Hornby 2019 announcements

[cs233]

On 01/06/2019 at 09:09, adb968008 said:

They can buy 4 Lima ones on eBay for Hornby’s new price.

 

i don’t see the point in this one myself, £120 for a repeat of a well worn livery.

They may have more traction with it, if they had considered the class 66 approach and scatter gunned the 2019 liveries of 156.

It is a fair point although Lima never released the early units that wore just 'Sprinter' branding. They only ever released 'Super Sprinter' later branded units. When or if they end up the discounted section I think they offer reasonable value especially for people that are not very up on the details of the prototype. The Lima moulded body was way ahead of its time back in 1989. The main body is still quite good but the underframe is awful of course.

[letterspider]

Hello Mr Hornby

thanks for releasing some Network Rail livery coaches at very reasonable prices - prices on a certain auction site were getting ridiculous

oh - by the way have you seen the price for a pair of HST cars in Network Rail livery recently....?

[atom3624]

I think Mr Hornby should see the price of the original 70's livery 'super detail' HST's ....

 

I would love to build up a set of them, but not at the prices on Ebay ... sorry, that auction site!!

 

(Don't like rubber tyres and love the 8WD versions - I've a Virgin one which is superb!!)

 

Al.

[Legend]

I love the new versions too but not at £260 (discounted) for a pair of Power Cars . Would much rather have Railroad variants in Scotrail, Virgin , Cross Country to go with their latest mk3s, which at £31.95 a go are great value. Really pondering whether I should buy the Scotrail HST, with 4 coaches £380 is a lot to pay .  If anyone introduced decals I'd be tempted to use an old Limby one and repaint (appreciating that there are differences between the original Valenta and re engined ones , and differences to light  clusters.   I'd hate to buy a full fat one only to see Hornby do a Trainset version, that they seem to be doing on the GWR green one.

[159220]

27 minutes ago, Legend said:

 ...If anyone introduced decals I'd be tempted to use an old Limby one and repaint....

 

Try Rainbow Railways, they have the correct paints for the Mk3s and HSTs. I suspect if you ask nicely, they shall have the decals too as they do commissions/have done a Scotrail HST for Model Rail Scotland so they shall likely have some to print off!

 

Of course, as the “railroad” Mk3s shall be the shorter length, it doesn’t really matter that the doors are totally wrong! 

 

But then, what’s £380 really? The model railway hobby is a relatively cheap one! If you started saving £2 today every day until delivery in November... You’d be sorted! It’s costing my family £12 a day to keep the boat in the marina. Hobbies are all relative! 

 

By time you have bought an old Lima HST, decals, paint etc then factored in the time it shall take to paint them. I bet it costs more! Yet depends how much you think your time is worth. 

 

When I was younger, I used to buy the models I wanted through some trading.... Buying some coaches or locomotives “cheaply” - painting them up and selling them on eBay at a profit. Profits which directly funded my hobby. Of course, one day I calculated my time vs profit to realise though I could buy a fancy new train for myself, I was earning no where near minimum wage! Yet it kept me busy during the term breaks and least I didn’t complain about price and just got on with buying the models I wanted...

 

Also remember, Hornby sets a 10% discount off RRP for 6 weeks after delivery. After which, you’ll find many retailers online going down! With patience if I buy a HST GTI it shall cost me around £301 as what is another 6 weeks? And if it sells out in that time, so what. I’ll spend the £301 on a weekend away sailing...

 

You might be the richest or poorest person alive. But you’ll end up dead. So you might as well enjoy it whilst you can!

[classy52]

1 hour ago, letterspider said:

Hello Mr Hornby

thanks for releasing some Network Rail livery coaches at very reasonable prices - prices on a certain auction site were getting ridiculous

oh - by the way have you seen the price for a pair of HST cars in Network Rail livery recently....?

 

Yes I think it would be a good move by Hornby to do another release of the Network Rail HST power cars with revised decals as per today's running to follow on with their upcoming MK3 NR releases.

[Legend]

56 minutes ago, 159220 said:

 

Try Rainbow Railways, they have the correct paints for the Mk3s and HSTs. I suspect if you ask nicely, they shall have the decals too as they do commissions/have done a Scotrail HST for Model Rail Scotland so they shall likely have some to print off!

 

Of course, as the “railroad” Mk3s shall be the shorter length, it doesn’t really matter that the doors are totally wrong! 

 

But then, what’s £380 really? The model railway hobby is a relatively cheap one! If you started saving £2 today every day until delivery in November... You’d be sorted! It’s costing my family £12 a day to keep the boat in the marina. Hobbies are all relative! 

 

By time you have bought an old Lima HST, decals, paint etc then factored in the time it shall take to paint them. I bet it costs more! Yet depends how much you think your time is worth. 

 

When I was younger, I used to buy the models I wanted through some trading.... Buying some coaches or locomotives “cheaply” - painting them up and selling them on eBay at a profit. Profits which directly funded my hobby. Of course, one day I calculated my time vs profit to realise though I could buy a fancy new train for myself, I was earning no where near minimum wage! Yet it kept me busy during the term breaks and least I didn’t complain about price and just got on with buying the models I wanted...

 

Also remember, Hornby sets a 10% discount off RRP for 6 weeks after delivery. After which, you’ll find many retailers online going down! With patience if I buy a HST GTI it shall cost me around £301 as what is another 6 weeks? And if it sells out in that time, so what. I’ll spend the £301 on a weekend away sailing...

 

You might be the richest or poorest person alive. But you’ll end up dead. So you might as well enjoy it whilst you can!

 

Thanks for info on Rainbow Railways .  Yes I know what you mean on time versus money, but I think I'd get satisfaction on repainting some power cars , assuming "Inter7city" decals are available .  The latest Limby Railroad versions are actually very smooth runners, but even some old second hand LIMA ones would do .  I'm not DCC or Sound , just like to see trains going round at speed , so it would probably be difficult to see if it was full fat HST or not when running.

[Ravenser]

On 01/06/2019 at 13:46, The Johnster said:

Well, it’s only a repeat if you’ve already got one, and it’ll run a lot better than a Lima, not to mention having NEM couplers.   There’s a reason Lima stuff is cheap on ‘Bay...

 

 

For the record - the NEM sockets were fitted by Lima - at completely the wrong height, so they're useless

 

However the Limby motor bogie runs very very well, and the performance of my 156 (early Hornby release , no traction tyres) has always been superb.

 

Also the Hornby releases are DCC ready

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, 159220 said:

 

But then, what’s £380 really? The model railway hobby is a relatively cheap one! If you started saving £2 today every day until delivery in November... You’d be sorted! It’s costing my family £12 a day to keep the boat in the marina. Hobbies are all relative! 

 

 

It depends on your personal circumstances. £380 is a hell of a lot of money to some people.

 

Some people can't even afford to put a meal on the table, never mind play with boats. 

 

 

 

Jason

[truffy]

13 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Some people can't even afford to put a meal on the table, never mind play with boats. 

It's all relative. People who can't afford to put a meal on the table are hardly likely to be playing with toy trains either.

[Steamport Southport]

58 minutes ago, truffy said:

It's all relative. People who can't afford to put a meal on the table are hardly likely to be playing with toy trains either.

 

Why not?

 

Plenty of people have things they've had for decades. People can also save up a bit occasionally.

 

But to dismiss £380 as nothing because they personally pay £12 a day for boating is ludicrous. Especially since we've been in a recession for the past twelve years.

 

 

Jason

[The Johnster]

Hobbies depend on disposable income, and if you haven't any disposable income, which in my book means income after you've paid the rent/mortgage, bills, and provided yourself and your dependants with such food, clothing, and other essentials that they demand, you can't afford a hobby.  A very large proportion of the population, both working and claiming benefits, are in this position.  

 

Model railways are expensive because of the ongoing cost after you have set yourself up with the basics of a layout.  I am having difficulty keeping down to an intended £50 a month; new stock (though I'm arguably coming to the end of the buying period and nearly have all I need), kits, wheels and couplings for the kits, glue, paint, tools, parts for detailing, odds and ends, postage; I'm lucky that I'm a Welsh Pensioner and have free bus travel to get to the other side of town to the model shop or that'd cost me £6 a visit, and an exhibition can easily blow the budgie in less than an hour!  Then there are the bargains that have to be bought now or you miss them, that start you off on unintended projects that eat into it.  

 

I was given a loco recently, an old Wills kit in need of TLC and a loving home, and have decided to buy it a new chassis kit to do it justice; this is something that has to be pushed down the shopping list as a new RTR essential loco is in the offing (Baccy 94xx) and I have to put 3 month's budget aside to buy it.  In practice this'll mean that I'll buy it and nothing else for another 3 months. in theory.  So I am currently backpedalling furiously and all sorts of projects are on hold; I want more Comet coach kits which will have to wait as well.  All the same, my spend this month is already over £40, less than a tenner left for the 94xx's alleged fund and 2 weeks to pension day!

 

This is not altogether a bad thing.  If I had a larger disposable income and was able to buy things as and when I wanted them, I'd end up with a cupboard full of kits and half finished projects that'll never be got around to (sound familiar, anyone?); a bit of poverty imposes a clear discipline not just on your spending, but on the modelling itself, and projects get finished sooner.  I like building models, but my main enjoyment is in operating, and the building is for me a means to an end, not the end in itself though that is a perfectly valid reason for doing it if that is your inclination.  But I've done enough poverty to know that while a bit of it might be beneficial, it can be very easily overdone...

 

I reckon I have about a quarter century left before dotage, imbecility, decrepitude, the terminal collapse of my already deteriorating hand/eye co-ordination, and the final, merciful, release of death prevent further modelling (it's being so cheerful as keeps me going), and probably already have enough to do to occupy me for that time without taking on more, so I shouldn't be spending anything, but we all know that's never gonna happen.

 

The down side is that projects nearly finished are held up by having to wait for payday.  For instance, the recently completed Collett non gangwayed 'all third' cut and shut from an old Airfix B set needs ventilators and new buffers, a minor expense but I don't feel justified in doing it until next pension day.  Buffer improvements are needed for the recent spate of Parkside kits as well, and I have no spare NEM couplers for future projects; these sorts of things I think of as 'running costs'.  It's frustrating in the short term; I am a patient modeller but not patient during periods of enforced non-modelling.

[The Johnster]

16 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Why not?

 

Plenty of people have things they've had for decades. People can also save up a bit occasionally.

 

But to dismiss £380 as nothing because they personally pay £12 a day for boating is ludicrous. Especially since we've been in a recession for the past twelve years.

 

 

Jason

Because if you can't put food on the table, you probably can't pay your bills either, and it necessarily follows that you are budgeting your life on a day to day basis because you have no surplus to 'save up a bit occasionally'; it'll only be a very short time before you have to liquidise your savings to pay rent, or eat, or buy shoes for the kid.  Wise budgeting is only really available to those who have enough surplus (and it doesn't have to be much) to plan ahead, which you can't do if you haven't got enough for today.  And such people don't have much that they've had for decades; if it's worth anything it's been pawned or repossessed.

 

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that people caught in this poverty trap have to pay more than those better off for their goods and services.  For example, prepayment meters to stop them running up electricity or gas debts are usually installed after the first debt is run up, and the 'smart' meter is set to recover the debt as well as charging the top rate for current (sorry!) consumption, so their power bills are more expensive while they are least able to sustain that commitment.  They do not have the option of switching to a cheaper supplier until the debt is paid off, and it never is of course.  Buying food in the small quantities they can afford is much more expensive than buying in bulk, and the frequency with which stocks must be replenished is a further burden.  

 

There is no possibility that such folk can indulge in any hobby that costs money; railways are out of the question!

[adb968008]

So I looked at Hornbys 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/lner-class-43-hst-power-cars-43315-and-43309-era-11.html

 

at £289 rrp, and decided that was a bit rich, considering I could have a few more HSTs as the year moves on, so instead I opted for art to mimic life..

 

Using R3390TTS Virgin East Coast..

 

£180 on ebay, £8 for waterslide decals from Railtec, and I get to sell the two TTS sound chips on^ meaning I get an arguably more accurate*  LNER HST with transfers over the Virgin logo, just like the real thing.

 

for some reason R3390tts ends up discounted quite a lot, I’m assuming its related to VIrgin EC demise, yet the LNER patch to make it current, is not only easy to do, but more realistic.

 

All arrived today, I’m reckoning not more than 5 mins per side to complete.

 

*(unless Hornby make a “vinyl overlay patch mark” on theirs too)

^ anyone need mtu sound chips, i’m DC only.

[JDW]

10 hours ago, 159220 said:

 

Of course, as the “railroad” Mk3s shall be the shorter length, it doesn’t really matter that the doors are totally wrong! 

 

 

All Hornby's current Mk3s are scale length.  The old short ones haven't been produced since some time last decade, if not before...

 

(Virgin red/black, Midland Mainline teal/orange and GNER blue were the last versions, at a time when all were still current)

[Legend]

12 hours ago, adb968008 said:

So I looked at Hornbys 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/lner-class-43-hst-power-cars-43315-and-43309-era-11.html

 

at £289 rrp, and decided that was a bit rich, considering I could have a few more HSTs as the year moves on, so instead I opted for art to mimic life..

 

Using R3390TTS Virgin East Coast..

 

£180 on ebay, £8 for waterslide decals from Railtec, and I get to sell the two TTS sound chips on^ meaning I get an arguably more accurate*  LNER HST with transfers over the Virgin logo, just like the real thing.

 

for some reason R3390tts ends up discounted quite a lot, I’m assuming its related to VIrgin EC demise, yet the LNER patch to make it current, is not only easy to do, but more realistic.

 

All arrived today, I’m reckoning not more than 5 mins per side to complete.

 

*(unless Hornby make a “vinyl overlay patch mark” on theirs too)

^ anyone need mtu sound chips, i’m DC only.

 

That's a good idea .  I actually fancy an LNER one too , but given that I was baulking at the cost of the Scotrail one I just ruled the LNER one out , but I might have another look, I got the Railtec transfers for my VTEC 91set.    I looked at Rainbow Railways unfortunately they don't do Inter7City decals , so it looks like I will need to buy the power cars .   I am fortunate that I can afford it , its just my traditional Scottish frugalness that's coming into play here . £380 for a train that will run only occasionally ,is it really worth it?  Really I'd much rather have a Railroad one (and with the money saved probably buy an LNER one too!)

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

On 12/06/2019 at 22:51, JDW said:

 

All Hornby's current Mk3s are scale length.  The old short ones haven't been produced since some time last decade, if not before...

 

 

The old "shorties" were replaced about 21 years ago. 

1998

 

Almost knocking on for a quarter of a century...well in 4 years time it will be.

 

 

 

 

.

[JDW]

1 hour ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

The old "shorties" were replaced about 21 years ago. 

1998

 

Almost knocking on for a quarter of a century...well in 4 years time it will be.

 

Thanks.  I was guessing it was around around 2001, so not far out.

[atom3624]

Don't all 'correct length' Mk 3's have red springs, which the shorties don't?

 

Al.

[GordonC]

23 hours ago, atom3624 said:

Don't all 'correct length' Mk 3's have red springs, which the shorties don't?

 

Al.

 

I dont know about that, cant say I've ever noticed, but the shorties have a window missing - 7 instead of the normal 8 large ones on the sides

 

[atom3624]

It's a while back but a bit of surfing has found these photos.

 

I think it's safe to presume the power / dummy cars are the same lengths, so it's obviously the coaches

 

Upper are the shorties, lower the normal / correct length ones - with red springs.

Curiously, both have 8 windows - I think the shorties' ones were ... well ... shorter.

 

 

 

Looking at other photos, it's not that obvious.

 

Al.

[JDW]

Those photos illustrate the difference well, but the "shorties" are really toy-like by today's standards, it's easy to spot them from ten feet away.  Besides the obvious length issue (if you're not sure look at the bogies, is the end of the bogie under the middle of the door?  Then it's too short, the bogies should be inboard of the doors) the windows are  a separate clear plastic strip with livery and window frames printed on, with very obvious join between it and the rest of the body. The couplings have big chunky blocks of plastic attaching them to the bogies (scale length Hornby/Lima ones have quite long arms from the bogie to the coupling, for obvious reasons). The ends have round holes at the bottom for buffers - not that HST stock had them.  And they're the same length as a Mk1/Mk2 coach.  As far as red springs goes, Hornby's may do, but I'd say that's more to do with general improvement in decoration standards than a reliable way to tell them apart - and remember if that's your method for telling them apart, Lima's Mk3s are also scale length and don't have painted springs, and the [scale length] Royal Train coaches have green or yellow I seem to remember.

[Coryton]

10 hours ago, atom3624 said:

It's a while back but a bit of surfing has found these photos.

 

I think it's safe to presume the power / dummy cars are the same lengths, so it's obviously the coaches

 

Upper are the shorties, lower the normal / correct length ones - with red springs.

Curiously, both have 8 windows - I think the shorties' ones were ... well ... shorter.

 

 

The shorties started life with an unprototypical 7 windows.

 

At some point they were changed to 8 (short) windows - easy enough perhaps because as already mentioned the windows are on a clear strip with the non-window areas just painted on (though maybe the body also had to change to make sure there weren't any struts behind a window).

 

Anyway window-counting is not a good way of working out if a coach is the right length - but some much better ways have already been pointed out.

[RJS1977]

On the other hand, 5 short coaches in an HST might look better than 4 long ones.... ;-)

[Hilux5972]

It appears that Hornby have updated the images for Hogsmeade station. The signage on the buildings now reflects wizarding stuff rather than just a straight RE-release of the original NER station.