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BBC Four - James May's Big Trouble in Model Britain


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3 minutes ago, Patrick said:

Fran and I didn't get an invite...

 

Well, they did film a lot with your Warley stand in the background that didn't appear. I know, because I filmed them between you and Andy for our interview.

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1 minute ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Well, they did film a lot with your Warley stand in the background that didn't appear. I know, because I filmed them between you and Andy for our interview.

 

Our stand did feature for two seconds :)

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I wonder why focus on the Terrier and not the Prairie duplication? Both Dapol of course.  Not sure if I were SK, I'd be wholly pleased how that came across.  I've just placed an order on Rails website for one of their Terriers!  Also, some interesting snippets on the financials, e.g. Sales increases for 2019 relative to 2018 and proportion of business relating to Scaletrix.  Stand out was the VIrtual reality section.  If they can combine building a kit and an immersive experience, perhaps licensing their own brand, they could be on an interesting trajectory.  I suspect that they're not convinced though.  If you thought it worked, you'd keep it quiet until you were ready to launch.  This was a road test of the idea to see what the reaction is likely to be.  In their overall financial position, I wouldn't invest in something that unproven.

 

David

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I thought John from Rails missed a chance to psych out the opposition by not breaking out into a broad and relieved grin :D (even if he didn't feel like it) after inspecting the Hornby Terrier.

 

As for whose tanks are parked on whose lawn, the old Hornby Terrier hasn't always been part of their range but was originally developed by Dapol who then sold it on....My Dapol model is still going strong so I've never needed a Hornby one.

 

I don't consider that the Hatton's Class 66 has much to fear from Hornby's down-market version, but Bachmann could well lose sales in both directions. Not good enough to compete with Hatton's on detail, and too expensive to beat Hornby on price.

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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7 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

"It's our model" says Kohler proprietarily about the Terrier. "It's always been part of our range." The comparison with his unwillingness to admit he was doing a spoiler on Hattons' 66 was fascinating.
 

Competition is supposed to be central to capitalism. I wasn't at all impressed by the sense of entitlement coming from both Rails and Hattons. Quite honestly if neither company can compete with the elderly products Hornby are offering then there is something wrong .

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Interesting programme,  a few thoughts:

 

- I hope the program helps the hobby in general, my feeling is it will.

 

- Clearly it showed Hornby are up for a fight and determined to win back market share. I can understand the Hattons and Rails team being annoyed but to be honest probably more so from the thinly veiled denials of "no no, we had this in our plans for ages, it was in the plans from before I left and is nothing to do with your announcement, we are going for the cheap end" denials from SK than the duplication per se, if it was me personally I would rather Hornby be more open and say "look we were not happy with what you are doing, this is what we will do if you keep pursuing your own models" and be honest rather than try and make us some cock and bull story. It would have been interesting if Rails and Hattons had got together and said "stop them both or we buy nothing" to see if Hornby had changed their mind. In the end SK was right, they still need Hornby and there are plenty of examples of retailers taking on certain brands and losing (look up what happened when Sainsbury's delisted Coke) and great to hear then 2019 range has proved popular with retailers.

 

- Great to see Hornby investing in new talent and developing the product designer for scalextric, hope she does well.

 

- Office move makes sense if you are on the hook for the factory lease/freehold anyway, that said the offices looked very 1970's in layout so not conducive to team working. Having worked in a mix of office layouts over the years, strange though it may sound having a good quality, modern office helps employees creativity and well being so may prove to be retrograde in the long term

 

- The so called Professional layout builders - really???? Who the f*** applies glue with an 8" screw driver????

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Craig Watson said:

Thought the programme tonight was really interesting again, the thing that jumped out at me was the Hattons rep getting upset over Hornby releasing the class 66 again, how a model which has it's roots in the old Lima tooling can be seen as competition to the forthcoming Hattons version is beyond me, they will appeal to two different markets in my opinion, the Hornby one will appeal to the modeller who's building on their initial train set, who maybe can't afford the Hattons one to begin with, the Hattons one will be the more experienced modellers choice in my opinion.

 

Thought the programme was a great insight into the company, here's to it's future!

My thoughts exactly the Hattons chap didn’t seem to grasp what Simon was telling him, made him look a bit thick really which I’m sure he isn’t. Lets face it Hornby are the big boy manufacturers and Hattons are box shifters wanna be manufactures which they will have a place but they can’t be both.

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The look of shock and horror on the faces of the staff, when Lyndon Davies announces they are moving back to the grotty old Margate site.

I don't blame them.

 

They did confirm later on that it was purely a cost saving exercise.

Spiritual home? Mmmmm? You could say that's a load of old tosh when it comes to £££££ and survival of the company.

 

 

.

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I felt it was a no win situation with the Terrier and the 66. Both RofS and Hatton's moved into manufacturing so are in competing with Hornby yet are it's biggest customers. If Hornby watch as it's range is cherry picked it'll get smaller and smaller so responds and duplicates - nobody can win as the logical conclusion is either a smaller and smaller Hornby meaning are we eventually left with no new models from them or do the retailers back off from manufacturing to protect the manufacturers it's an impossible circle to square. I can't think of another industry where your retail outlets are also your manufacturing rivals. 

 

I did feel the chap from RofS saying at the end 'we need to talk more in the future Simon' was interesting though. 

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On 11 March 2019 at 04:05, Dunsignalling said:

So when did Hornby "lose" the M7, then? And to whom?

 

OK, they don't necessarily do another one every year (specially while they've had the H to promote) but I haven't noticed anyone but Hornby producing any ex-LSWR Drummond loco, with the solitary exception of the D15 from OO works.

 

John

The 02 0-4-4T from Kernow is a LSWR loco.

 

Dava

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25 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

PenrithBeacon, Except that the Terrier is supposedly completely new tooling 

Anybody notice the Irony with the Terrier?

The first Hornby version was originally designed & made by Dapol!

Hornby purchased the tooling from them during the "fire sale"

 

Dapol 00 Terrier:

dapol-southern-a1x-terrier-2635.jpg.9aebcbc7e6cbcc848c50327f0e25f0e0.jpg

Edited by melmerby
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More like 'The Office' than ever this week.   But as 'Ron' has already said at least the real reason for the move back to Margate came out - forget the emotive stuff and count the £s.  And in any case surely Hornby's spiritual home - if it has one at all - is Liverpool, not Margate!   The reaction of staff to the move back to Margate was interesting - no sign of any sort of 'welcome emotional return' and more a look of resignation.  But that sort of thing can set in when you're told that your about to embark on  second office location move within a couple of years; and it can leave folk wondering what will be coming next, a potential 'people management' problem.

 

An interesting among SK's office models was a 'Clan' - a subtle hint or just a case of happenstance?  Ah well it will give folk something to froth about - best start a separate thread for that one ;)

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More interesting than part 1. The most revealing aspect was the new product designer getting the dimensions wrong on what should be standard mechanism parts. Insufficient attention to having basic mechanism elements standardised: that should be automated by now so the designer cannot create an error.

 

8 minutes ago, delticfan said:

...Hornby are the big boy manufacturers and Hattons are box shifters wanna be manufactures which they will have a place but they can’t be both.

The line from Hattons was 'There wasn't sufficient product volume from you, we went into production to defend our business'. Hope Hornby truly heard that. Don't make that mistake again.

 

The complaint. That'll be forgotten when Hattons 66 sells strongly. It's Bachmann who will suffer, as above the Limby serves a different sector.

 

9 minutes ago, 37114 said:

The so called Professional layout builders - really???? Who the f*** applies glue with an 8" screw driver????

People quickly knocking together a display for retail promotion purposes, which will probably be in landfill by now?

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25 minutes ago, delticfan said:

My thoughts exactly the Hattons chap didn’t seem to grasp what Simon was telling him, made him look a bit thick really which I’m sure he isn’t. Lets face it Hornby are the big boy manufacturers and Hattons are box shifters wanna be manufactures which they will have a place but they can’t be both.

And of course, Hornby is still supplying both Hattons and Rails (other box shifters erm, mail order model shops are available), whereas Bachmann no longer supplies Hattons. I think Hattons (at least in the broadcast) missed the point and it's Bachmann their 66 competes with, but I guess they knew that?

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The three things that stood out for me today were:

 

  1. Hornby are agile enough to react to plans by Hattons, Rails and whoever else might chance along and have been doing so for some time (King, 71, Terrier, industrials plus the 66 albeit from a lesser perspective).  Bachmann on the other hand have their own factory woes and have had to respond to Hattons by withdrawing product (allegedly).  Might we expect another stalwart of Hornby, the Lima 55 :) make see an upgrade just before November.
  2. The little scene about the Terrier dome, that confused me and perhaps was a little engineered, if they were so concerned about accuracy then the buffers would be inset like the old Dapol model, like the original artwork and most importantly like the prototype.
  3. Finally, my wife recognises who Hattons, Rails and Peco are, she claimed to be asleep but she was watching.
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I really enjoyed it. Only point I got upset about was the "jaunty music" used for the sequence with the recording chap. 

 

I thought "folsom prison blues" would have been more appropriate, given its rhythm and railway links. 

 

RM 

 

Edited by Irish_R_M
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20 minutes ago, QuoitsPlayer said:

I felt it was a no win situation with the Terrier and the 66. Both RofS and Hatton's moved into manufacturing so are in competing with Hornby yet are it's biggest customers. If Hornby watch as it's range is cherry picked it'll get smaller and smaller so responds and duplicates - nobody can win as the logical conclusion is either a smaller and smaller Hornby meaning are we eventually left with no new models from them or do the retailers back off from manufacturing to protect the manufacturers it's an impossible circle to square. I can't think of another industry where your retail outlets are also your manufacturing rivals. 

 

I did feel the chap from RofS saying at the end 'we need to talk more in the future Simon' was interesting though. 

And what about Bachmann as it watches its range being cherry picked (66, Deltic - 37 next?), and is stuck with similar problems of not enough new product, and very long lead times.

PS, and of course Hornby again, with the new 92(s)

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4 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

More like 'The Office' than ever this week.   But as 'Ron' has already said at least the real reason for the move back to Margate came out - forget the emotive stuff and count the £s.  And in any case surely Hornby's spiritual home - if it has one at all - is Liverpool, not Margate!   The reaction of staff to the move back to Margate was interesting - no sign of any sort of 'welcome emotional return' and more a look of resignation.  But that sort of thing can set in when you're told that your about to embark on  second office location move within a couple of years; and it can leave folk wondering what will be coming next, a potential 'people management' problem.

Can you imagine if he'd said they were moving back to Liverpool :jester:

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12 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

And one was on the market in the USA a long time back.     Lionel were definitely doing them back in the late 1990s (great if you fancy a boxcar that plays 'Jingle Bells' but they weren't 'novelties' like that) and were running the Railsounds range of boxcars c.2006.  So not a new idea at all but that of course is no reason for Hornby not to use the idea and they've done it in a way which makes a lot of sense.   And that wouldn't be the first time that Triang and its successors copied Lionel ideas - after all Lionel first issued its operating Giraffe car in 1960 (three years before Triang's version) and it stayed in the catalogue for 6 years.

 

Maybe we should start looking at Lionel to see what 'new' ideas Hornby and others in the UK will be coming up with next?  :jester:

 

http://ctt.trains.com/how-to/product-reviews/2006/05/lionel-o-gauge-railsounds-boxcar

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4 minutes ago, Mel_H said:

And what about Bachmann as it watches its range being cherry picked (66, Deltic - 37 next?), and is stuck with similar problems of not enough new product, and very long lead times.

PS, and of course Hornby again, with the new 92(s)

What would happen if Rails and Accurascale come out with a 47, Bachmann might be able to lose one big online retailer but two?

 

Hornby could be said to be the more positive of the two manufacturers 

Edited by woodenhead
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