I have incorporated the verbal suggestions made by committee members and submit for approval and been able to convert it to jpg for upload here. (The conversion to jpg has lost some resolution. The original pdf is sharp and clear). This will need printing from the pdf onto an A4 sticky label sheet for distribution.
The revisions make allowance for the fact that some users will be operating a second hand loco for the first time where it may have been left with the valve open, in the whistle zone or set in reverse.
The panels have been designed to cut out and stick over the errant material
If we are selling sets and locos we really should as a matter of urgency take measures to correct the manual. I respectfully suggest we also add the DVD disc (box not needed) into the jewel case with the Hornby CD-ROM.
I will submit the Steam Valve Explanation when I have completed the associated video.
Spoil sport!!!! You could have set it up on the kitchen table!!!! After all,,, an N gauger has dodgy eysight usually!!!
A well demontrated point though!!
Yes. bcdf. Unlike Eric I DO think the errors in the manual were a major cause of owner dis-satisfaction. I bought a nearly new FS a month or 2 ago and got it out when an old friend (and N gauge modeller) came to stay. He agreed to be a guinea pig and I left him entirely to his own devices setting it up and getting it going with no input from me at all.
After a couple of hours with the loco mostly not moving at all or shooting off and crashing he admitted defeat. He said had the loco been brand new he would have taken it back to the shop claiming it was faulty. If he had bought it second hand he would have sold it.
I did covertly coerce him to set it up on the floor. Had he set it up at table height he would have been somewhat distraught I think.
Good luck with that one Eric, you're a man after my own heart! However if the majority of punters thought it would work at the the turn of a knob, how many of those would even consider a full study of its workings. I anticipated most steam outline modelers to be steam enthusiasts with at least a basic knowledge of how a steam engine works. How wrong could I have been?
Even when I was invited to Hornby's factory to view the new Scotsman model and inquired what modifications had been made in relation to the A4, the retort was [no names mentioned],
'We can't say, we don't know how it works!"
And even when a certain gentleman from a leading model railway magazine [he later became editor] came round to my shed to take photos for an article, he admitted he did not know how steam engines worked and showed more interest in the type face I had used on the cab numbering.
However I do think there is some mileage in cross referencing to a Utube video.
I vote 1 and cdf.
Full steam ahead.
Go ahead!
yes, proceed.
OK go ahead
Yes, proceed
Time to get this one over the finish line! Having now competed the restoration of the original website data I want to start work on improving the Knowledge Base pages. I would like to include the Addendum Sheet in the Getting Started section but for that to happen we need to reach a decision
The original proposal was two stage:-
Option 1. The club take on the responsibility for the printing and distribution of the errata sheets
Option 2. Abandon the idea of supplying manual errata stickers
If you vote for option 1 then indicate one or more choices from the distribution list
a) Offer them widely FOC with any order and encourage owners to update their manuals.
b) Offer them FOC at Roadshows and encourage owners to update their manuals
c) Include them in all club DVD sales
d) Include them with all club loco sales
e) Sell them in the shop for £1
f) Make the sheets available FOC via the website getting started page
Adrian has indicated that the printing costs of the sheets around 8p per sheet.
Seven of the then 11 committee voted
Option 1 - 6 votes
Option 2 - 1 vote
From the list the choices were.
1 vote - c,d,f
2 vote - b,c,d
4 votes - bcdf
This gives a total of
a) - 0
b) - 6
c) - 7
d) - 7
e) - 0
f) - 5
Therefore the consensus is that the club take responsibility for the printing and distribution of the errata sheets and they are distributed at shows, in DVD's, with loco sales and via the website Getting Started section
As the original discussion did not reach a conclusion I now need the working committee members to confirm that they are happy for us to proceed based on the discussion/votes as laid out above.
Difficult this one. I think it would be far preferential to just issue an alternative video.
We sell a lot of videos on the bases that it has updated operating info.
(presumably it does, I've never watched it)
Best avoid getting people muddled. But 1 b,c,d,f would be a fair vote.
Charles
I vote 1 bcd
Hi Adrian
I'd like a video please.
There will be committee members who have never read the manual, but they might have looked at the pictures. Or they might have started, not understood, so gave up.
But not everyone will be comfortable actually admitting something, in case they are (wrongly) judged.
A better question might be, "has anyone had difficulty following the manual?".
Norman
Is there anybody else out there who has never read the Hornby manual?
Absolutely agreed a parallel video is, in this day and age, essential. Hornby thought so too and included one with the set.
We have one. It took a huge effort and cost into 4 figures to make (for the cameraman/editor). I gave one to every committee member when it was released. Has anyone not got one? I will happily send them one now.
In the opening of this thread I made a suggestion about how we should use it. Perhaps we should vote on that too. (Disc only - no box - I would charge £3).
Through training and background, I am a manual person. I'm not paid to be a 'Test pilot' and prefer to learn from others mistakes, so I can go and make my own different ones, safe in the knowledge that I have added to the experience of humankind!
I read the manual first before ever trying to steam my first LS loco. I also watched the DVD which came with the boxed set, and neither were a lot of help, so realised it had shortcomings and learned by trial and error.
As a trainer/instructor, I have had to study the theory of how people learn, and most people learn better through experience than by reading a book. There are a number of different learning styles but very few people know what theirs is, although they may have "discovered" their preferred learning style, for example because they get more from a YouTube video than from a sheet of paper.
Through geographic location, I've had to learn on my own, before finding this club. Members of this committee aside, I know no one else who has a LS Loco and never seen anyone else use one.
So the amendment sheet for me is of use, even though I am past the "L" plate stage. A video would be of use as well.
For anything - mechanical, hardware, software, whatever - I get a manual, preferably in PDF format because they take up no shelf space, are easy to find when you need one and can be easily searched and indexed, but I know that I am not typical. I am a visual/spatial learner, by the way. When I have a student or students, I give them a psychometric test so they can discover their individual learning style and I can tailor training accordingly - not something we can do with LS owners, so we need a "one size fits all" approach.
I think the sheet produced by Adrian is a huge improvement, but not all LS owners will want one, and fewer still will actually do the manual amendments, but that is not a reason for not doing it.
This thread is now broadening beyond the vote for A, B, C, D, E and F which is probably unhelpful. But it leads into the question I posed some weeks ago about having a club strategy, to put on paper what it is that we, as a management committee are trying to do in taking the club forward. The amendment sheet is a development, but what else needs development too?
Norman
I have to admit and say, like Nick, I have never read the manual from cover to cover. The reason, when I bought my first live steam loco I resisted using it until I had visited the club at York. There Adrian showed me how to drive a live steam loco. So, I agree with Nick, you will only need the addendum if you've never driven one before. I was talking with Eric over the weekend, he made a good suggestion, a how to do video on driving a live steam loco. Maurice
Well,,,,,,,, to occupy myself in a moment of lul this evening i decided to ‘Read the *&#@%£ manual’!
Yes,,, in 6 years of playing live steam i have never read the live steam manual cover to cover, and as i like a bit of cutting out and sticking, I have now up graded to the Book of Adrian!
I have the latter book with the hornby addendum sheet, but it still contains the misleading hornby info.
Originaly, It all starts quite jolly and promising, then it starts to confuse the reader a little with one or two bits of misinformation regarding oil quantity etc. A rolling road is not mentioned once in the early sections so this is an obvious clanger on Hornbys part.
The real trouble starts on page 27 ‘Setting the loco in motion’ and I laughed out loud when reading the original words! Although many mechanical types like most of us on the committee, will have worked things out themselves, I do think like Adrian that the dreamers, nervious or un-mechanical types will have stuck to the manual like glue and subsequently ballsed up their locomotive, haplesly trying in vain to get it sorted only to shove it all in the loft.
Apart from a couple of errors on ‘amperage’ and the use of ‘screwdrivers in the wheels’, I think the work put into the addendum sheet by Adrian is sound and worth the effort, but only to those who read the manual and for the first time. Many of our members including myself have already started to get it right from the off by referance to our website, show attendance, personal endurance and Adrians Sermons so im not sure if handing them out at shows to the already converted is going to do it.
The sheet needs to go to the total newbie in thier first unrun set. If it can be placed on the site in the Knowledge section as a download, with its own shoutout on the home page, then maybe it will reach the virgin steamers who can print off on plain paper and pritt stick it all in to their manual before they start.
I think it is a reasonable document to supply to club members who have yet to run a loco and also would-be-members but i would not put it in the shop or ask money for it.
Correct it, let them download it, so we can get on with it!!!
For some reason this thread did not produce an email notification nor show up under the bell symbol! I had to hunt to find it.
I vote 1 b,c,d,f.
A video is a much better idea Adrian and show the workings as well as the operation of the controller. If I want to find out how something works or to fix something complex my first port of call is Youtube so a link from the getting started section would be ideal I think.
Sorry Eric. I thought I had said.
I have withdrawn the Steam Valve Explanation sheet until I have produced the accompanying video which I will do as soon as my new train room/photographic studio is finished in literally a couple of days.
The explanation was also wrong in that when I suggested that the valve be cycled as soon as it's powered up (to get a feel for what happens) I now realise that when you let go
it almost always ends up in the whistle zone which is confusing as the steam whistle starts to sound as it heats up.
My fault for not testing first what I was saying.
Also, the brief I set myself was for it to fit on an A5 page so it could be 'stuck' into the A5 Instruction Manual. It looked OK on a big computer screen but reduced to A5 does look daunting.
But as I said from the outset it is designed to be read whilst actually operating the loco on a rolling road and watching the accompanying video.
On the public track at the Roadshow I often get adult operators to follow the Hornby instructions. They ALWAYS set it off too fast which, on the radius 3 oval (that the Instruction Manual says is the "ideal track configuration to learn") virtually guarantees a crash.
That included Ed Bachelor from Hornby who came to 'have-a-go' and he was responsible for the design of the controller system.
I do accept that errors, omissions and misleading advice in the Instruction Manual was not the only reason for buyers becoming disillusioned but it is an easy one to address, particularly for those buying for the first time.
This may sound stupid, but is one allowed to change another's copyright without permission? Maurice
Steam valve explanation? Associated video? Is there a second live steam club somewhere? Or maybe I've missed postings on these as I have this one.
Frankly I can't believe we're talking about 'stickers' and I don't believe any errors in the instructions caused the demise of these locos.
I accept that there should be an explanation on how to drive them and in my view the best way to do this is to show the internal workings of a loco, explain the different components and then what happens as the controller is operated.
I vote option 2.
I vote 1, BCDF
Norman
I vote 1, b,c,d,f
I changed " You cannot rely on fishplates and point blades to pass the 5 amps of power permanently needed to keep a head of steam.
to
"You cannot rely on fishplates and point blades to pass the 5 amps or so needed to maintain steam"
I will change 5 to 6 with other changes agreed.
I vote Option 1 and a b c d
I am not sure how f would work other than by us posting them out. If requester sends SAE then yes, supply FOC.
If you intended viewer to print their own from the Getting Started page then I vote f too.
I vote option 1 with c, d and f
All
As Adrial want to proceed with the errata stickers and has now posted them for the committee to review, to progress the matter we need to vote. I have extracted the distribution suggestions from this discussion so that a choice can be made.
The proposal is two stage:-
Option 1. The club take on the responsibility for the printing and distribution of the errata sheets
Option 2. Abandon the idea of supplying manual errata stickers
If you vote for option 1 then indicate one or more choices from the distribution list
a) Offer them widely FOC with any order and encourage owners to update their manuals.
b) Offer them FOC at Roadshows and encourage owners to update their manuals
c) Include them in all club DVD sales
d) Include them with all club loco sales
e) Sell them in the shop for £1
f) Make the sheets available FOC via the website getting started page
Adrian has indicated that the printing costs of the sheets around 8p per sheet.
As the vote is multi-choice I will collate the results to establish ta consensus.
Well its done now' . . . . sums up the situation really as it seems that as far as you are concerned if you have what you consider to be a good idea the other committee member opinions don't really matter.
You need to amend the 5 amps to 6 amps (general consensus on the amperage drawn).
At the moment you and I we are the only ones in the discussion and it really needs putting to bed so I will put up a post for a vote .
Well it's done now. At a cost of 8p does it help or does it hinder? No extra charge to include it in the DVD. Do you want them in or out?
That's my point. I don't accept that the errors in the manual were the key reason that owners became disappointed. I feel that any disappointment was more to do with the difference in expectation. People only used to the the 'instantaneous' control of electric trains found it difficult to adapt to the different way that OOLS locos work.
I accept that the error in the manual didn't help but in this day and age the people who read manuals are getting far fewer. I think a good quality video showing people how to drive the loco would be much more effective.
Members almost by definition have got through the manual errors but we know that thousands of owners got put off and the errors and misleading advice in those manuals are a big reason.
Our aim is to get dormant locos back into use and providing correct instructions is key to that.
An A4 stick label plus printing costs under 10p. I think we should offer them widely as FOC with any order and encourage owners to update their manuals (they will get moved on to a new owner some day). We should offer them at Roadshows too to owners we discover. But it would be a waste to automatically send with every order as some people will get multiple copies.
The background to all this is whether we accept or not that the Instruction Manual was a key reason that owners became disappointed. If so this is such an easy way to repair an unfounded poor reputation and genuinely help new owners and those resurrecting a dormant model.
Bearing in mind that unlike you I don't really believe many people actually use the manual I can still see that distribution with the DVD and locos may help some people. Selling via the shop will really depend on Nick's capacity for a bit more work but one FOC with every order feels like a waste.
What do others think?
Once we have had a few days for discussion I will call an approval vote.
In the DVD. Sell the sheet in the shop for£1. Add them to the Manuals bundled with every loco we sell or at the very least, include them in the pack.
If we wanted to be altruistic, send them FOC with every shop order. A4 sticky labels cost under 10p each.
How do you propose that we distribute the errata stickers?