Valuing vintage Hornby

[The Johnster]

That's just perverse.  Hornby Dublo 'super detail' coaches were a significantly inferior product to the concurrent Triang 'scale length' ones, which apart from their obvious dimensional superiority and better running were stacked with moulded detail that was simply printed to the sides of the HD toys.  Hornby Dublo were a busted flush by that time and barely capable of serious consideration, and that is in comparison to Triang, for pete's sake.  Toy shorty coaches, solid cast wagon chassis, underscale length locos, poor lining and finish, overpriced and outdated.

 

Sorry, I know this is anathema in some quarters, as the truth often is.  

 

Not saying that Triang didn't perpetrate some appalling crimes against scale a very few years later when they thought they had the field to themselves, but the idea that Hornby Dublo products were in any way superior in scale, running, finish, or accuracy is bound with the concept that die cast metal is superior to moulded plastic, which it isn't unless it is done a lot better than HD did it in the 60s.

 

I happen to agree with you about the livery of SD coaches, but, come on, tinplate?  Without separate details? No.

[locomad]

I've got quite a few Hornby Dublo "super detail" coaches and was hopeful that I'd be able to sell them.  Then I found that they're worth peanuts.  Now I used to love these coaches and am still very fond of them.  I think that the tinplate sides and their livery still looks really good.  So I've decided what I'm going to do with them.  They're going to be the first rake of HD tinplate coaches in P4, and I shall take great pleasure in running them on my layout.  Mind you, the bogies are devils to do anything with so I may have to replace them rather than convert them - in the unlikely event of anyone having any experience of converting od HD coaches to P4, please let me know!

 

DT

Fully agree with you and I don't think anything since has surpressed them, I often look at 35 mm film of the period of standard BR mk 1 stock and the bright colour and flat glazzed sides of super detailed Hornby Dublo perfectly matches the real thing

 

Yes I do understand they are bit short but they look the part, you just don't notice they are short, the nearest model coaches which might match them are kitmaster.

 

They have stood the test of time, I run on my current layout 8-9 coach trains they perform a lot better than anything else less likely derail or uncouple.

 

I have replaced a couple of bogies many those compensating ones using appropriate screws and nuts after I drilled out the rivets, I even considered pin point axles but since I'am limited to 9 coach trains the current stock of express locos are able to deal with the loads

 

As for value I'am not interested like you I use them, fact cheaper they are more likely I will acquire a few more, same goes for the semaphore signals there's nothing to match them for value

[Torper]

That's just perverse.  Hornby Dublo 'super detail' coaches were a significantly inferior product to the concurrent Triang 'scale length' ones, which apart from their obvious dimensional superiority and better running were stacked with moulded detail that was simply printed to the sides of the HD toys.

 

Perverse?  Not really.  HD coaches were indeed short - 11.5% too short, in fact.  But 00 track, which is used by huge numbers of modellers, is 12.5% too narrow.  It therefore seems that if one is prepared to tolerate 00 track, then one should have no dificulty in tolerating HD coaches.  But all that is of little relevance.  My railway is my railway and my only rule is that I'll run what I want on it.  If the occasional appearance at the platform of a rake of HD coaches fills me with a pleasant feeling of nostalgia, then that's all to the good.  As it says on the Scalefour Soc website: "“Each of us models railways for reasons that may be hard to explain, but they will often be very much our own reasons".  Mind you, I don't think I'd take my P4'd HD coaches to Scaleforum though.......

 

I remember the old Tri-ang coaches of the time, and was impressed by their length.  But I think that's all I was impressed with.  They were plastic and obviously so, and the moulded detail was nothing more than solid plastic on the body - no separate handrails or anything like that.  The windows were deeply recessed into the thick plastic bodies and the livery wan't a patch on the HD ones.  IMO, they were nothing like as good as the HD coaches, but obviously each to their own,    As for locos, do you remember Tri-angs solid driving wheels?

 

DT

Edited September 29, 2017 by Torper

[The Johnster]

Oh, yeah, and flangeless centre drivers on both Triang and HD locos.  The incredibly overscale flanges meant that the driving wheels looked hopelessly wrong, because although the outside diameter may have been close to scale, the flange depth meant that actual wheel was nearly a scale foot too small, and this showed, being further emphasised by the flange being missing altogether on the centre pair.  Lima in the 70s took a step backwards from even this with solid driving wheels and connecting rods not even attached to the centre drivers (94xx, J50), terrible models that ran badly as well.

 

We have come a long way, and current RTR manufacturers tend to regard their models as models primarily, not toys.

Edited September 29, 2017 by The Johnster

[jjb1970]

I can understand why people still like the Dublo super-detail coaches, on several counts. The first is that we all like what we like, and what we like is a very personal and subjective thing. ultimately if you like something then it is pretty much irrelevant whether anybody else shares your passion for that item. Older models often have a charm of their own which is hugely appealing whatever shortcomings they have in terms of accuracy. And moving beyond the personal, subjective opinions, tin plate coach sides were thin enough that even without flush glazing the windows looked very effective and they lacked the overly thick and heavy sides that ruined the appearance of so many older plastic coaches and which can still compromise modern RTR coach models. And there is something nice about the finish of tin plate.

[The Johnster]

Certainly won't argue with your point about the finish, which was absolutely first class in terms of colour, printing, and intensity on the HD tinplates.  The WR ones, especially, looked spot on to what I remember from the Capitals United in the late 50s, and I remember thinking this at the time, so it's not just rose coloured retro-specs!

 

But, to me, the bottom line was that the length made them toys; sorry folks, but there it is!

[Northmoor]

Johnster - I thought the Lima 94xx was supposed to be quite good dimensionally, and that the J50, while basic (like the real thing then) wasn't bad either?  I have to agree about the chassis though, awful.  I understand your point about the "perception" of metal being better than plastic; the price paid for Wrenn models always baffled me, I never saw the appeal.

 

Surely so often we are attached to certain models for reasons that have very little to do with their quality or realism.  I have written on my blog about why I am improving some of my locos from the 1980s rather than simply trading them in for the newer versions.  It's not just because I'm a tightwad.  Some of them I will NEVER part with, because I remember getting them as gifts or picked up secondhand from a long vanished shop on a fondly-remembered holiday.  

[The Johnster]

Yes, a lot of us are bound to models for irrational reasons that are actually entirely rational but only to ourselves.  I am finding it difficult to take an ancient Airfix toad out of service now that it has been replaced by a modern Hornby which is vastly superior in any and every respect, but the old toad has been glazed, repainted, and weathered by me and I am fond of it.  Similarly I have a Mainline 56xx with a modern Baccy chassis that was a faff to fit, but it carries a lined green livery and transfers applied by me before the Mainline BR lined green version came out, and I am rather proud of it; I would never get rid of it for the world despite the lack of cab detail.

 

Most Lima stuff wasn't bad above the footplate, they weren't bad at all at plastic moulding, but let themselves down in silly ways, like the dreadful lamps moulded to the 4575 and the dmu with only 2 of the 3 cars modelled.  The running was pretty dire, though, even for those days.

 

But tinlplate HD mk1s are too much like toys for me, says the bloke who puts up with a Hornby 2721.

Edited September 30, 2017 by The Johnster