Buckjumper Warfare Breaks Out

today's planned "repulsive" blog is postponed until tomorrow 

Buckjumper?

It is the nickname of a small 0-6-0 shunting loco which had just been released by "manufacturer" Accurascale. This delightful little locomotive has been the subject of several on-line videos.

One of these reviews has been published by Sams Trains ...

... and it was a fair and positive review. All bloggers can have a reputation of dishing the dirt (fbb included) and any dirt dishing is passionately justified by the blogger (fbb included)!

But we all know that blog readers and writers can be equally determined to point out other bloggers' wrongs, sometimes quite cruelly as fbb knows well.

Sam seems to get easily upset when readers have a go at him ...

... whilst being only too willing to express his ire when things don't suit his personal view of the model railway industry.

Of course, one of the "problems" is that producing model railway review videos is Sam's work. He makes his living from it. This commercialisation of the internet is not the original altruistic aim of its creators and must lead to conflicts of interest. But to be fair Sam buys his own models and does not accept any "bribery" to review a particular product.

That is his claim and it seems credible

So his income must be from the advertising and also his 3D printed models sold on Etsy.

fbb will not accept advertising on his blogs and thus remains poor and pathetic!

fbb jests!

In his review, Sam reported that the loco did not have any speakers (a k a loudspeakers) showing his followers clearly where the speakers might have been fitted.

But within that white plastic box were no speakers ...

... although there was space where they might be installed.

For fbb's blog readers who have no idea what the octogenarian is talking about, a brief explanation will follow later.

Next in this war of words and action is "Islesy".  He works for Accurascale who created the Buckjumper. 

In a model railway forum, he asserts that ALL Buckjumpers have speakers fitted ...

... the implication being that Sam was incapable of recognising a speaker when he saw one. This was backed up by another correspondent who wrote ...

... that Sam did not even notice the wires leading to the speakers.

Highly unlikely as Sam always reviews the innards of his review subjects as well as commenting on the outards.

As this stage it might have been possible that Sam's model was faulty; but what really upset him was the next "Islesy" remark.

He, effectively, accused Sam of falsifying his review just to get more "clicks"; just to increase his readership.

The more people who "click" on your site, the more money you get from advertisers, fbb thinks.

That was a little unkind from "Islesy", but such accusations are bread and butter to the on-line community. Anonymous people are often very unkind and wise bloggers have to train themselves to ignore the nasties.

But Sam, slighlty sulkily, demanded an apology. In fact, he posted an extra video on YouTube, presumably attracting more advertorial material.

Then up pops Mr Locomotion Motion You Tuber ...

... in his presumably fake electronic guise. If he's real he never changes his clothes, so the pong must be spectacular!

He explains that TWO versions of the Buckjumper are advertised ...

One (right) has "DCC Sound" and costs £240 and the other (left) doesn't and costs £100 less. That's £100 for a chuffing noise (and lots of other noises) and is too chuffing expensive for fbb. The expensive one also needs special wiring and a whole gamut of costly electronics.

So the cheap one just uses an ordinary controller ...

... and has no means of chuffing. The expensive one has tricky electronics, speakers and chuffingly expensive sounds. This is all driven by a chip in the boiler.

So if you don't want to spend your pennies on sound and complex control systems, you don't need speakers on the loco.

The on-line spec for the loco is a bit "woolly" but does actually say that sound chips (and those speakers?) are for DCC only.

Sam's Buckjumper was NOT DCC chipped, so having speakers was pointless; unless you planned to add the sound at a later date, perhaps when your second mortgage came through.

Mr electronic "Don't change your threads" suggests that the on-line spec could possibly be misunderstood.

It seems straightforward to fbb. The cheaper version (without sound) does not have DCC capability, does not have a chip and does not, perforce, have speakers.

It is a pity that "Islesy" fid not know his own product, and even more of a pity that he had a go at Sam without checking first. So he apologised ...

... and, nobly, Sam produced yet another video (with adverts of course) to read out the "Islesy" grovelling consumption ...

... of a pie full of Umbles, namely the nasty naughty bits from the animal, bits that nobody really wants to think about as they enjoy their (H)umble pie for dinner.

Honest, it's no worse than faggots or haggis.

Of course, what this skirmish has done has brought enormous publicity to Accurascale, in particular for their Buckjumper.

Perhaps "Islesy" set it all up as a piece of Internet "Deep Fake." Maybe "Islesy", Sam and Mr Locomotion Motion are all the same person.

We may never know, but that's the internet for you!

And a Buckjumper for real.

Tomorrow ...

 The Repulsive blog returns : Weds 22 July