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Hornby - New tooling - Mk3 slide-door coaches


Andy Y
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38 minutes ago, JohnC said:

I have exactly the same findings as your good self

I purchased 20 coaches - GWR, Scotrail and a XC set.

The coupling arrangement is appalling, as are the wheels.

I have had all my coaches apart to work on couplings and finally got my 7 coach XC set running properly after changing the wheel sets to R8096 sets. Just ordered a further 5 sets to change my GWR and Scotrail sets!!

Not particularly delighted after spending so much in the first place as a pack of 10 wheel sets means you are paying an extra 25% per coach to put right.

john

 

Sounds like good business on Hornby's part, sell brand new coaches with unsuitable wheels and people buy our other ones to replace them and we make more money.

Just think hundreds or even thousands may be sold to rectify an issue considering these are mostly bought in rakes of 5 or more.

Edited by classy52
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2 hours ago, classy52 said:

 

Sounds like good business on Hornby's part, sell brand new coaches with unsuitable wheels and people buy our other ones to replace them and we make more money.

Just think hundreds or even thousands may be sold to rectify an issue considering these are mostly bought in rakes of 5 or more.

 

Not sure if you're being cynical or serious but I like it!

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14 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

Not sure if you're being cynical or serious but I like it!

 

Lol probably a bit of both, an unintentional situation develops into a money earner elsewhere thus those at Hornby are probably looking at each other a bit sheepish atm.

Should they send out packs of wheels for free to rectify the issue?...I'll leave that up to others to debate as this may only affect a certain set of customers with finescale track.

Edited by classy52
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6 hours ago, classy52 said:

 

Lol probably a bit of both, an unintentional situation develops into a money earner elsewhere thus those at Hornby are probably looking at each other a bit sheepish atm.

Should they send out packs of wheels for free to rectify the issue?...I'll leave that up to others to debate as this may only affect a certain set of customers with finescale track.

 

I presume by "finescale" you mean Code 75?

 

With due respect, you say it ""may affect a certain set of customers" - but there's a heck of a lot of of them out there.

 

I have a XC set that hasn't been out of the box as I had nowhere to run them.

But I've just checked and the flanges ride up on the common crossing (frog/vee) on Code 75 pointwork.

The last time I had wheels like this was on a Lima HST.....

 

C'mon Hornby - this is the 3rd decade of the 21st Century - not the 9th of the 20th C.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by newbryford
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10 hours ago, classy52 said:

 

Sounds like good business on Hornby's part, sell brand new coaches with unsuitable wheels and people buy our other ones to replace them and we make more money.

 

 

Unsuitable for whom?

 

Hornby do not make code 75 track - and thus it could be argued they have no obligation to cater for those whose needs differ. As long as the wheels run OK on code 100 setrack then the wheels are by definition suitable for the track Hornby sell.

 

Naturally this is not what many may want to hear, but despite all the serious / finely detailed stuff Hornby make, they are at the end of the day a TOY company! As such, sometimes less than optimal modelling decisions may be made, it could simply be that having the wheels cast in this manor was cheaper to produce than the Bachmann method (and we all know how touchy British modellers get about RTR prices). As the old saying goes look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves...

 

That said I doubt Hornby deliberately designed the wheels to only be suitable for their own track and no doubt the complaints from code 75 users etc will be the subject of an internal discussions.

 

 

Edited by phil-b259
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Just now, newbryford said:

 

I presume by "finescale" you mean Code 75?

 

With due respect, you say it ""may affect a certain set of customers" - but there's a heck of a lot of of them out there.

 

I have a XC set that hasn't been out of the box as I had nowhere to run them.

I've just checked and the flanges ride up on the flangeways on Code 75 pointwork.

The last time I had wheels like this was on a Lima HST.....

 

IMO - a backward step by Hornby.

 

 

 

 

I was being very modest with that and yes correct those with Code 75 and you're right there will be a fair few (thousands probably) with this type of track purchasing these Mk3's with cast wheels thus I didn't want to put too much on Hornby within my post with the risk of being slammed or taken to task over it for whatever reasons, the last time I said what was on my mind & the subsequent responses received and my reactions to them got me banned from one of their threads.

With respect I agree with you on all counts and it is purely up to Hornby on what they do about it considering you & perhaps many others are unable to run them unless you replace the wheel sets at extra cost which goes back to what I originally said that it could end up being a good little extra earner for Hornby...all depends on what Hornby customers say or do about it?

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3 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Unsuitable for whom?

 

Hornby do not make code 75 track - and thus it could be argued they have no obligation to cater for those whose needs differ. As long as the wheels run OK on code 100 setrack then the wheels are by definition suitable for the track Hornby sell.

 

Naturally this is not what many may want to hear, but despite all the serious / finely detailed stuff Hornby make, they are at the end of the day a TOY company! As such, sometimes less than optimal modelling decisions may be made, it could simply be that having the wheels cast in this manor was cheaper to produce than the Bachmann method (and we all know how touchy British modellers get about RTR prices). As the old saying goes look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves...

 

That said I doubt Hornby deliberately designed the wheels to only be suitable for their own track and no doubt the complaints from code 75 users etc will be the subject of an internal discussions.

 

 

 

Totally agree, it is their product after all...

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16 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Unsuitable for whom?

 

Well I suppose if they want to remove themselves from part of the market over silly things then that's up to them! For the sake of making some wheel flanges shorter it would probably have made sense to make them work on more track.

 

I'd presume this whole thing is ignorance rather than a decision made given I can't think of a good reason as to why they would deliberately not accommodate code 75

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It will be interesting to see what Hornby do here. They seem to operate on a business model where most units are pre-sold in advance. To operate this requires a certain amount of confidence in a manufacturer (or confidence that they will remedy anything that's not up to standard). I'd pre-ordered and XC and GWR set making the wild assumption that the wheels on them would at least be up to the standard of the previous version. Hopefully they'll do something about it but it will rankle me if I have spend money buying wheels from Hornby themselves to correct a defect with their own product. How they handle this will affect my decision on whether to pre-order anything in the future. Obviously me not pre-ordering  again is not going to have much financial impact on Hornby but I can't be the only person that feels that way! 

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11 hours ago, axlej said:

It will be interesting to see what Hornby do here. They seem to operate on a business model where most units are pre-sold in advance. To operate this requires a certain amount of confidence in a manufacturer (or confidence that they will remedy anything that's not up to standard). I'd pre-ordered and XC and GWR set making the wild assumption that the wheels on them would at least be up to the standard of the previous version. Hopefully they'll do something about it but it will rankle me if I have spend money buying wheels from Hornby themselves to correct a defect with their own product. How they handle this will affect my decision on whether to pre-order anything in the future. Obviously me not pre-ordering  again is not going to have much financial impact on Hornby but I can't be the only person that feels that way! 

No, you are not the only person. I’m not in the market for these items but they are bound to damage Hornby’s reputation. This sort of thing isn’t a solitary blip. I’m happy to say that there is not much wrong with Hornby’s new Large Prairie or new Princesses. However, there were silly errors with the Duchess – the drawbar unusable on the short setting and the flanged trailing wheels obstructed by a strut. Both were correctable. However, when it comes to the Coronations, the errors were not readily fixable – the huge holes in the nose and the stripes failing to meet in a point. I would have forgiven the latter save that  Hornby had got them right on an older model.

 

I am not complaining about price; the detail the market seems to want costs more. However, from a different angle, most of us have a limited budget and we have to choose from a wide range of goodies on offer. I have a Large Prairie and I’ll have another. I also have two Princesses. One Duchess. A Coronation? No. My limited cash went elsewhere.

 

In fairness to Hornby, other manufacturers are far from immune. Bachmann has rather messed up the lighting on the 158s, 121s and 117s, although, again in fairness, nothing like to the extent Hornby has messed up the lighting on the 87s.

 

Competition is intense. Manufacturers cannot afford mistakes.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Reading thought this topic I a gather some models have suffered minor damage to the body shells.

 

If anyone requires a replacement bodyshell for the following (all TGS) please get in touch via PM as a have a few spare (without chassis) 

 

R4896 - GWR Livery
R4896A - GWR Livery
R4938  - XC Livery
R4938A - XC Livery

 

 

Bruce 

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On 27/07/2020 at 22:01, newbryford said:

 

I presume by "finescale" you mean Code 75?

 

With due respect, you say it "may affect a certain set of customers" - but there's a heck of a lot of of them out there.

 

I have a XC set that hasn't been out of the box as I had nowhere to run them.

But I've just checked and the flanges ride up on the common crossing (frog/vee) on Code 75 pointwork.

The last time I had wheels like this was on a Lima HST.....

 

C'mon Hornby - this is the 3rd decade of the 21st Century - not the 9th of the 20th C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An email was sent to Hornby two weeks ago regarding the wheel standards.

No response as yet.

 

 

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4 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

An email was sent to Hornby two weeks ago regarding the wheel standards.

No response as yet.

 

 

As I said earlier in the thread, it was reported from Simon Kohler by someone that questioned him, these wheels are cast to give the brake disc detail, rather than being turned. They could be replaced and have brake disc inserts added. Why they couldn’t have cast them and then turned down the flanges is beyond me though. Seems pretty simple enough to do. 

Edited by Hilux5972
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5 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

Why they couldn’t have cast them and then turned down the flanges is beyond me though.

 

They could IMO, I presume it's a cost saving to go with the idea of them being cast. I'd have probably paid the extra though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Am I right in thinking there are no coaches marked "E" for running 5 coach? I was thinking it would be 2 of the R4890 (corrected) TSLs but they all look to be D on the pics.

 

Rails have all 10 versions in stock at £29.99 BTW, I was thinking if adding a 5th as I have a plan for making my station area a few feet longer so another MK3 wouldn't go amiss

Edited by TomScrut
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6 hours ago, TomScrut said:

Am I right in thinking there are no coaches marked "E" for running 5 coach? I was thinking it would be 2 of the R4690 TSLs but they all look to be D on the pics.

 

Rails have all 10 versions in stock at £29.99 BTW, I was thinking if adding a 5th as I have a plan for making my station area a few feet longer so another MK3 wouldn't go amiss

R4690 is an BR Stanier 57’ Non-Corridor 3rd. Wanna check that number? Either way, I understand that the Hornby Scotrail coaches are designed to reproduce 2 different 6 Car sets. 2 sets of 2 PC, 4 Coaches. 

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2 hours ago, Hilux5972 said:

R4690 is an BR Stanier 57’ Non-Corridor 3rd. Wanna check that number? Either way, I understand that the Hornby Scotrail coaches are designed to reproduce 2 different 6 Car sets. 2 sets of 2 PC, 4 Coaches. 

 

Sorry, typo. R4890-R4890C.

 

I thought they were releasing 10 coaches to form 2 sets of 5 coaches as they will run eventually but then I expect two of the 4 TSLs to be coach E. I have a 2PC + 4 coaches at the moment but thought I'd add the 5th.

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2 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

There’s only 3 different types in the 2020 catalogue. No TSD listed so that must have just been left out of the catalogue. 

 

It wasn't in the catalogue but they made them. I think their omission in the catalogue was raised a long time ago on here. There are 10 different coaches of 4 types. This page shows 9 of them, they must have sold out of one of the buffets.

 

https://railsofsheffield.com/groups/3168/scotrail-mk3-coaches

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  • 3 weeks later...

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