[Hornby Trading Statement Published 22 April]

There seems to be a cycle, starting around 2012, where by they were over stocked, but with Sanda Kans demise they were understocked by 2017 and having “supplier woes”, but by 2022 they were back in an over stocked position again.

 

it takes years to develop a product, and 2027’s range is probably on the drawing board now, if the financial outlook is struggling, could we by 2027 be looking at being understocked once again ?

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

3 hours ago, ColinB said:

That still doesn't remove the issue that you cannot pickup current from those wheels. As for the rubber well you have your opinion, I have mine. You cannot get rid of the fact, rubber is an incredibly good insulator, design isn't going to get rid of that. Those wheel will only pick up current on the flanges.

How many tyres do you think a model needs ?

 

1980’s Lima picked up on just 2  wheels of 6 on each side of a 37/47 etc. Only later they added 2 more pickups, on one side only.. so it picked up on 4 wheels oneside, 2 wheels the other side….

 

its problem wasnt the 2 tyres, it was pickups.

 

A Black five has 8 wheels each side (inc tender and ponies)

 

A Black 5 in 1990 had 3 driving wheels for pickups on one side, and 2 tender wheels for the other…. The rest just looked nice and rolled.

 

A Black 5 in 2022 has 6 wheels each side to use for pickups.

Adding a tyre to one each side would magnitudes improve the traction.

However Hornby still only uses 6 of them for pickups.

 

unless your running an 0-2-0 I think adding a tyre isnt an issue, but making full use of all wheels for pickups would help much more.

 

As I said, the Germans can make it work..8 out of 8 powered, pickup, and just 2 tyres, it will crawl slower, out perform and pickup equally or better than any other Bo-Bo. Its also very balanced, so ensuring all the wheels are actually touching the rails.. might sound obvious but ive seen many oo models where they dont always make contact.

 

I actually have a Bachmann split chassis manor running with the tyred wheels off an old Mainline 43xx… it will outperform many rtr steam today, as it combines weight, flywheel and tyre… and still picks up of 6 wheels either side (made from twine off a wine bottle), as I added pickups to the tender, giving 6 asside.. its unstoppable, even replaced the nylon axles with plastic rod from B&Q… one thing it wont do is stop for want of juice.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

25 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I think you will find that rubber will rot much quicker than anything else. It either rots or goes hard. Mazak rot is not age related it is more to do with the wrong chemical balance of the materials when it was make. I have ringfield motors ranging back to the 1980s, motors gears are perfect but on every one I have had to replace the traction tyres. Go look at your car tyres when they are over 10 years old, generally they wear out before they degrade but if you have a classic vehicle, it is one of the big issues.

I have hundreds of locos..

My european ones are fine… some are 40 years old. Sure some wear out, none are irreplaceable.

 

I assume your ringfield motors have never needed a carbon brush replacing ? 100 hours, built in obsolescence.

 

Dont judge the tech by British technology of the 1970’s, but equally theres no reason why tech can’t go on adfinitum with spares.

 

I suspect my KRModels fell will fall by the wayside before my Lima locos do… but I equally think my Roco/Trix/Sudexpress /Piko 21st century locos will outlive nearly everything OO made this century… its not just tyres, its the whole engineering quality… engineered right, inc, dodgy pickups is not an issue with traction tyres, because things like weight, balance and suspension are engineered into the design…. There really isnt many complaints about Hornbys class 50… yet for the first decade it too had tyres, until it was recognised it was so heavy it didnt need them.

 

 

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

16 minutes ago, ColinB said:

As to traction tyres I hate the things, they compromise conductivity with the rails and have built in obsolescence because rubber rots with age. 

Everything rots with age… the motor wears out, parts become brittle, mazak can rot, gear teeth wear out… thats not really an excuse.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

 

Indeed - but, unless one has the facilities to correct the balance, the flywheel is best left off.

 

CJI.

Definitely in the minority there… theres not many, non railroad models out there without a fly wheel in the last 20 years.

Fly wheel effect is minimal at slow speed, but a chunky flywheel will keep spinning the armature and the drive shaft after the power is cut.

 

The effect is the magnetic sticking of the commutator as they rotate is reduced at lower speeds as the flywheel lump with residual energy is still twisting the shaft still resisting the sticking motion...hence a smoother stop at a declining speed.

 

If you visibly want to see it.... stick on a whopper of a flywheel, run it fast, cut the power and see how far it travels… vs with smaller or none.. then you will see the difference.

In IT flywheels are becoming extremely popular for keeping the lights on… running your external power supply through a massive flywheel, length of a house, before converting it back to electricity means that if for what ever reason the external supply gets cut, that continuing revolution of the wheel keeps power to the facility giving time for the batteries/generators to kick in and return that momentum. This is especially popular in Africa regions where dual power resilience cannot be guaranteed… One facility I went to, used a Natural Gas Engine (Jenbacher J616) which was later derived for use in Class 70’s.. massive beast, with the flywheel consumed nearly 40metres of building… enough to keep all South Africas mobile phone network running. iirc they said if they lost power, the wheel would keep momentum for over an hour without any back up supply… noisy beast and watching this long shaft spin was eerily impressive.

 

In other uses, putting a flywheel on the end of a DC circuit is a way of avoiding burning out your DC powered equipment, if the va is too high instead of turning to heat and burning it, the flywheel takes the energy excess and turns it to kinetic energy, which inturn could charge a battery and reduce waste.

 

personally I think we should adopt European style traction tyres myself and stop all this pretence about weight… (but queue the complaints from those who have never seen a European traction tyred model and only remember Hornbys elastic bands from 1979)… you’d get a much stronger, smoother performance.

 

 

 

 

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

2 hours ago, Fireline said:

 

They are glued in, but using a very light glue, so they are easy to remove. This was apparently done to stop them detaching while they were in transit from the Far East.

Thats inline what I was also told.

 

of course what is light (lamp/lantern/etc) amounts of glue is subject to personal opinion.

 

But if youve got a faulty model, theres no point risking further damage, if its going back regardless.

[Accurascale on tour]

Another vote for 37350 in 1980/90’s Green, with stratford cockney on the side.

 

 

flickr url, not mine.

[WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.]

45407 went to Scotland this week, taking its support coach, another mk2def, and two rather interesting renovated coaches, 5453 mk2b with cdl, the other a mk1.. 99318 (ex 4912) rebuilt with a buffet ( without any obvious cdl signs) 

 

 

Not mine flickr

 

Apparently the 37 is doing some work due to fire risk.

[WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.]

Does Chiltern trains still have a slam door mk3 set ?

(iirc they have several sliding door sets but wasnt their one slam door set still around or has it gone now ?)

 

this set was still listed in April 2022 on the part time spotter site, but its not been since.

AL05 11094 12012 12019 12027 12041 12115 12151 12026 

[Sutton's Locomotive Works *NEW* Class 25]

gosh, Where to begin with this one…

 

If your wanting a box opening video online you better get a cup of tea first….

 

(Actually my little secret ive had my three since April 11th, ive just been on the road quite a lot so ive not had chance write this up, but the pictures were taken over the last 2 weeks, tonight I’m finally able to sit down at home and do it).

 

The way they are delivered..

1. wrapped in brown paper

2. in a cardboard box

3. in a white foam layer

4. wrapped in tissue

5. enclosed in a tin

6 inside a layer of black foam

7. inside a plastic display cradle

8. You find your engine….

 

Well its Brilliant, lets get that out of the way.

 

 

The detail and paint finish are superb.

Both bufferbeams are fully decorated. 
The model has oodles of separate parts.. starting with the bogies, the wheels holes are picked up, separate pipes, sand boxes, steps on the bogies. Not attention to both the orange and blue separately painted under body pipes..

 

 

The grills are much improved on the original class 24.

door width and handles are much better than the recent Heljan offering.

 

The roof panels, separate parts are picked out and painted individually

 

Curved roof grills nicely picked out

engine room detail visible…with relief, for the walk space.

 

 

It definitely looks like a 25…

 

It weighs in at 487g… thats not bad for a little type 2.

 

To get inside….

 

This was quite tough, indeed very tough.

 

First thought, unclip the body, no budge, no give.

i noticed the buffers had screws, so I tried this, they come off… (this would be nice if Hattons 66/style there was a second set without the detailing fitted, somI could fit with the coupling, without having to remove the detailing)…

Still no movement.

 

 

 

Dont unscrew the second pair at your peril, thats the coupling cam box and that spring aint ever going back on.

 

Theres nothing to hold on to.. not the tank its coming off, not the buffers they are coming off, not the bogie that tower you really dont want off.

 

Now in the box is a load of gumpf…

 

 

but whats not in there is a manual…. Not in any of my three 25’s. theres a nice notepad, but blank pages wont help me get the body off.

the URL is here…

https://sulzertype2.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Class24manualV1-3.pdf
 

It suggests the body is just clip fit, but its just not having it.

After losing 2 buffers, the tank risking looking loose and the underframe detail coming loose I am on the verge of giving up… the last model stuck like this was the Heljan PWM… and a-ha…

 

 

Although I had 4 hotel keys in the 4 body retainers it simply wasnt having it… so I squeezed the hotel keys and hey presto the body unseated itself and came off. (Now note last time I tried that was Hattons 66’s and the grills would start popping off, but here we are ok)… but it revealed the issue….

 

 

The under body detail is a separate piece, on each side, it is glued to the body.. not the chassis and just a bit seeped between body and chassis gluing them together under the cab doors.

so now I am in…

 

 

The chassis is everything you would expect, JSTs holding it together, its laid out like the Heljan style boards with cab lights at the ends, motor wires in the centre. Two sugar cube boxes for speakers.

Nice view of the cab interior details.

 

 

Trying to remove the jsts is at your own risk, I noted they are very tightly fitted, and the female adaptors soldered to the board are not strong, it would be imo quite easy for these to come off causing an additional job (like on the recent 37 nose boards).. 

 

however lifting the board reveals a nice surprise on the motor…

 

Never seen a personalized motor label before for a rtr model.
 

looks like a smaller compact motor than used in several other models, but its nice to see the spec on their…

 

How does it perform… 0.05amp start up makes it a little higher than average but its a very smooth start.

it maxes out at 0.16amp, pretty average but with a nice turn of speed, this motor is definitely right for the job.

Whilst inside a quick look at the cab interior details…

Yes the buffer was added back later.

 

So I cannot pose it next to a Heljan 25, as my one and only is lost in the pile, but heres an idea what were dealing with..

 

what stands out is the drivers cab rivets are much refined, the under frame detail, more refined, greater buffer detail, the engraving out outlines of the grills, vents and panels are more refined. It quite simply looks sharper.

 

The interior detail is more pronouned both cab and engine room.

Finally the cab doors again the glass seals look more refined as does the handrails.

 

Old Bachmann and New Heljan…

and the SLW 25..

 

Which leds me to lights…

 

cab lights is nice, but the light bleed around the headcodes is a bit obvious..

 

The cab lights are unswitched, so engine room, cab and headcode are one LED, and always on going forwards on DC, unless you unplug it.

One interesting note is the LED is whiter in the Cab for the blue, and yellower for the green…

 

Overall thrilled with the loco, the packaging.

 

What could be improved:

1. the light bleed around the headcode

2. instruction manual being included

3. separate buffer beam for those wanting to add a coupling.

4. some would want working fans.

 

otherwise this is a top shelf model, Ive not had anything like this for a while and it does deserve the accolades and attention its been getting..

 

 

[Summer announcements - 9.30am 1st May]

13 minutes ago, Markn said:

A new 66 just to pip Accurascale to the line. Feel like it's now or never for that.

Technically they've had since 2018 to take that 66 tooling on… yes 6 years already.

[Sutton's Locomotive Works *NEW* Class 25]

Ive let the rat out of the bag….

 

 

 

[Sutton's Locomotive Works *NEW* Class 25]

1 hour ago, The Ghost of IKB said:

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I'm beginning to think that this whole SLW class 25 thing is an elaborate hoax, perpetuated by a secretive cabal of deep state actors, the illuminati  and the CIA.  Rumour has it that the so called launch event at Bentley was actually a film shot by Stanley Kubrick in a Hollywood sound stage, using AI generated customers. That is the only possible explanation for these delays.

From now on everytime I check this thread I'll be wearing a tin foil hat.

Definitely not a hoax…

 

ive got one !!!

 

[WCRC - the ongoing battle with ORR.]

On 24/04/2024 at 18:12, rodent279 said:

So, to be used to using slam door stock on your own, not as a child with an adult opening the doors for you, you'd have to be say about 10-12 in about 2005, which would put you early 30's now. To be used to using non-CDL fitted slam doors on the mainline,  you'd have to be about the same age in about 1992, so 44-ish now.

So there will be plenty of parents of say 7-15 year old now who will have little if any experience of slam door stock, and possibly a few grand parents as well. That's exactly what one of the prime markets of the Jacobite will be-parents of kids who are HP fans.

My little one is 13, when she was 11 she was using slam door stock, without my help.

weve got very short memories…

25th April 2021…3 years ago today I took this…

 

even in 2019 5 London Termini had regular cdl slam door services everyday…

If I goto Paddington tonight, I still can, six nights a week.

 

its not that long ago… mk3 cdl slam doors only retired during covid, even in 2021 thousands of passengers a day were using slam doors.

 

 

[Labour's plans for the railways]

2 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

Of course there's nothing behind it.

We better get used to it, there's a general Election coming.

If only there was a way of turning all the B/S into money..... 🤣

 

Set up an election leaflet printing & media company.

[Hornby Trading Statement Published 22 April]

25 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

Yes and no. As @MidlandRedsaid, if that includes stock that is in transit, that may be mostly sold already, but still could show as stock held until it is dispatched to the buyer / retailer and the invoices paid. 
 

Roy

In which case Q1 should be good.

 

Black 5’s all round.

[Labour's plans for the railways]

Given the mass waste and premature scrapping of stock, together with the long term storage of nearly new to mid life stock…

 

I can’t imagine any leasing company being prepared to cut any one any favours on new build.

[Labour's plans for the railways]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Could this be construed as a political remark I wonder or does that only come into play when we get round to the choice of livery?  (sorry no emojis but I'm sure you'll treat it in tthe spirit in which it was meant)

Looking at a 700..

the doors are blue, the ends are yellow, but in the main body it appears undecided.

if you look inside, invariably its a rotten borough, but if you do get a seat you hold onto it for dear life.

Like politics getting on the ride is easy enough, you just don't know where your going or when your going to get off.

Just imagine Abba arriving in London today and writing a song about Thameslink, instead of Waterloo…

 

 

My, my
At Farringdon, Desiro did surrender
Oh, yeah
And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way

Thameslink times on the shelf
Is always repeating itself

Thameslink
I was defeated, you won the war
Thameslink
Promise to dump me on the floor.

Thameslink
Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Thameslink
Knowing my fate is to be with you
Thaaaaaaameslinkkkk
Finally facing my journeys end

My, my
I tried to hold you back, but you were stronger
Oh, yeah
And now it seems my only chance is giving up the fight

And how could I ever refuse
I feel like I lose when I win

Thameslink

 

…

 

if were being apolitical… I guess Black is the best paint job… I like this myself..

 

new BR..

(Flickr url ).

Rush Rail… even the name works.

[Labour's plans for the railways]

Anything that puts a new livery onto Thameslinks 700’s is good by me.

[Hornby Trading Statement Published 22 April]

4 hours ago, Gallows-Bait said:

 

This is something that as a recent newcomer to the hobby I've been frustrated by, and not just with Hornby.  When I decided to enter the hobby I initially thought to do a modern container freight layout and hoped to start out in TT120, but the length of time to have to wait before getting to the era of locomotives I was interested in was offputting.  Some of them were at least available for pre-order, but there was almost no suitable rolling stock to even pre-order alongside it.  This does somewhat seem to have been addressed in the April announcements, but even these will not be available until around 6 months after the locomotives become available and a full year after I made the decision to build a model railway.  Perhaps I'm in the minority as I wasn't interested in the various pacific steam train sets and they do seem to be continuing to sell strongly, but I'm willing to suggest people like me wanting to model what is the biggest single form of freight on the modern railway cannot be that uncommon.  Hornby has missed out anything modern from TT120 for the best part of 2 years, with the HST now the only real choice (Yes I know there's the 08, but I would be reluctant to pay what is almost the same price as any other loco for a smaller model with no lights and only a 6-pin DCC socket (for which no Hornby decoder is yet available) and that desperately needs a stay alive over points.

 

In the end I've chosen to go into N gauge rather than wait, but even here you can see manufacturers like Bachmann/Farish falling prey to the same issues.  It seemed easy enough with so many modern liveried freight haulier locos, but this has meant second hand container wagons that are available for at best only a fraction under their original retail prices, which indicates there simply aren't enough of them about.  I did subsquently discover Revolution's container wagons which look excellent and are actually cheaper new than the Farish ones are second hand, but this shouldn't be something that it needs a small entrant to fill the gap for, it's literally modelling one of the most common sights on the railway in the present day.

 

Also within N gauge, Rapido scored (from what I can see online and in forums), a big win with their decision to release Conflat P wagons alongside the Class 28 so that people could actually model the Condor freight trains of the past (QA issues aside, which it appears Rapido also dealt with in a prompt manner).  Yet even here the brake van that would have been part of this prototypical train is the Stove R, for which the only current offering is via the N Gauge Society (fair play to them, I have one now and it is lovely).

 

As a newcomer, both these poor ranging decisions by the perennial manufacturers and the limited runs of smaller pre-order focused entrants does make it much harder to get into the hobby when you realise that modelling even half of what you see on the railways around you in real life means months of scouring ebay for second hand products or waiting six months to a year for a pre-order.

Back in the early days of the TT thread I suggested Hornby would be better to stick to a theme, grow it and be good at it, instead of throwing seeds in the air and see what grows.

 

That thread got quite hostile to that idea, as everyone wanted their own preference over anyone elses.

 

That said, a year in, the LNER/ER theme seems to be gaining ground, as does the 1980’s theme.

 

The problem for launching a new mass market scale, is the subject matter is just way too big for anyone manufacturer. Everyone else was scared away.

 

So its a long hard decade for Hornby to grow it.

Trouble is on Hornbys current financial trajectory will they run out of runway before hand ?

 

The other risk is Hornby could do all the hard work, but pay the price of being first, if the others do to TT what they did to OO… because again, it could become too big for one to handle alone, and new comers will target upgrades of mass market prototypes, not the left over dregs.

it was never truly clear to me whom the TT target was, as what they said and what they did, didn't seem to match. A few years in, it feels like the TT customer is the same as a potential N or OO customer, thus cannibalising an existing market, rather than growing it.

To me growth in the hobby is by stretching the eras… post Privatisation and pre1923, as these are less catered for… Geographically the UK is covered, as is 1923-1994 saturated with not much room to grow.
Beyond that, start knocking on doors and convince Airplane enthusiasts, Military modellers and computer gamers to switch hobby…. Thats a hard ask imo… would you switch from Railways to Military modelling ?.. Steampunk gave us an idea how hard that is.

 

My personal feeling is Hornby needs to use its IP assets more, and its capex on tooling less… its strength isnt in super detail, but its name, yet it doesnt seem to play it as strongly as it could… whats more a big gap in that market has just been created and I dont even think theyve seen it.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

12 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

I dont like to labour a point but the front 'removeable' lamps are obviously not easy to remove - see Youtube -  whilst the tender light is fixed and no spare iron is supplied to fill the gap after it is 'Xuroned'. On DC you'll need to address 'light bleed' with the lamps removed, on DCC hopefully you can just turn the LED's off. The tender-loco gap is fixed and unnecessarily wide - the cam should allow for close coupling but clearly that potential has not been taken advantage of. Worse, the electrical connection appears fragile, again see YouTube. 

 

The frustration is that when Hornby get it right it can be so good - 2Mt is lovely, so lovely I bought a second. 

 

On the tender I do know the led board for the lamp is jst’d into the circuit board in the tender.

just unplug it, or remove it completely.

 

The tender lamp is like the smokebox lamp.. a light track out of the back, not underneath..so a good push from inside the tender should move it.

(sorry never thought to mention this earlier but I handled one of these at Warley looking at that).

 

My plan was to use an expo nut spinner to push it with as it locks the light track inside the tube and reduces chance of it breaking sideways as I push it.

I did suggest to Hornby that removing them from inside/underneath would be less risky than pulling them (ive learned that the hard way with such things in the past), no idea if that sunk in, but Sams videos he was trying to pull it, which I wouldn't do myself.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

7 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

 

Watch Sam's review, he found them to be glued in.

It wasnt confirmed. 
 

agreed if it is, its unfortunate.

I do know at Warley they suggested to me they might be.

 

But we need confirmation on that…

 

Its not neccessarily a killer blow, but a lesson learned if it is. 
it wont stop me having a go, Chinese glue isnt always what its cracked up to be.

 

But conceptually that doesnt mean the product should be dead and buried in the future.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

11 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Reconfigurable lamps on the W1 and Turbomotive are less important because, except when running light, they seldom carried anything other than Class 1.

 

Black Fives worked virtually anything, so the lights need to be frequently and therefore easily, moveable by the user.

 

The last thing we need is having Rule One imposed on those of us who care about prototypical operation.

 

John

Exactly…

ive repeatedly said…

 

the lamps are removable…you can set them up however you want, including all or none at all.

 

The rest and irons, are in the parts bag, along side the vac hose, shank, brakegear, snowplough….

 

if you don't like it, just remove them all and put lamp-irons in.

 

were supposed to be railway modellers, is fitting a lamp/iron  into a hole designed for it suddenly beyond us ?

 

i used to make lamp irons out of matchstick shavings 30 years ago when lamp irons werent even available, let alone lamps.

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

8 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

In other words European prototypes with built in lamps that do not move / disappear like most British locos.

i Think those models could be interpreted as anything !

 

[Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling]

11 minutes ago, maico said:

 

I posted a photo of a loco made for the British market with lights more than 80 years ago not 50 as you said.

 

Here is the Marklin 1938 British catalogue

 

 

Was that in expectation of a Germanic conquest of the UK being successful ?

 

That LNER pacific looks more like a Polish Pm36, the Streamlined LMS one like an SNCB Type 12.
 

odd observeration, but those R numbers  never aged well..

R742 became a white ferry van

R749 is a yellow crane

 

but the rest…

 

R765 became the red Triang hall, with number 25555

R842 is a red black 5…

R849 became a Thomas set

R865 stayed as a freight set, becoming a GWR freight set.