stuff that didn't catch on

[leighant]

Sound-actuated control of model trains.  Talk into a mnicrophone, give instructions and the train goes, stops, backs up.

This might be practical, err possible, with today's computers, but when I had it on my Lionel set in the late 1950s, it was a trick gimmick.  The microphone into which one spoke had a thin lightweight which would be blown by the voice to break electrical contact.  It did not really interpret speech-- one had to give commands to suit what was the next phase in the Lionel E-unit cycle.

Using a sibilant (almost a whistling) "f", you would say "Fffffffor-ward."

Then when you needed to stop the train, say "stoh-PUH" with a pop on the final "p."

Then  for reverse, say "Back Uh-PUH!"

[AltonFan]

Good grief, I forgot all about Lionel Rail Scope.  (I would have included it in my list if I had remembered.)  And really wanted one of those, too.

It probably was a little too soon.  I remember an article by Keith Gutierrez (I think) in RMC in the late 1970s, describing how such a thing might work, and the possibilities it offered.  A reader wrote to ask why they didn't print a parts list and construction information.  The editor replied that the device was not yet feasible, and would be expensive if it were.

[cats think well of me]

Hmm what hasn't caught on... 

Steam loco kits, particularly in America, though how often have we had anything like the lovely etched brass kits like they have in Europe come our way? Not to often minus the DJH kits from the '80s. 

Track in roadbed products, they've never seemed real popular.

Smoke units in HO, though they seem quite popular in O. I guess the smoke produced has yet to truly be realistically done. Aside the German KM1 pieces, I've not seen to many that impressed me.

Alvie

 

 

[Rapido]

fwright

• OO, TT, OOO scales

I would not be surprised if OO gauge was, in fact, the third most popular "scale" in the world, after HO and N.

There may only be 60 million people in the British Isles, but I'm willing to wager that there are more modellers per capita in the UK than any other country.  And OO is the gauge of choice for most of them.  (It's not really a scale - it's 4mm scale trains on 3.5mm track.)

If we're just talking about North America, that's another story.  OO gauge flew here like a lead balloon, despite being somewhat popular in Canada in the 1960s.

-Jason

[tpatrick]

About a decade ago I was strongly into Dynatrol. It's operating characteristics were superb. I especially liked its braking feature, which is still unmatched even in the most advanced DCC. Unfortunately, the Dynatrol decoders were too bulky and they offered too few addresses (19 IIRC). As DCC came more into its own, Dynatrol faded to a relative handful of users.Call it a system that almost caught on, but was overtaken by a more widely accepted technology. 

[rrinker]

 There wer emany such systems. In fact at the beginnign of the DCC standardization discussions, compared to what was being presented, CVP's RailCommand did more. Eventually more features and capabilities got added to DCC< plus it was made a standard. Each of the other common systems, RailCOmmand/CTC16/80, Dynatrol, and Keller had their strong points, btu there was zero compatibility - I couldn;t take my RailCommand loco to a friend's layout who ran Dynatrol. DCC changed that. Luckily we had strong backing from other manufactuers who pushed past the original basic Lenz system of 14 speed steps and 99 addresses.

 I was planning at one point to build my own CTC-16e system from the MR articles. I had a pretty good plan and started gathering parts but thent he whole DCC standard thing started happenign so I waited. I was sold on the idea of some sort of carrier control system from reading David Sutton's COmplete Book of Model Railroading with the chapters on GE's ASTRAC - more so than Lionel's 1-tube electronic control system, this was the real forerunner of independent control systems. If you want to name one that didn;t ever catch on, that would be it.

                  --Randy

[IRONROOSTER]

Interesting to hear there really were smell products - I guess I missed them the first time around.

One interesting idea that never quite caught on was the basic brass steam locomotive that you detailed yourself.  There were a couple then the idea seemed to fade away.

It's a shame that TT hasn't done better (it's still around).  It really is the perfect size for the 4x8 layout.

Enjoy

Paul

[AltonFan]

tpatrick

About a decade ago I was strongly into Dynatrol. It's operating characteristics were superb. I especially liked its braking feature, which is still unmatched even in the most advanced DCC. Unfortunately, the Dynatrol decoders were too bulky and they offered too few addresses (19 IIRC). As DCC came more into its own, Dynatrol faded to a relative handful of users.Call it a system that almost caught on, but was overtaken by a more widely accepted technology. 

IIRC, Dynatrol was the successor to GE's Astrac of the 1960s, immortalized in Sutton's Complete Book of Model Railroading.  (Something else that didn't catch on.  Again, too early, probably too expensive, too bulky, and just too limited.)  OTOH, Allen McClelland used Dynatrol to great effect on his V&O.

You can add Hornby Zero-1 to the list of command control systems that failed to catch on.  I think Jim Kelly used Zero-1, and even modified a controller for walkaround operation.

In an MR article on Hornby, there is a photo of a group of workers assembling Zero-1 controllers.  One of them was an 80s-era punker with his hair styled into spikes.

[Packer]

Some things I didn't see on this thread:

MTH DCS locos being (fully) compatible with DCC

Talgo trucks

Kits

Metal stirrups, grabs, and ladders (I've seen some older kits that had them)

wholeman

I just can't see adding a smoke generator to a diesel loco.

ALCOs and some GEs

AntonioFP45

One feature that I still enjoy but a number of modelers complained about:

Openable doors on HO locomotives (Proto 2000).

I did and still do like that feature which is on the majority of my HO P2K diesel units manufactured from the late 90s thru mid-2000s.

Since a locomotive terminal will be a major feature on my layout, I like having the ability to open cab doors when units are parked at the terminal, getting serviced, or on local industrial runs.

Cannon and Company cabs can have open doors, but they don't make any for the older 1st generation diesels.

[wholeman]

Reading all of these makes me realize that their were and are always new things that have/will never catch on. 

Most people don't watch movies on LaserDisc (way before VHS and DVD).  I only remember two people when I was growing up who had these.

This hobby has come a long way and for the most, for the better.  We have more detailed products and smoother running locos.

 

[AltonFan]

Rapido

 

fwright:

 

• OO, TT, OOO scales

 

 

I would not be surprised if OO gauge was, in fact, the third most popular "scale" in the world, after HO and N.

There may only be 60 million people in the British Isles, but I'm willing to wager that there are more modellers per capita in the UK than any other country.  And OO is the gauge of choice for most of them.  (It's not really a scale - it's 4mm scale trains on 3.5mm track.)

If we're just talking about North America, that's another story.  OO gauge flew here like a lead balloon, despite being somewhat popular in Canada in the 1960s.

-Jason

American OO used 4mm to the foot with the correct 19mm track gauge.  It competed directly with HO, but pretty much disappeared after World War II.  There was this fellow named Temple Nieter, from Evanston, Illinois, who wrote about OO in an early edition of MR, and kept track of the small group of people who were still working in American OO in the 1980s.

I read somewhere recently that if one carefully examines some 1940s-1950s era HO models, one finds that they are actually OO.  Someone even suggested it might have been better for the hobby had OO been successful.

As for OOO, it was superceded by N scale, although I hear the British run 2mm scale models on 9mm track, thus continuing their tradition of over-scaling the models on available track.

[Anonymous]

leighant

Sound-actuated control of model trains.  Talk into a mnicrophone, give instructions and the train goes, stops, backs up.

This might be practical, err possible, with today's computers, but when I had it on my Lionel set in the late 1950s, it was a trick gimmick.  The microphone into which one spoke had a thin lightweight which would be blown by the voice to break electrical contact.  It did not really interpret speech-- one had to give commands to suit what was the next phase in the Lionel E-unit cycle.

Using a sibilant (almost a whistling) "f", you would say "Fffffffor-ward."

Then when you needed to stop the train, say "stoh-PUH" with a pop on the final "p."

Then  for reverse, say "Back Uh-PUH!"

I remember something similar with remote control cars in the mid 90s. Alas it didn't catch on in the R/C world either. I also remember the various scent oils but somehow I don't think too many spouses and parents will be too happy with us making the basement or den smell like smoke and diesel exhaust.

[gmcrail]

7j43k

Sprung trucks, apparently.  

 

Ed

 

Yeah, I know that's not REALLY an example; but it did "spring" to mind.

 

Oh, yeah, and X2f couplers.

And operating hopper cars.  Ulrich, Mantua/tyco and Revell all used to make 'em.

Sprung trucks not only caught on, at one time they were the only thing available from Athearn, Ulrich, Silver Streak, and several others which don't make it through my mental fog.  And they're still being made - Kadee in particular.  Really good trucks are sprung.

X2F couplers were made by only MDC/Roundhouse and Kemtron, IRRC.  The one-piece plastic horn-hook couplers mis-named "X2F" or "NMRA" were/are cheap knock-offs.  The X2F was a reliable coupler, when installed correctly.  Looked ugly as a mud fence, but reliable.

Operating hoppers have been made by Athearn since the early Sixties.  BB quad coal hoppers.  They just never got around to producing the ramps for them, or figuring out how to get them closed without picking up the car.

[Flashwave]

Railphotog

A previous mention of openable doors on diesels said having them open would add to the realism of a yard scene.  But the ones I had were spring loaded, and would not stay open.  Especially useless were the doors at the back of cab units.  The only way you could see them in the opened position was to pick up the model!    Also the movable sunshades worked, but were way out of scale.

What about the operating fans on the Life Like FA units?  Neat idea, but they were almost impossible to see in motion.   I painted mine silver, but that didn't help much.   The model also had operating side louvers, another waste of effort.

 

 

 

Yep, all the ones I have are sprung too. But it is really easy to force that door so far back the sp-ring dislodges, and if toy pop the shell off, oyu can just snip the spring outright.

AltonFan

Combining slot cars with model railroads.  Some train set producers tried this, and a few guys incorporated slot car tracks into their layouts, but it never really went farther than that.

Walthers re-released the piece to do that for the Life-Like track set last year or the year-before.

AltonFan

Westside Models announced a series of freelanced HO brass locomotives.  The only one that was released was a 2-10-0 called "The Brute".  One was reviewed in RMC back in the late 1970s - 1980s, but I've never seen one in a hobby shop, never encountered one on the internet, and no other models were produced in this series.

Correct me, but didn't they produce a 2-8-0+0-8-2 based on a Southern experment, that the owwner ordered a special run of for his own model empire?

AltonFan

AHM-IHC produced a series of couplers that was supposed to mate both with Kadees and X2Fs.  I actually bought a package.

Yep, I got a pair in a kitonce. I like the things, but it's much easier and cheaper to just figure out how to wrap the Kadee knuckle around the end hook on the X2F. This does result in the kind of coupling that can be used as a whip however.

AltonFan

The ALPS Printer.  It could print white lettering on clear decal stock.  I understand ALPS printers and their "white ink" cartridges are still made in Japan, and still available outside of the US.  In my opinion, this was a tragic loss.

I wish someone else coulda filled that hole. But there;s probably a reason that the ALPs is the only ALPs.

AltonFan

I suppose we could now add kit-built steam locomotives to the list.

Which is a shame

[DavidP]

Tower 55?,Huberts,MRC F-units

[tstage]

Spaghetti on a stick...

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

cats think well of me

Hmm what hasn't caught on... 

Steam loco kits, particularly in America, though how often have we had anything like the lovely etched brass kits like they have in Europe come our way? Not to often minus the DJH kits from the '80s. 

Track in roadbed products, they've never seemed real popular.

Smoke units in HO, though they seem quite popular in O. I guess the smoke produced has yet to truly be realistically done. Aside the German KM1 pieces, I've not seen to many that impressed me.

Alvie

 

 

Alvie, I don't think you are looking at the whole history of the hobby, or maybe your just not aware of the history.

Steam loco kits were very popular in the 40's, 50's and 60's. and a number of them were brass, craftsman type kits. Admittedly without todays etched technology, but kits none the less. I built my first steam loco kit at age 13. I will admit, dispite my modeling skills, I don't have much interest in building complex craftsman loco kits - and many modelers today also lack the interest, tools, skills or time - for me its the time. There are other aspects of the hobby I enjoy more, including building strctures and rolling stock kits.

That seems to be why Bowser, Roundhouse, Mantua and others have all gotten out of the loco kit business.

I still kit bash a lot of locos, that is faster, easier and more fun for me than starting from the ground up.

I will say, that if some manufacturer offered a kit based on the current construction methods of RTR locos, I would likely buy a few, if of cource it was a loco I want. But to settle for rigid drivers, limited electrical pickup and limited or expensive added on detail in this day and age seems foolish.

Some of my RTR kit bashes have required complete disassembly and reconstruction, that was close enough to a kit for me.

I still think there is a market for kits that come with a ready to go chassis and lots of detail options - imagine all the variants of the Bachmann heavy Mountain in a kit with the drive already built. - Make that a USRA heavy Pacific and i'm all in for at least two or three to start.

And maybe that would catch on, and maybe not.

Sheldon

[Medina1128]

AltonFan

Combining slot cars with model railroads.  Some train set producers tried this, and a few guys incorporated slot car tracks into their layouts, but it never really went farther than that.

It's funny that you mention this one, because you can get Model Power slot car sets and the slot car/train track pieces from Walthers.

[Medina1128]

wholeman

Reading all of these makes me realize that their were and are always new things that have/will never catch on. 

Most people don't watch movies on LaserDisc (way before VHS and DVD).  I only remember two people when I was growing up who had these.

Your list brings other things to mind:

• 8" computer floppy disks
• Sony Betamax
• Bag phones
• Heathkit PC kits

 

[blownout cylinder]

tstage

Spaghetti on a stick...

Lichen that pretends to be a bush...

[AltonFan]

Flashwave

AltonFan:

Combining slot cars with model railroads.  Some train set producers tried this, and a few guys incorporated slot car tracks into their layouts, but it never really went farther than that.

Walthers re-released the piece to do that for the Life-Like track set last year or the year-before.

Medina1128

AltonFan:

Combining slot cars with model railroads.  Some train set producers tried this, and a few guys incorporated slot car tracks into their layouts, but it never really went farther than that.

It's funny that you mention this one, because you can get Model Power slot car sets and the slot car/train track pieces from Walthers.

Apparently there's enough interest to justify this, but still, it seems to be primarily a gimmick for the train-set crowd.  Apart from two articles published over 35 years ago, nobody seems to have incorporated slot cars into a layout to simulate automobile traffic.

Flashwave

AltonFan:

Westside Models announced a series of freelanced HO brass locomotives.  The only one that was released was a 2-10-0 called "The Brute".  One was reviewed in RMC back in the late 1970s - 1980s, but I've never seen one in a hobby shop, never encountered one on the internet, and no other models were produced in this series.

Correct me, but didn't they produce a 2-8-0+0-8-2 based on a Southern experment, that the owwner ordered a special run of for his own model empire?

I wouldn't know.  I've seen pictures of the Southern engines with the steam tractor under the tender.  I don't remember if they were kitbashed by a modeler or catalog items from a manufacturer.

Now in the 1960s there was a period when it was popular to extensively rework brass locomotives, and even bash two models to make a  different engine.  (Bill Schopp at RMC wrote quite a bit on this.)  I suppose the reason that didn't catch on was because the price of brass locomotives skyrocketed near the end of the decade, and doing more than a needed tune-up or detail improvements was no longer economically viable.

[NittanyLion]

Medina1128

 

• Sony Betamax

Beta crushed VHS in the professional video field.  It was the standard for video recording for the news media and was in production until 2002.

[modelmaker51]

NittanyLion

Medina1128:

 

• Sony Betamax

 

Beta crushed VHS in the professional video field.  It was the standard for video recording for the news media and was in production until 2002.

That's true, but JVC's VHS out did Beta in consumer sales 2 to 1. Once JVC won the patent infringement case against Sony for stealing the helical drive design, Beta died altogether.

[BobL609]

Just a couple of my personal favorites:

solar powered flashlight

inflatable dart board

water solable life raft

green bar paper and dot matrix printers

[PASMITH]

fwright

I think sprung trucks and X2f couplers had a fairly good run, but are definitely out of favor now.  I still prefer sprung trucks, personally.

What didn't catch on at all (ignored or unpopular in general despite commercial and media support)

• magnetic versions of the X2f coupler
• lever or slide action throttles
• Athearn rubber band drives (could be wrong on this, sales could have been high despite the reality)
• OO, TT, OOO scales
• to some extent, track with built-in roadbed
• DC walk-around and wireless throttles
• Twin-T signaling
• HOn30

I'm sure there are other examples, too.

Fred W

It has always puzzled me why HOn30 never really caught on especially since it had such a great start after all of the great articles that were published by Frary and Hayden. It is an easy way to build a lot of interesting railroading in a small space in the most popular scale in model railroading. It is also easy to add narrow gauge to a standard gauge HO railroad where so many commercial products available.To make things even better, you can use N gauge or e-gauge track (Peco) and N gauge or or e-gauge mechanisms. 

Peter Smith, Memphis

 

 

 

[fwright]

PASMITH

It has always puzzled me why HOn30 never really caught on especially since it had such a great start after all of the great articles that were published by Frary and Hayden. It is an easy way to build a lot of interesting railroading in a small space in the most popular scale in model railroading. It is also easy to add narrow gauge to a standard gauge HO railroad where so many commercial products available.To make things even better, you can use N gauge or e-gauge track (Peco) and N gauge or or e-gauge mechanisms. 

Peter Smith, Memphis

Personal opinion - and this from one who enjoys HOn3 - is that the impetus for HOn30 was pretty much eliminated by the decent availability of Shinohara HOn3 turnouts and flex track, and Roundhouse's entry into the HOn3 market.  You could get commercial track and reasonably-priced locomotives in true 3ft gauge.

One can argue all day whether or not the Roundhouse locomotives were any improvement over low end N donor mechanisms, but in the end most viewed the support for HOn3 as quite reasonable.  In North America, HOn30 has settled in as the standard gauge for modeling 2ft gauge prototypes in HO scale.  In the meantime, with the arrival of Blackstone and Micro-Trains, support for HOn3 has never been better.

At the same time, in the North American market, N scale launched itself as the way to model big and/or modern locomotives at prices that made it hard to justify using the mechanism, and throwing away the shell.  Limited runs exacerbated the difficulty in locating suitable donor mechs at reasonable prices.  And there was no Bachmann coming in with a decent line of HOn30 at HO prices, like Bachmann did with On30.

Outside of North America, HOn30 (or HOe) is much more popular.  There are many more small steam mechanisms on which to base the HO scale structure.  3ft gauge was never a "standard" narrow gauge abroad like it was in North America, so the variety of narrow gauges lent themselves to using N track and mechs as an approximation. 

Although it hasn't caught on the way On30 or Sn3 has, HOn30 still has reasonable commercial support.

just my thoughts and opinions

Fred W

[IRONROOSTER]

fwright

 

...

Although it hasn't caught on the way On30 or Sn3 has, HOn30 still has reasonable commercial support.

just my thoughts and opinions

Fred W

HOn3 has been a blessing for Sn2.  Fortunately, I managed to snag 4 of the Roundhouse HOn3 kits before they went out of production.

Enjoy

Paul

[cats think well of me]

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

 

cats think well of me:

 

Hmm what hasn't caught on... 

Steam loco kits, particularly in America, though how often have we had anything like the lovely etched brass kits like they have in Europe come our way? Not to often minus the DJH kits from the '80s. 

Track in roadbed products, they've never seemed real popular.

Smoke units in HO, though they seem quite popular in O. I guess the smoke produced has yet to truly be realistically done. Aside the German KM1 pieces, I've not seen to many that impressed me.

Alvie

 

 

 

 

Alvie, I don't think you are looking at the whole history of the hobby, or maybe your just not aware of the history.

Steam loco kits were very popular in the 40's, 50's and 60's. and a number of them were brass, craftsman type kits. Admittedly without todays etched technology, but kits none the less. I built my first steam loco kit at age 13. I will admit, dispite my modeling skills, I don't have much interest in building complex craftsman loco kits - and many modelers today also lack the interest, tools, skills or time - for me its the time. There are other aspects of the hobby I enjoy more, including building strctures and rolling stock kits.

That seems to be why Bowser, Roundhouse, Mantua and others have all gotten out of the loco kit business.

I still kit bash a lot of locos, that is faster, easier and more fun for me than starting from the ground up.

I will say, that if some manufacturer offered a kit based on the current construction methods of RTR locos, I would likely buy a few, if of cource it was a loco I want. But to settle for rigid drivers, limited electrical pickup and limited or expensive added on detail in this day and age seems foolish.

Some of my RTR kit bashes have required complete disassembly and reconstruction, that was close enough to a kit for me.

I still think there is a market for kits that come with a ready to go chassis and lots of detail options - imagine all the variants of the Bachmann heavy Mountain in a kit with the drive already built. - Make that a USRA heavy Pacific and i'm all in for at least two or three to start.

And maybe that would catch on, and maybe not.

Sheldon

Sheldon,

My post hadn't been to clear and I do apologize for that. though I'm only speaking of my experience in the hobby which is basically the mid '90s until now. But as a whole steam locomotive kits haven't caught on to well in HO at least within the last 20-years. I've done one locomotive "kit" and that had been a GHQ/Kato PRR L1 in N-scale several years ago which I liked very much. GHQ's line of N-scale conversion kits is thankfully still in production, and Kato's heavy mikado has usually been easy to obtain. If a Southern 0-8-0 detail kit for the P2K USRA 0-8-0 were to come out, I'd be all over it.

I think you're right though as to the fact that these kits not only require significant patience and some useful experience but if you lack any of the four aspects you mentioned, interest, time, skills and tools than craftsman steam engine kits as a whole are not going to appeal. They're expensive too, which is likely another reason they have not caught on much.

Alvie

[MisterBeasley]

modelmaker51

That's true, but JVC's VHS out did Beta in consumer sales 2 to 1. Once JVC won the patent infringement case against Sony for stealing the helical drive design, Beta died altogether.

In some cases, though, it's not a matter of "didn't catch on."  There was a time when Beta and VHS were legitimately in competition.  Now, neither of them is really marketable anymore, as we've moved on to DVD, which itself may fall to Blu-Ray, and will certainly go out of style with another round or two of technology.

Beta lost out because their machines were much more expensive, and they couldn't build a big enough customer base to drive tape prices down.  I think that the VHS format was licensed, so competition drove down the price of consumer units.  It's the same reason that the PC owns 85% of the home computer market over the proprietary, non-licensable Apple.