andyman7

The DCC items are bought in rebadged ones; the DC stuff is made by them onsite so they are in a position to repair the latter.

I'm afraid that's likely to be far too broad a definition to help! Taken to extremes that would exclude 99.9% of modellers and potentially leave us only with a painfully serious gentleman modelling a section the Fairford branch (or whatever) in P4 as it was on the afternoon of Wednesday 4th October 1950. I'm more inclined to this one although I'd argue that the input/knowledge of operating the train set to prototype practice elevates it. The 'operation' is being modelled by the user in the true sense of the word.

I've noticed that the Hobby Shop Faversham has a pretty good price for the SWT one (no connection other than as a satisfied customer): https://hobb-e-mail.com/Hornby-r30107-south-west-trains-cl423-4-vep-66211-p.asp

An alternative if you're up for it would be to slice through the houses and model the interiors where rooms and lofts are exposed - it might drive you mad but it would certainly be a feature!

Unlike the Margate days each loco is allocated its own part numbers fro pretty much everything and the tool sets are spread across different suppliers, so whilst it's a missed opportunity there's no guarantee that the 4P front bogie tool was available for use with the 8F

If it's weak and running hot that does sound like it needs remagnetising

I'm still not quite sure what the motivation is behind some of these circular discussions. It is extremely useful when considering a purchase to have the information about the model spec - this is marketed at a full superdetail price point yet is an older model that doesn't even match up to the spec of previously-issued versions. What I'm less sure about is the debate about the motives. Anyone that has bought or been aware of Hornby products will know that due to their enormous back tooling bank, their brand position and their longstanding inconsistency of pricing and use of sub-brands like Railroad, you cannot assume that expensive = high end and cheap = low quality. The recently re-issued ex-Lima GUV was put in the main range at a price north of £40 yet for under £100 there are some fairly decent diesel models in the Railroad range right now. The retooled VEPs come in at 25% less than Bachmann 4 car EMUs and in my opinion are (at last) really very good models for the price. So frankly rather than assuming some specifically malevolent intent I would just treat this as business as usual 'for Hornby' and take the information we have as a clear message that if you want an 8F buying a previous issue secondhand is a much better bet than paying 'new issue' money for this one. The feedback has been passed back to Hornby, if they choose to ignore it than so be it. The field is still wide open for a newly-tooled 8F, I'm sure it won't have gone un-noticed!

If I need any SEF flushglaze I just ring them up to order stuff. Works for me, no cheques or POs involved, just my card to hand.

Hornby Dublo mechs, being old school metal can take these machine oils. These oils generally have to be avoided like the plague due to their effect on hard plastics but that's not really an issue on the old HD stuff

They didn't, the beams are only on the outer (motor) bogies - one of the 'motor' bogies on this one is a dummy. The 501s on the North London lines had quite a different arrangement, a single driving motor car with both bogies powered and with shoebeams plus an additional shoebeam on the outer bogie of the driving trailer.

It's a dummy bogie at one end (the dummy one as used on the R157 DMU but a late version that takes pinpoint axles). The motor bogie is great - it has smooth wheels and these when in good nick are bulletproof. I might at some point add some extra pickups to the trailing bogie.

I might add those at some point - I've a few units that would benefit

I've completed another MTK project. A couple of years ago I bought a number of kit built EMUs at auction. They were well built but in many cases missing finishing details such as numbering. I traded on a few that were not from my core period but one I did put aside was a BR Class 416 4-EPB. The motor bogie was loose and the model had no numbering but really appealed - unlike @Darius43 's (very lovely) detailed approach, these models were built with the aluminium coach bases, the door shut lines applied by transfer, Triang coach bogies and Triang DMU motor bogies with collector shoes added. The models were gloss varnished and very much echo the feel of Hornby Dublo 'super detail' era models. We all know that Colin Massingham's castings could be rather variable but in this case the cab ends were really spot on and captured the classis 'Eastleigh' BR cab end. I numbered the unit up, added door handle detail using a silver pen, picked the shoe beams out as per an ex-works unit and added the shoe fuses. Some colour correction was carried out at each end where the pipes were not quite correctly finished. The aim was very much to capture the spirit of these units with a period model and I'm very pleased with the result.

An interesting discussion that once again highlights that no matter how dedicated one is to fidelity, once you get down to 4mm scale there have to be compromises. One of the massive benefits of kinematic couplings in my opinion is their ability to allow buffer-to-buffer or corridor-to-corridor coupling when correctly configured. For me, this vastly outweighs the trade-off of the NEM box. For others, the appearance is more important. At the end of the day you have to make a choice!

As far as I can see, the nail is arranged to nudge the pocket over when the bogie rotates rather than relying on the force exerted from the vehicle it is coupled to - but presumably only in one direction, so I assume the model has to be the right way round. A number of kinematic mounting arrangements on coaches are arranged so that the rotation of the bogie nudges the pocket in the direction of the curve but as long as the pocket is free-moving it's not a requirement, and on the Cavalex 56 the rather nifty NEM mounting for the dummy screw coupling is reliant on the pocket not moving by itself on curves.

Yep definitely no card in the DC ones. Maybe it can be included as part of the DCC sound upgrade pack when available

That's a subjective view - in 1999 the rebuilt Merchant Navy upped the game compared to Bachmann; as for D & E models, there was a period from 2003 - 2008 when Hornby were outshining Bachmann. Nowadays for D & E Hornby is towards the back of the pack, but for steam, Bachmann doesn't seem too bothered to run head-to head with Hornby these days.

Even the old tool 8F was originally released in 1988 so that's not a 1970s model Furthermore, even if it is it won't be the tool from the 'old' 8F because that won't exist. If it is a different smokebox moulding the most likely explanation will be that the previous one was broken or missing and a new one has had to me tooled up. The manufacture of models for Hornby is undertaken by a number of suppliers. Many of the older Chinese tools were originally used to produce models at the Sanda Kan facility and when that closed there was not an orderly transfer of tools - some may recall the threads from a decade back relating to the rather difficult situation that Hornby found themselves in. I'm not going to comment on the pricing of this model but it is worth laying to rest the impression that models from old tools are always cheap to knock out. There may not be the origination cost of cutting the tools but finding them, testing them, making sure all the ancillary bits (glazing, smokebox door, detail parts) are accounted for is a considerable piece of work. and the assembly costs a lot more than it used to when most detail was moulded on (smokebox door handle or not...) now that Chinese labour costs have risen.

One of the variations between Heljan v1 and Heljan v2 is the attachment of cab front handrail. Those two 'pips' you can see of the v2 (left hand) loco in my own photo of the two side by side represent the centre handrail securing bars on the real loco. On V1 version the handrail hugs these giving the rather flat effect notes by @Paul_sterling but on the V2 the curve is more rounded because for whatever reason the factory assembling these second run models haven't attached the handrail in the same way and it doesn't press hard against the 'pips'.

Probably easiest to agree that they are all Rovex products, as that was the underlying company that made the all the model railways models marketed under the Triang, Triang-Hornby and Hornby Railways banners. In 1981 following (yet another) receivership process Rovex became Hornby Hobbies Ltd. I agree, although the whole of the 70s is a bit of a dark age - first with bright luminous red buildings and gloss varnished self-coloured plastic engines and then later on with a waxy-looking matt lacquer to the engines and everything designed down to clip fit assembly.

Making use of the listing promotions ebay is the best value way to retain most of the value of anything you sell. Even at full fees you'll keep a lot more on ebay than you ever will through a conventional auction house or sale to a dealer. As for the 'exorbitant' listing fees, they're zero for private sellers.

Piko AC models are centre stud contact for use with Marklin. The train set is definitely going to be 2 rail 12v DC. I'm very much inclined to think it's Piko.

Of course, it genuinely just made me smile, reminding me of my own family 🙂

I just love the 'its a train set, I think it's Hornby'. I'm sure if the next question had been 'what other make do you think it might be?' the answer might well have been 'are their other people that make train sets?' It's very much a 1970s/80s era H0 train set, not Marklin, it doesn't look like Trix or Fleischmann, maybe Lima? Mehano? Piko?

If they're the hard plastic Matchbox tyres they all end up loose, even in the 70s the secondhand 60s Matchbox models all had loose tyres. Nothing to do with the stripping, it seems it's a property of the material the tyres are made of vs the hubs.