Hornby Warley Announcements?

[DLPG]

Are Hornby announcing their new projects at Warley again this year? Not been the usual frothing leading up to the show.

[Hilux5972]

It’s has been said by a few well established members of the Model community that there is a chance they could go back to a Christmas/ New Year announcement. I believe Andy York may have said it but don’t quote me on that.

[The Stationmaster]

Maybe Uncle Simon wants to recreate his 'glory days' pre-Christmas act of 'drawing aside the curtains to a selected audience' instead of allowing those actually doing the development work to communicate with their end customers?

[it's-er]

Post 2 entirely confirmed by Friday's Engine Shed.. Engine Shed recently moved to a monthly issue, and the latest one said "We will be back before the year is out ....", which clearly implies one more issue this year. On this basis, we look for one more issue in later December, which hopefully will announce Hornby's new 2018 models.

 

It will be fascinating to see if, and how, Oxford Rail is integrated into this. There has been a long silence over their LNER N7, with no sign of any pre-production samples - if Oxford Rail is proceeding separately, we would expect to see samples at Warley this weekend. But could the N7, and indeed Oxford Rail more generally, be subsumed into Hornby??

 

John Storey

[Chrisr40]

There was a suggestion earlier this year by Hornby in the Engine Shed (I think) that there would be developments on TTS sound so perhaps that range will be increased ?

 

Chris

[Ian Hargrave]

Maybe Uncle Simon wants to recreate his 'glory days' pre-Christmas act of 'drawing aside the curtains to a selected audience' instead of allowing those actually doing the development work to communicate with their end customers?

And you have certainly touched a nerve there. Starting that channel of communication is for me one of the best developments to come from Hornby in over a decade.Leave that now as it is if you please.....or I for one will be very disappointed. The R&D team are major players and Hornby's finest asset. Let them continue the dialogue.It 's a breath of fresh air and wins our enthusiasm and goodwill.

[rovex]

Maybe Uncle Simon wants to recreate his 'glory days' pre-Christmas act of 'drawing aside the curtains to a selected audience' instead of allowing those actually doing the development work to communicate with their end customers?

 

Do I detect a certain cooling from RMWebbers towards Simon Kohler in recent months?

[No Decorum]

Do I detect a certain cooling from RMWebbers towards Simon Kohler in recent months?

I think you do. The worst comments used to be along the lines of “affable but gives very little away”.

[Brian Indge]

 

The staff on the Hornby stand at the Spalding Show said there would not be any new project announcements at Warley.

[Hroth]

Perhaps they'll tell us exactly what went wrong with the 14xx?

 

Ok, its a nonentity of the Railroad stable, but it is the most "realistic" of their cheapest steam outline locos and migh have been expected to do well. So I think we deserve some info.

 

However, I expect it will be all smoke and mirror like brass domes.

[dibber25]

Maybe Uncle Simon wants to recreate his 'glory days' pre-Christmas act of 'drawing aside the curtains to a selected audience' instead of allowing those actually doing the development work to communicate with their end customers?

 

There's been no sign of a return to the glory days of Broadstairs and the professional presentation of the next year's programme to the specialist press. (CJL)

[meatloaf]

There was a suggestion earlier this year by Hornby in the Engine Shed (I think) that there would be developments on TTS sound so perhaps that range will be increased ?

 

Chris

 

I think we were given a big clue as to what the developments were in the 08 video as they went on about the cold start being a new feature being introduced

[GWR8700]

Such a shame, it seemed like they were on the right track last year and now they've taken a backward step in regards to the way they communicate with customers.  Warley is a great place to connect with your customers and would be an ideal place to announce new models.  Maybe they have a better plan up their sleeve, I hope so anyway

[Ian Hargrave]

Such a shame, it seemed like they were on the right track last year and now they've taken a backward step in regards to the way they communicate with customers.  Warley is a great place to connect with your customers and would be an ideal place to announce new models.  Maybe they have a better plan up their sleeve, I hope so anyway

I think we all need to make our views count at the appropriate time and place .Hopefully then we can "make a difference"

[jjb1970]

They went from zero to hero in terms of communication, thanks largely to the engine shed. I do also credit SK's Hornby blog which was great. I think it is one of the things Hornby got very right. A direct channel from their splendid development team to customers was refreshing and has done wonders for their comms . If they throw that away and revert to trying to channel comms through an individual and the model press it'd be a huge retrograde step. Sure, talk to the mags but I much prefer a channel like the engine shed to hear from Hornby. The obvious passion and enthusiasm of Paul Isles and the team has been a real tonic for their image.

Edited November 21, 2017 by jjb1970

[railroadbill]

Airfix have a similar blog to the engine shed called  workbench which is also interesting, especially about the development of new kits. They live in the social media age.

[Budgie]

Maybe Hornby haven't got anything to announce because they are actively developing it now and don't want to announce it until it's almost ready.

[Legend]

There's been no sign of a return to the glory days of Broadstairs and the professional presentation of the next year's programme to the specialist press. (CJL)

It was useful for magazines but not their gen customer base. I hope they continue to communicate directly with their customers . I found Engine Shed and their announcement to an audience at last years Warley very professionally done. And credit where credits due I think Hornby are the only supplier delivering roughly to schedule with H , and Duchess here, IET and 87 soon. Again per announcement last year.

 

Airfix are annoucing new models via their Platform , hopefully Hornby will do the same.

 

I don’t think there are any announcements at Warley this time though, although new catalogue illustration had a Lord Nelson on it.....

Edited November 21, 2017 by Legend

[GWR8700]

They're definitely doing very well at getting their products out on time, it's just a shame that there marketing has taken a backwards step after last year.  The clues that kept us guessing haven't been as prominent this year in the Engine Shed.  Moving to a monthly engine shed is also a shame.

[The Black Hat]

Maybe Uncle Simon wants to recreate his 'glory days' pre-Christmas act of 'drawing aside the curtains to a selected audience' instead of allowing those actually doing the development work to communicate with their end customers?

 

I think its more a case of he has returned to his role and doing things as they were done before. While that's all well and good and we are back to knowing where we stand, I cant help but think that the new announcements for the range made at Warley were a good idea, with the rest of the range to be announced at Christmas. It gave a good way of communicating and showing what was coming, then have the full range announced sensibly over Christmas.

[45568]

Given the rather lukewarm reception to the SK and his return...I  guess the  following may be appropriate?

 Presumably then, 60112 now is renamed 'Simon'. rather the it's previous name?

cheers from Oz,

Peter C.

[JSpencer]

We don't know if everything is saved for xmas/new year (the "here they are, good luck accessing Hornby.com for a few weeks while we go on xmas holidays" approach we all detested) or not at this time.

 

We DO know Hornby can play mysterious games.

 

I agree Warley is a great place to announce all new products for the following year where the public can drool over it. Somehow, the announcement of a new club and a H won't be as exciting (well for me, the H will be VERY exciting providing me based outside the UK can get hold of it).

[John M Upton]

It could just be that Hornby don't have anything ready to show at Warley. Development could have been delayed.

 

The Announcement Junkies will just have to go elsewhere for their fix.

Edited November 22, 2017 by John M Upton

[Steamport Southport]

They're definitely doing very well at getting their products out on time, it's just a shame that there marketing has taken a backwards step after last year.  The clues that kept us guessing haven't been as prominent this year in the Engine Shed.  Moving to a monthly engine shed is also a shame.

 

I think you need to look harder.

 

 

So far we've had clues about a Lord Nelson, something GWR, something probably industrial, possibly a NBR J36 (or Glen), something LBSC, something from Swanage (LSWR?) and a return of the Brighton Belle.

 

 

 

Jason

[GWR8700]

I think you need to look harder.

 

 

So far we've had clues about a Lord Nelson, something GWR, something probably industrial, possibly a NBR J36 (or Glen), something LBSC, something from Swanage (LSWR?) and a return of the Brighton Belle.

 

 

 

Jason

Thanks, but it's not that I've not seen most of the announcements because they've all been mentioned on this forum.  What I'm getting at is that these clues generally aren't there for all to see on the blog which is being reduced to a monthly feature.  Lets have a look at the sources for those clues.

 

Lord Nelson - Engine Shed Blog (although I'm not totally convinced by that. Didn't they use a different 'working' cover before last year or am I mixing it up with another announcement?)

Something GWR - Collectors Club

Something Industrial - Collectors Club

NBR - Collectors Club

LBSC - Collectors Club

LSWR T9 - Twitter

Brighton Belle - Engine Shed before being removed

 

While it is good that they are still doing this in the Collectors Club, they would be better off placing this in the Engine Shed in order to reach a wider audience.  I can appreciate the thinking behind this move, they want to give something back to customers who pay the Collector's Club fee but dropping little bits of information and teasers is about garnering as much excitement as possible before a new release and so limiting this information to just members kind of defeats the point in my view.

  Letting us know when they are going to make these announcements would also help increase excitement, because right now we don't know exactly.  There is just speculation about Christmas/New Year.

They're still doing a better job than Bachmann though at promoting new releases but it's frustrating because they nailed it last year and it's a shame that they've changed what looked to be a winning formula.

Edited November 22, 2017 by GWR8700