stonojnr

maybe it wouldnt look so bad if it didnt look like it had been painted by a 4 year old, or were they going for that real retro 80s look. seems a bizarre thing to have expended any effort on just to create for a couple of photos and a few lines in their blog.

maybe Im missing something incredibly obvious here, but if the moulds already exist, and the demand is clearly there given how the last batch sold out, all Drax have to do is give the nod to Hornby, and they will go make some more and receive some money eventually for actually doing very little on their part. it doesnt matter if they dont need toy trains to generate money, and at some stage they obviously understood toy trains to allow their wagons to be made and to own the permissive rights to them, but its essentially free cash to them at this stage, and if the marketeers at Drax cant join those dots together, why on earth arent the marketeers at Hornby bashing down their door and explaining it to them in terms they do understand. its not like theyre saying Drax need to invest more of their cash to create a brand new wagon in the hopes of getting some tiny piece of payback, and small amount of pr goodwill, all they have to do is press the go button on the machine and crank some more out.

maybe its just degrees of noise, I grew up listening to double header 37s that used to shake ornaments off shelves past our house, the flirts even on diesel seem whisper quiet to me in comparison.

but why would they already have a running sample for a release they havent announced yet ? when theyve only just a few months back said theyve recently got the tool mouldings for something they announced best part of 18months ago and have been working on for 2 years, the timeline doesnt make sense, either theyve been working on both all along, in which case why not announce it at the same time ? and then look what we missed on the screen when they released this back in December :( which also covers a 4 engine/2 engine design.

well it certainly looks well detailed, and might GA have had slightly more involvement with this than most TOCS would ? seems interesting theyre pushing this video, and not Hornby,just seems more than mere engineering assistance/livery sign off. though Im left still thinking how is this suddenly different from how the APT/Class91s were treated by Hornbys famous care and attention ? especially when SK describes the train as radical 🤨, you mean its not a kettle on wheels style radical uses this new fangled electrickery and diesel to move around. Im intruiged by the sound, as thats literally the nosiest Ive heard them in diesel mode, they really are quiet in operation either trackside or station, the nosiest bit being that honking goose horn, so it will be interesting how that translates to their decoder., you spend extra buying this sound and its literally the quietest volume sound you get :) one thing I did pick up on him saying is theyre 100mph, thats the max speed of the class, I dont think on the Anglia routes they operate on theyre cleared for that speed even when on the main line, as theyre definitely timetabled to take longer than the 745s to traverse the same bits of track currently.

well didnt Stratford start doing it after the Union flag 47 with silver roof they painted up for the Silver Jubilee ? (Bachmann missed an obvious tie in there) so '77 might be slightly too early for the rest of them to have started gaining their silver roofs/ves too. but it looks as I remember them, of course in daily use the silver roof tended to gain an increasing sheen of oil/diesel/weathering over time, which dulled the look and might have made it look more BR grey. I wonder if it means Bachmann arent doing a Stratford roof version then though in their line up ? I was kind of hoping for a decent 47596 Aldeburgh Festival, but might have to get this instead.

yeah but like a lot of Hornby announcements, its not actually due to air till later next year ;)

not yet, and since these are now showing winter 23/24 on the Hornby store...

well I cant wait to watch how the newly announced series 2 of Hornby A Model world covers it, but like most Hornby announcements weve got to wait a year to see it 😉

well, maybe Im being a touch cynical with Hornby of late, but Id have been surprised if theyd replied back saying theyd either not tested it properly, or that theyd found these issues but decided to release it anyway. its kind of a given I think theyll say theres no problem with it at all and everything if fine, unless you can demonstrably prove the issue and send it back to them to get it fixed kind of thing.

I should have taken a bet on there being more freightlining 90s in the offing...but its upto a point if all Bachman and Hornby are doing is churning out 90s in ever more unique one off short lived freight liveries, whilst completely ignoring nearly 16 years of passenger service on the GEML, which is equal to the time they spent on the WCML in all the Intercity variants and Virgin combined. what is that about ?

youd expect it to be overseen by an overall lead designer though, who signs off what different department designers are producing, wouldnt you ? I mean someone takes responsibility for the overall thing theyve produced right ? unless its just Simon K pressing the yeah looks about right lets order button. I mean another example of attention to detail missing on their D&E models, the new Class 91 Intercity livery has somehow ended up with front left and right cab window frames on the front in white, they should be black, even though it was on the renders correctly in black, so maybe its a factory mistake, back to QC. but I picked up from a review on the For the Fallen version,which has its own livery issues on the cab front not aligning with the side panels and light cluster mistakes, but thats modelled with a specific roof setup for all the AC electric equipment which is correct for the later as is running today setup on the real thing, but it looks identical to the equipment setup theyve put on the Intercity livery version, which then cant be correct, if its known it has changed over time ?

assuming it does appear of course, Hornby cancelled the last GA 90 they had in the catalogue,and it was just a respray in effect.

yes mines somewhere between Cornwall and East Anglia at the moment and its why I went for the IC livery, as even though you could make a claim the GNER was the more longer lived and and classic operating style, I remember them being brand new in that IC livery, being launched as the "train of the future" on the BBC, and saw alot of the test runs on the ECML, just never got to ride behind them as often as the HSTs, and now yes it is a bit sad theyre being scrapped. I hope Hornby do several batch runs of these going forward, as if the Mk4s are already becoming a bit scarce in the GNER spec, its going to make it a pain to get a decent rake of things later on if they dont.

Id argue theres a Youtube video for all that knowledge now, as there were magazine articles back in the day too, Ive always been happier treating model shops as nice places to browse and look at, but I know what I want when Im going in there and not interested in it being other than a box shifting transaction. this purple engine would be the epitome of that browsing aspect just to look at it, but I wouldnt be interested in buying it at all

it just doesnt make sense to me at least, as to why one part of the business does seem to have this check/review process on signing off designs that way, which seems the sensible way to do it and youd think would translate across all their design efforts, yet clearly it doesnt. even just as a matter of professional pride if you were a designer of D/E models,and if you really had no interest in them as a concept, youd still want to get it right and as accurate as you could, because thats what you spend hours a week working on, its that love of precision and design which is why you are a designer in the first place Id have thought.

there was a film in the 70s, though the name of it and who was in it escapes me at the moment, that did that swap with Liverpool Street in for Liverpool Lime Street because it was cheaper to film in London at the time I think, and the director didnt think anyone would really notice, but the main character was supposed to arrive in Liverpool by train but you see them exit around the old Liverpool Street cab rank and past a sign that I think they half obscured with extras/luggage so it just said Liverpool...so anything is possible

so I can expect a One, NXEA and Greater Anglia (both AGA and GA variants) by the end of the year...still not sure Ill be holding my breath for that to happen 😀

why do we think that is though ? I dont want to use the "details, details, details" mantra on them, again, but even in jest they know they make products people will count moulded rivets on in the steam side, and yet keep getting the detailed things in the D&E so wrong. How does the Scotland Azuma end up with Carlisle and Watford Junction on the destination boards and nobody at Hornby noticed ? which would be bad if it were being sold at railroad prices, but its £400+

Id send it back even without the scratch, that just looks an awful textured finish,for a £200+ locomotive remember, I dont care if from 10 metres away its not that noticeable, thats a bad level of livery finish imo, Ive never had a model that I used a varnish coat on end up looking like that, thats almost like the application has partially melted the plastic surface. apparently R3890 is due within the next 2 to 4 weeks, I hope the InterCity Executive livery is not similarly afflicted.

Im not sure thats necessarily a sign that Hornby have an issue with the excitement generated by their 2022 announcements or other manufacturers threads show they have more interest than Hornby, the reality is its very difficult to keep a topic going on Hornby models we might not see for another 12-18months that are little more than stock photos of real trains, vs a Bachmann model that will be in the shops before the end of this month that weve got actual samples to see So like we cant really discuss what these GA 755s are going to be like, because despite the catalogue claiming a Spring 2022 release, nobody believes that date, in fact most would doubt a Spring 2023 release considering the backlog of 2020/2021 models still stuck on slow boats from China. maybe if a prototype showed up on the next Engine Shed release, or appeared at a show Hornby decide to go to, maybe then there would be stuff to discuss, but there seems little point just aimlessly speculating when theres so little facts about it to discuss. and if Hornby allocations are letting stocks turn up in shops now, howcome Kernow still arent accepting orders from the 2022 range ? I preordered on the basis I want these GA755s as models to add to my collection, and maybe enough interest means we get a 745, or something else Eastern region

when the 86s arrived in the Anglia region mid 80s, they were still using the Stone Faiveley style, and got fitted with the Brecknell Willis high speed ones later, though in the early days some still had the diamond cross style ones too. But that might explain the visual differences you noticed. the APT-P ended up with a Brecknell Willis, but I dont think Hornby has ever modelled the electrics pantographs accurately, though they did at least used to be metal and sprung better

Ive spent what feels like the best part of 800 pounds on buying a model train with extra coaches that often derails, has giant capacitors on view in those coaches, that might melt or break the only power car that powers it, which isnt powerful enough to push a full train with the extra coaches, assuming its driveshafts havent fallen off in transit, and has at best a pantograph stolen from an airfix model. how much more phished do I feel already by Hornby...

you might think its only a background issue because MW radios arent as common thesedays, but I bet your broadband & wifi signals notices it alot.

they said later in that video Hornby had offered them some stock in Jan, but theyd declined the offer, as theyd be hit with the price rise, and it pushes it into a price region their shop doesnt look to cater for, as they were set up to be a model shop thats shows its an affordable hobby for all the family, not an expensive collectors hobby. and that seems a reasonable position from them IMO, and their point that the older model is half the price on Ebay, we might be getting a much better looking model but Im not sure weve got a model thats as good as the price tag infers based on all the issues people keep reporting in this thread.