Widnes Model Centre

I noticed this morning that the September 1st price increases haven’t been changed on the website. Possibly the last chance to order from Hornby or your local stockist. Please note there is a considerable amount of stock where the prices haven’t changed. Maybe the right time to say that Hornby have decided to honour Retailers orders/preorders provided the orders had been placed by 30/8/2024. Never happened in our shops lifetime. In our opinion another positive step from the current management team in supporting their Retailers. We queried some of the increases, the reply we received? Have to say made absolute business sense.

Having read the trade email, inflation and the cost of running a business are the stated factors. Our own business costs have increased with rent, business rates, electricity, water, service charges, not to mention the price of coffee and tea! As all three of us are self employed partners the cost of rising wages is something we don’t have to worry about. Those shops with employees and Hornby will have to. I understand the reasons and reasoning behind these price increases. I see no mileage whatsoever in Hornby going out of business due to no longer being viable and if price increases are necessary, so be it. l have seen many percentages quoted here and online. Let me hit you with a few…… 24.3% increase, from £1.99 to £2.49. 15.3% from £1.50 to £1.69. Percentages are always relevant when they grab the headlines. As the trade email is issued in confidence l don’t believe l can share anything identifying products and relevant increases. This is the only time l can recall being given such a long notice period for a price increase. Read into that whichever way you choose. Most suppliers send a email roughly saying as you read this email the prices have already gone up. Didn’t we have 20% year on year price increases from one of the manufacturers? Or did l dream that?

As a plastic kit maker myself, l can let you have an insight. The biggest price increase is £5.49, on one item. Realistically that kit was probably underpriced. A predominantly listing of ‘no changes’ and those that have gone up are around a £1-2 dearer. Nothing on my personal wish list has gone up. Hurrah. l had to have a good long look to find a price rise in the list of Airfix products. That might answer how many items are actually increasing on Airfix products.

The RRP for Humbrol is £2.69. Not surprising customers won’t pay £4!

Only comment we will make. If Hornby were increasing prices by 20%, we would cancel our orders. We're not !

There is Runcorn Station , WCML. Also Runcorn East locally used for the Ineos Plant, formerly ICI. Not sure if this answers your question. The amount of railway stations, lines, public and private , sheds etc, is quite staggering. First day working at Huyton in the early 1980’s. I was advised to keep a good lookout for trains in the road! Drove around a bend and there was a train crossing the road between the quarry and Cronton Colliery.

l’m not sure of the exact locations of the stations, all bar two of them are gone. There was Central, South Widnes, Anne Street, Ditton (still a station but no longer for passenger trains,and Farnworth, also known as Widnes North ( which is now Widnes Station.) Ditton Station has/had plans to reopen. This would have been fairly easy to get to Hattons from. A really great website is www.8dassociation.org

I think l may have found photos of the cause of the smell from the 1960’s. Unbelievable that there were houses adjacent to the Vine Street chemical waste mountain. I am told by the local historian who happened to come into the shop today. He has sent me these photos. He states that the mountains were waste pigment from paint production. The site was cleared many years later. Barry’s Tours. Incorporated 18/7/2024

Is that because you’re from the Black Country? Just for you here’s a colour postcard of the Transporter Bridge.

l agree, during the early 1960’s when the transporter was in use, l suspect the boats would have been almost blackened by chemicals and soot.

Not a postcard but a photo.

Yes, footballers and their wives. Only one was a customer, the most personalised, custom built Range Rover I have ever seen. Had to ask.... £250K......

By way of denouncing some appalling comments made by a certain Mod, l have decided to list some past and present photographs of Widnes. By way of also examining and explaining rumours of a smell. I submit the following statement. As a child we would holiday in North Wales, the easiest mode of transportation across the river Mersey was the Transporter Bridge. Upon approaching said town of Widnes, my father would instruct us to hold our breath and cover our noses until we reached North Wales. So rumours of a smell were not something l had come across. I digress, we moved to Widnes twenty years ago and there is definitely no smell now. What we do have in Widnes now is a town that’s surrounded by countryside and farms. It’s actually quite nice to live here. Where there are still two former and one current Premier League footballers. We did have Frank Lampard until he decided to leave Everton. From my vantage point at the till…, recently passing on the road outside there have been, numerous Porsches, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Bentley and one that made me stand up, a MC Laren, heard it coming…. Not far from me is one of the oldest churches in the country. A fantastic railway station, an absolutely stunning railway viaduct and not one, not two but three bridges across the river. Silver Jubilee, Gateway and Ethefleda. Such a pity they demolished the transporter. I can certainly recommend a visit to Spike Island, once the terminus of the Runcorn Gap railway line and the Sankey canal. Home of the world’s first railway line to ship. You would almost need to make a booking to see the spiral arch on the railway viaduct. The local library is reputed to have the largest collection of railway books in the country. So Widnes can have a lot of attractions for the railway enthusiasts. If you decide to visit then do please call into our shop. A certain Mod is going to kill me for this post.

We have had a look again at this. The smoke box door looks as though it's removable by design.There is wiring behind it. When pushfitting it the pipes either side have a small recess to fit into on the door. No sign of any adhesive which makes sense. Fiddly though....

Yes, it is, it's a TXS Decoder.