Are there any British style G scale trains?

[dunnyrail]

I just had a look at the Tower Brass site. There are some nice looking models there, although, as you said, only a very small range. They are a bit pricey - although they are brass, rather than plastic. They say they are 'ready to run', but they don't say how they are powered. I don't think they are live steam, but I doubt they are DCC chipped either - maybe for the RC market?
Clearly, as said in another response, this Gauge 1 seems to be dominated by live steam - which is, by its nature, very expensive. When I have some time, I plan to look into this in more depth. On first impressions though, it seems that track-powered gauge 1 is a market not currently well served - which is probably an understatement!
Still, maybe, some of these live steam/RC manufacturers would at least have the designs for a number of British Outline steam locos that they, or others, could use to manufacture cheaper track-powered locos, if there was enough interest in the market to convince them it might be worth their while. I doubt this would happen any time soon, but might it be worth pursuing?

I have a Tower Models Terrier tank, it was track powered when I bought it. I have converted it to Battery DCC operation, quite a task to fit everything in using NiMh batteries but I managed it and it runs quite well except for being a little jerky at times due to difficulties matching the motor to the DCC chip. There is a way to do it and I have done that which improved things a lot but not to perfection.

 

[maxi-model]

I read through all the comments in this string. It seems to me that what is lacking is an offering from LGB/Marklin of British standard gauge [4ft 8.5in] locos, with electric motors and DCC, that will run on 45mm gauge track.

While I know their focus is on German/Swiss locos, they have also produced quite a number of USA locos over the years. However, I have never seen any UK locos from them. I imagine this might have something to do with market demand, but you would think that some of the iconic UK steam locos, such as Flying Scotsman and Mallard, would have an appeal to people outside of just the UK - such as in the US and Australia and maybe even continental Europe.
Personally, I am not too fussy about the exact scale, but surely if they can do US locos, which I presume are not narrow gauge [are they?], then they could do British Standard gauge as well, don't you think?

I was wondering if anyone has actually approached LGB/Marklin and asked them whether they would contemplate making affordable models of some UK locos. I mean, I would have thought someone would have asked them, but there is no reference to such a request on here - or at least I haven't seen anything [which is by no means the same thing - I know]. By affordable, I mean at a comparable price to the rest of the models they make - not those high-end metal collectors items.
The only decent UK locos I have seen are the Accucraft live steam models - but they are astronomically expensive and don't use electric motors or DCC.

So, is anyone aware of Marklin's, or for that matter PIKO's, views on this issue?
Is there even any interest, on here, for them to make such models?

It's a matter of market demand. It just does not seem to exist outside of the UK for British steam outline in the "low cost" 45 mm track powered market. And the UK market is too limited to make tooling up for products like that worthwhile. That in part is due to the predominance of "fine scale" Gauge 1 models that takes up some of that demand, abeight at a premium price.

The "standard gauge" products produced by LGB/USAT are nominally 1:29, and not the previously more accepted 1:32 used by MTH, in the US, and previously mentioned wider "fine scale" market. Proportions also being a bit arbitary to meet the "everything must go round an R1" in LGB's case. Now defunct Aristocraft (but some products reissued under Kader's Bachmann branding) in the US did give it a go with their EMD JT42CWRM/Class 66, with its UK and European appeal (and hoped for patriotic US EMD fans) but got a cool reception. Piko, the other "low cost" 45 mm gauge brand tend to use 1:26 when portraying, mostly Germanic, standard gauge subjects. I had one of their rather nice 2 car Shienenbus sets, nigh on 20 years ago.

The other little problem is that the banking crash in 2007 (18 years ago !) and the period of "austerity" that most western economies have gone through since then has collapsed the mid market product area. Middle income employees were hit the hardest, a lot due to advances in tecnology being rapidly adopted since, making their positions redundant. Ask any garden rail dealer, high end product was largely unaffected, like live steam and their related electric metal derivatives. It was the likes of LGB and Aristocraft that went to the wall, only to be partially resurected by revamping existing tooling or repositioning upmarket. Next problem, that bouyant group of well funded pensioners is slowly being eroded with the imposition by employers of much inferior schemes to provide for their retirement income, like a 50% cut in income for the same investment. Good night and sleep well. Max

 

[3 minutes of fame]

You can always just 3D print your own.. This is motorised using a ready built gearbox from Amazon.

Total cost about £15. This is pretty much straight off the printer, without any painting. Just roughly assembled to check fit.

 

[dunnyrail]

Making stuff yourself, radical solution. But we are called Railway ‘Modelers’ so that to my mind does infer making things.