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Porfuera

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  1. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    The five GWR Mk3 TSOs in the online shop that that were recently showing "Spring" are now also showing "Summer", with metadata dates of 30th July. Therefore all the outstanding BG and GWR Mk3s are now showing "Summer". Hopefully these will change to earlier dates at some point - my HST pack arrived today and I would very much like to have some coaches to run with it! I think Hornby will get some stick if the Mk3s don't arrive until June/July. Maybe we will hear better news on 2nd April.
  2. There is a post on the Hornby Bluetooth decoders thread saying that the sound profiles for the TT:120 Duchess, Class 50 and Class 66 are due to be released by the end of the month (although I haven't checked this myself). However the shop is showing 'Expected' dates of Summer (for the Duchess and Class 50) and Autumn (for the Class 66) for the locos. If they're releasing the sound profiles soon then maybe the shop dates for these locos are being pessimistic. Fingers crossed! EDIT: Or maybe it is the easiest way for the factory in China to get hold of the profiles to preload them onto the sound-fitted locos, which are due to be released at the same time as the DC locos...?
  3. It is interesting that they are getting these out so early because (according to the shop pages) the TT:120 Duchess and Class 50 aren't due until Summer (possibly end of May and end of June respectively) and the Class 66 isn't due until Autumn (possibly end of November) at the earliest. Hopefully the shop dates are being pessimistic!
  4. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    This is why I put "the only way we'll know for sure is to check these dates against something that will be released in the near future". I'm not sure I agree about the dates. Just because 'long' dates frequently slip, it doesn't mean that near ones are unreliable. Hornby must have a good idea when stock is going to arrive so that they can send lists out to dealers. However, going by how quickly the Swallow-liveried Mk3s were sent out after the power car packs you'd think the BG and GWR Mk3s would be here already but who knows? And I've just had my notification email for my digital BG HST (or rather SWMBOs HST!) so I'm as keen to see the Mk3s as anyone else, otherwise I'll be running it with Pullmans!
  5. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    Well that blows my theory out of the water! 🙂 EDIT: I've just checked and it look like it is only the power car packs so maybe I'm safe for now...
  6. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    As a continuation to the above, five of the GWR Mk3 coaches are showing an availability of "Spring" (all look like TSOs) while three are showing an availability of "Summer" (these are Buffet, TF and TGS). For those with Spring, the "product:availability_date" is showing as "2024-03-28T00:00:00+00:00" so we will be able to see whether this happens on the 28th March or not (assuming the date doesn't change). For those showing "Summer" the date is showing as "2024-07-02T00:00:00+01:00".
  7. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    I'm still seeing a date of 2nd June on the shop page. Anyone can try this for themselves to check something on the web page called "product:availability_date" The following is for a Windows 11 desktop using Google Chrome (I haven't tried it with anything else so if you're using a different browser or Android or Apple devices you may need to find a different method). The instructions may even be different if you are using a different version of Chrome but you can try the following: - View a product in the Hornby shop (e.g. the blue/grey Mk3 Tourist Standard Open, E42141 here) - Put the mouse pointer in the white space above the photo and right-click. A menu will appear - click on "View page source" (or instead of doing this you can just type <Ctrl-U> i.e. hold down the Control key and press the letter 'u') - The HTML/JavaScript code for the page will appear in a new tab - don't panic! You are looking for something that says "product:availability_date" that has a date and time after it - this is in the format "2024-06-02T00:00:00+01:00" On my screen this appears on the first page at about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way down but that may depend on the size of the screen that you are using, the screen resolution, that sort of thing so you may need to scroll if you can't see it. There are line numbers on the left and for me it is at Line 42 but again that may depend on different factors/settings on your PC - I don't know, I'm not a Java/HTML person. Alternatively if you can't see "availability_date" then you can search the page by typing <Ctrl-f> (hold down the Control key and press the letter 'f'). When you do this a small box appears at the top right of the screen - type in "availability" (without the quotes) and all occurrences of the word "availability" will be highlighted. Click on the down arrow in the box until you reach "availability_date". I'm not saying this is 100% guaranteed to be the actual day that an individual item will become available but someone on Facebook was able to 'predict' when the GWR and blue/grey HST sets became available to order on the Hornby web site and I'm guessing that this is what they used - the only way we'll know for sure is to check these dates against something that will be released in the near future, for example the Duchess of Athol, which has a date of 30th May, or something earlier if someone spots something with an earlier date. Interestingly there is another item called "data-stock-level" which appears to be positive for available items (like the HST sets) and negative for pre-order items (as you might expect) but it seems to be quite low (generally less than 100 for most values that I've looked at). For the TSO above it is "-54" and for the Duchess of Athol it is "-127" so I'm wondering if the value is scaled (maybe by a factor of 10) because I would have thought that pre-orders would be higher - unless people are now mostly pre-ordering from retailers because the TT:120 Club discount is no longer available. AFAIAA neither the availability_date nor the stock-level are directly displayed on the web page - I'm guessing that the former is used to calculate the season while the latter is used to determine whether you are allowed to order an in-stock item or whether you have to place a pre-order and it is used to format the page accordingly. EDIT: I've just checked the 2nd June and it is a Sunday, which is possibly unlikely (unless Hornby's logistics/warehousing company works a 7-day week) so maybe it is just a placeholder for an earlier date.
  8. Surely the original roadmap was the catalogue? My reading of the catalogue is that the J94 and the 5700 were not in Phases 3 and 4 originally, the Class 60 and the 9F were instead - the 0-6-0s were in the bit after Phase 4 that read " Plus, BR Britannia, LMS/BR Black 5, J94,GWR/BR Class 5700 Pannier and much more!" - although even that is open to interpretation as to whether or not that is Phase 4! That is interesting - AFAIR the first anyone knew of that page was when @Les1952 posted about it last July. It is hard to believe that it was around for eight months from November to July before anyone noticed it. I know that others have looked for it on the Wayback Machine and not found any reference to it before last autumn so you've done well to find that reference. I don't remember reading those items so I probably missed them. From those quotes it certainly looks like there will be three more 0-6-0s, contrary to what I was thinking. So now the question is: when? I still find it hard to believe we will see any of them this year - especially as the Class 66 has been delayed yet again until Autumn and the Class 50 has also recently gone from Spring to Summer I think. Also I can't remember much information lately about the Duchesses even though the website says Spring/Summer (the dates for these are currently showing as 30th May and 5th June, depending on the version). But maybe an 0-6-0 will be a 'surprise' - they are sorely needed, even though I won't be buying one - I'm waiting for the diesels. It will be very interesting to see what is said in April. Not long to go now!
  9. Maybe I'm mis-remembering but to be honest I didn't think there was a mystery 0-6-0 in addition to the J94 and 5700 - I thought that unnamed steam 0-6-0s were mentioned in one of the livestreams about a year ago (something like "one in tooling and one about to go to tooling"). Then later, in the July 'Future of TT:220' announcement, the J94 and 5700 were brought forward into Phase 4, replacing the previous Class 60 and 9F that were originally in Phases 3 and 4. So to me those are the two previously-unnamed 0-6-0s. I do seem to remember Jintys and Terriers being mentioned but then SK would never say 'no' to any suggestion brought up in a livestream. And three steam 0-6-0s seems like overkill when there is still so much to do. I guess the only reason would be if they could bring it out imminently (say in the Summer) and then they could keep the J94 and 5700 in Phase 4, which is likely to be 2026 (with Phase 3 being 2025). Roll on the 2nd April!
  10. The Hornby store shows the TT:120 sound-fitted steam locos at £222.99 (the Scotsman is £231.99) while analogue are £167.99. The Next18 decoder is £69.99, so cheaper to buy them DCC fitted than it is to fit them yourself. But I think you can get around 10% off at retailers although there are DCC fitted locos on a certain auction site for around £180 - or possibly less if you make an offer and it is accepted. But obviously there is less selection. On the website the TT:120 HST packs look to be cheaper than the 00 ones (especially the DCC ones) but you can probably get large enough retailer discounts that the difference is wiped out. In any event I don't think they were saying that TT:120 would be cheaper - IIRC someone asked that on one of the livestreams and SK and Carl went through a lengthy reply explaining why they weren't cheaper just because they are smaller. And I was looking at Z Scale on a German retailer the other day and pretty much everything seemed to be about the same price as TT:120 and that's almost half the size.
  11. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    And as I said I know that - it is in the public domain. Do you feel you can stop now?
  12. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    Well there is an item called stock levels which I wouldn't have thought they'd want known but as I say it is in the public domain so maybe they're not bothered. But why don't you just leave it now and let people get on and talk about the topic of TT:120 HSTs rather than continually trying to pick me up on insignificant little details?
  13. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    And as I said it is in the public domain I'm just not sure that Hornby want it pointed out that it can be accessed, given that there is also other (possibly more sensitive data) available as well.
  14. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    I never said he had inside secret knowledge - I said that he reported using data from the Hornby website so I decided to try to find it and now I'm sharing it with others since there was some discussion of when the blue/grey Mk3s would be available given that the GWR versions are mostly scheduled to be here in Spring. Why would you think I'm getting stressed by it? I'm just sharing what I've found - you seem to be the one getting stressed by what I've posted here.
  15. Porfuera

    TT120: HST

    Yes I understand all that but as I said above, someone on Facebook correctly 'predicted' the date on which the TT:120 GWR and blue/grey HST sets became available on the Hornby webshop this past week so presumably any near dates have some sort of validity. Obviously further dates are subject to any number of internal and external pressures and are less reliable. I also had an exchange on Facebook with someone who said he was a dealer and he said that they receive lists of forthcoming releases covering the next two or three months (I can't remember which) and he said that these are generally reliable so I am guessing that these dates and also the ones in the metadata in the webshop are from some kind of database (presumably the same database as there's no point on duplicating data if you don't have to since duplicating data can lead to errors being made). The date of the Class 66 I looked at is interesting in that 30th November is the last day of meteorological autumn so Hornby would appear to be going as late into Autumn as they can for the availability date for the Class 66s - one day more and the availability would be Winter rather than Autumn - so this date is presumably a guestimate, which is why I caveated the dates by saying that I assumed that they could change either way.
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