who has a Chatham P Class and Andrew Barclay from Hattons, these are some very high quality models. Nice to see another company take on the tooling for this particular model. It was a real shock when Hattons announced they're closure. I think 2024 has been a real mixed year for railway modelers and the hobby in general. From Hattons and Warley at the NEC not being a thing anymore, to getting some really nice models and a replacement for Warley in the form of the National Festival of Model Railways.
Thanks for watching! Both engines may not have all the modern bells and whistles but they're solid and dependable. The start of the year was shockingly horrible but thankfully things seem to have swung back around to a more happy note.
Hattons get an undue amount of praise for a company that really did a lot to destroy many smaller model shops. It's a little on the nose to see them praised in one breath then see their biggest advocates, youtubers who have taken affiliate deals with hattons, suddenly lament the closure of small model shops and say how they can't afford to shop locally for models for their reviews. It's just kinda sad that some people will cause damage then play sad about the outcome while running into the distance with their gains.
Hattons was my introduction and foundation for this hobby, and was effectively my local shop growing up besides a small second-hand market stall. I've got great memories of in-person browsing and customer service there so in my eyes and experience the praise is warranted. I do go out of my way to seek out what I want in smaller model shops - all my trackwork was bought from them in-person and I've already made a list of what to get in a visit next week. But nine times out of ten they never have the engines or rolling stock I want in the right livery/variety and can't get it in from manufacturers, so I have to put in pre-orders with bigger website stores or wherever exclusive runs are being done. My nearest local shop is now over an hour away, as both owners of the two nearest me retired and closed up. But Hattons will always be the gold standard for me and nowhere else I've come across has matched it's service.
@TheKnightTrain88 I completely understand that they were many people's local, Liverpool is not a sparsely populated place(well mostly lol) however there were many for who it was not, it was just a bit cheaper, it made the pounds go further, it meant more models. This greed destroyed other businesses. We talk about greed from manufacturers around pricing, we fail to see our own greed and the impact it has had on people's exposure to the hobby. Less shops means less places people might stumble upon the hobby, less places to go to ask for in person advice, less of all the things we talk about when we see youtubers lament the lack of models in shops on the high street and lack of customer service, those shops were the customer service, we destroyed it by shopping with the likes of hattons. We shouldn't mourn it so hard, it ruined our hobby a lot.
@@Samanthasrailadventures I don't think people opting for to purchase from the cheapest place is necessarily down to greed. Modelling is an expensive hobby and some people may not have been able to take it up unless they went for the absolute cheapest option they could find; higher prices elsewhere could've proved inhibitive. I couldn't properly begin to take it up until I got higher paying work and whatever I had to put towards it was budgeted and had to be stretched. Thankfully I'm now more fortunate, but that's not the case for many others.
An Andrew Barclay was my first Accurascale purchase, too. But I really don't understand why they've gone with such a large box. It's large enough to hold an O gauge model of the same loco. Thankfully, mine escaped damage and ran perfectly fine 🙂 👍.
@@RG-Models86 thanks for watching! That's good to hear. Yeah the standardised box size thing sounds sensible but it's still perplexing. I'd be interested to know if it's a cost saving or material saving decision. I was happy the original Hattons packaging was smaller than the norm so this box being so huge was a bit disappointing.
I have the Caledonia railway lined grey Andrew Barclay and I love it!! Looks odd seeing it in a big box like you said Waiting for the p class to be in stock
As someone who has a Chatham P Class and Andrew Barclay from Hattons, these are some very high quality models. Nice to see another company take on the tooling for this particular model. It was a real shock when Hattons announced they're closure. I think 2024 has been a real mixed year for railway modelers and the hobby in general. From Hattons and Warley at the NEC not being a thing anymore, to getting some really nice models and a replacement for Warley in the form of the National Festival of Model Railways.
Thanks for watching! Both engines may not have all the modern bells and whistles but they're solid and dependable. The start of the year was shockingly horrible but thankfully things seem to have swung back around to a more happy note.
Hattons get an undue amount of praise for a company that really did a lot to destroy many smaller model shops. It's a little on the nose to see them praised in one breath then see their biggest advocates, youtubers who have taken affiliate deals with hattons, suddenly lament the closure of small model shops and say how they can't afford to shop locally for models for their reviews. It's just kinda sad that some people will cause damage then play sad about the outcome while running into the distance with their gains.
Hattons was my introduction and foundation for this hobby, and was effectively my local shop growing up besides a small second-hand market stall. I've got great memories of in-person browsing and customer service there so in my eyes and experience the praise is warranted. I do go out of my way to seek out what I want in smaller model shops - all my trackwork was bought from them in-person and I've already made a list of what to get in a visit next week. But nine times out of ten they never have the engines or rolling stock I want in the right livery/variety and can't get it in from manufacturers, so I have to put in pre-orders with bigger website stores or wherever exclusive runs are being done. My nearest local shop is now over an hour away, as both owners of the two nearest me retired and closed up. But Hattons will always be the gold standard for me and nowhere else I've come across has matched it's service.
@TheKnightTrain88 I completely understand that they were many people's local, Liverpool is not a sparsely populated place(well mostly lol) however there were many for who it was not, it was just a bit cheaper, it made the pounds go further, it meant more models. This greed destroyed other businesses. We talk about greed from manufacturers around pricing, we fail to see our own greed and the impact it has had on people's exposure to the hobby. Less shops means less places people might stumble upon the hobby, less places to go to ask for in person advice, less of all the things we talk about when we see youtubers lament the lack of models in shops on the high street and lack of customer service, those shops were the customer service, we destroyed it by shopping with the likes of hattons. We shouldn't mourn it so hard, it ruined our hobby a lot.
@@Samanthasrailadventures I don't think people opting for to purchase from the cheapest place is necessarily down to greed. Modelling is an expensive hobby and some people may not have been able to take it up unless they went for the absolute cheapest option they could find; higher prices elsewhere could've proved inhibitive. I couldn't properly begin to take it up until I got higher paying work and whatever I had to put towards it was budgeted and had to be stretched. Thankfully I'm now more fortunate, but that's not the case for many others.
An Andrew Barclay was my first Accurascale purchase, too.
But I really don't understand why they've gone with such a large box.
It's large enough to hold an O gauge model of the same loco.
Thankfully, mine escaped damage and ran perfectly fine 🙂 👍.
@@RG-Models86 thanks for watching! That's good to hear. Yeah the standardised box size thing sounds sensible but it's still perplexing. I'd be interested to know if it's a cost saving or material saving decision. I was happy the original Hattons packaging was smaller than the norm so this box being so huge was a bit disappointing.
I have the Caledonia railway lined grey Andrew Barclay and I love it!! Looks odd seeing it in a big box like you said
Waiting for the p class to be in stock
Thanks for watching! The grey one looked pretty good. Fingers crossed the P classes don't suffer from the same motor and cab damage issues.
nice review on the history of the Barclay Steam loco, not something I would want even so a nice review
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed seeing this one in action.