Northern Belle Train Pack R3697

[Ouroborus]

The RRP on the R3697 is £240, for which you get three coaches and a loco.   R4898 gets you three  similar coaches in a pack for £105.  The £135 difference would seem to be for the loco, 57601 Windsor Castle.   

 

Now i'm no expert on 57's, but i thought that 601 was quite a bit different in appearance to its Class 47 predecessor and also that the 57 is not a loco in the Hornby range.    I guess this could be a mistake and they are intending on the loco being a 47 in the named Northern Belle livery, but it would be a hell of a typo.  £135 seems a lot for a model which looks very different to the loco on which its based (i'm aware of the 66 shortcomings), or are Hornby bringing out a new model?

[Hilux5972]

That’s just Hornbys price. Hattons have the pack with the loco for £180. That puts the loco at £75 which would be about right. It’s a railroad spec model. And yes they are incorrectly portraying 57601 using a class 47, much the same as they used a Castle for 5972 in its Hogwarts livery. Rails, Kernow, and Colletts also have it listed for £180.00. 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Hilux5972
Correction

[Hilux5972]

I think I recall this being one of the packs that also had a price adjustment at some point by Hornby too, as Rails, Kernow and Colletts all have it listed as an RRP of £200 with a 10% discount to £180.

[scottrains29]

The Northern Belle train pack is now in stock.

Unfortunately, as some had suggested Hornby have used the awful ex-airfix mk2d tooling for this pack. Why Hornby have done this I have no idea. They should have used their mk2e tooling so that it matches the coach pack, R4898. The real mk2d FO is identical to the mk2e FO with their toilet windows both at the one side. Also one of the coaches, Chatsworth, should be a mk2e anyway!

I don't understand why Hornby couldn't use the Railroad version of the mk2e (plastic wheels, fewer decals) to keep costs down as this would allow modellers to upgrade their coaches with metal wheels and extra decals if they choose, therefore creating a matching six coach rake when combined with R4898. Using the mk2e tooling would have led to more sales of both the train and coach pack.

The airfix coaches were good when first released (in the 70's I think) but look awful by today's standard especially their squarish windows with their odd window sills and semi flush glazing. I will be cancelling my order for the train pack and will put off buying the coach pack for now (as I don't fancy trying to renumber/ rename a coach pack). It's such a shame Hornby have gone down this route. They don't seem to understand that they could get far more sales by producing a complete rake of matching coaches. I'm still waiting for them to release a Virgin mk2e FO to complement the SO and BSO relased a few years back.

I wonder if Hornby will produce another Northern Belle mk2e coach pack with different numbers to complement the R4898. The coach pack has sold very well and is already oos at many retailers. The Hornby Northern Belle mk3s are selling for high prices on ebay and could also do with a rerun. It will be interesting to see how/if this latest train pack sells.

[Richy59]

Interesting to hear that the Train Pack R3697 uses Mk2D coaches and the Coach Pack R4898 uses the Mk2E tooling. I was looking into purchasing these two packs to get a 6 coach train, and replace the 47 with the Bachmann 57 for example, but if the coaches are significantly different then I don't think I will bother. 

 

Is it quite a noticable difference between the Airfix Mk2Es and the newer Hornby Mk2Ds?

[big jim]

1 hour ago, Richy59 said:

 

Is it quite a noticable difference between the Airfix Mk2Es and the newer Hornby Mk2Ds?

I bought both sets last week and despite not getting them out of the box properly yet I wouldn’t have noticed the difference had it not been pointed out here, looking forward to getting the full rake together soon, when I do I’ll photograph it, I also have a Bachmann 57 and BG to go with it 

 

regards price it was adjusted down to a more realistic price by Hornby, I paid £134 for my train pack and £95 for the coach pack, I immediately sold the loco on eBay, getting £42 for it which I was more than happy with 

[Richy59]

2 hours ago, big jim said:

I bought both sets last week and despite not getting them out of the box properly yet I wouldn’t have noticed the difference had it not been pointed out here, looking forward to getting the full rake together soon, when I do I’ll photograph it, I also have a Bachmann 57 and BG to go with it 

 

regards price it was adjusted down to a more realistic price by Hornby, I paid £134 for my train pack and £95 for the coach pack, I immediately sold the loco on eBay, getting £42 for it which I was more than happy with 

 

That would be good, to see pictures of the full set together and any differences.

 

I was looking on ebay the other day at these packs and saw the loco being sold on it's own, must have been yours!

 

Interesting to know why they released two packs of the same theme at roughly the same time but went with different coach tooling for both. How odd.

[big jim]

Here we go, one is the new tooling and the other old 

 

Bachmann BG to compare colours

 

and a 57 to boot

 

I think they look alright, different shades on the different makes But not too bad 

[dogbox321]

On 06/12/2019 at 05:41, Richy59 said:

 

That would be good, to see pictures of the full set together and any differences.

 

I was looking on ebay the other day at these packs and saw the loco being sold on it's own, must have been yours!

 

Interesting to know why they released two packs of the same theme at roughly the same time but went with different coach tooling for both. How odd.

 

It is a little odd!  All I can think is that at original RRP they were going to put in the new coaches, but when they knocked it down, went for the cheaper option.  (The new Mk2's coaches are £105 RRP for the Northern Belle Triple Pack,which would have left the loco at £45!)  Either that or they just thought its got an old lima 47, so we will make it as cheap as possible.  Not very impressive though, when people have bought a coach pack with a 201x tooling, and the rest of the pack comes with an older version.  A bit of a botch job really!

 

I also expect the line in the middle of the windows in the brake, should only be in the luggage area, not through the passenger saloon part as well!

 

Not very impressed by the egg box packaging either.  Gives it a really cheap and nasty feel!  Hope the APT's don't come with that!

 

Regards,

 

C.

[big jim]

17 minutes ago, dogbox321 said:

Not very impressed by the egg box packaging either.  Gives it a really cheap and nasty feel! 

 

 

it’s all about sustainability these days!

 

 

 

[Hilux5972]

The new train sets have the cardboard packaging too with the locos in a plastic sleeve so I would imagine that’s the way things will be from now on. 

[dogbox321]

Yes and the box to the Belmond set is larger, meaning 

10 hours ago, big jim said:

 

 

it’s all about sustainability these days!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just looked it up! 

 

There are bio-degradable alternatives to polystyrene, and they do say its long lasting, which actually for packaging a model railway item makes it pretty ideal, as most people store them in the box.  Plus polystyrene is stronger, if you notice now they have made the outer box thicker, and each item is individually wrapped in a sheet of plastic (as opposed to tissue).   The box, to hold a loco in ice cube packaging has been made bigger too, so thats more "empty space" in a container too!  I don't even want to think about any damp or moisture in Lofts and Sheds, as over time the cardboard may even go a tad mouldy and the box all limp and floppy! 

 

Polystyrene is worst for disposable food items, as so many get thrown away.  So no mushy peas from the chippy, or kebabs!  

 

Extract from a website called Recycle Nation:

 

While cardboard packaging deserves brownie points for its 100% recycled paper roots, its properties (which mirror that of lower-quality paper towels) bog down and even break machinery, making nationwide recycling programs incredibly hesitant to accept it. Adding insult to injury, paper-based egg cartons don’t even biodegrade easily in today’s landfills because all of the necessary ingredients — air, moisture and microorganisms — are typically absent. Paper-based egg cartons give Mother Nature even more of a headache when it comes to the amount of natural resources consumed during the pulping and drying process. Can you believe that Styrofoam versions are actually easier on the environment, using less water, natural gas and electric overall? 

 

So the new eco-friendly version is possibly more polluting!  Always recall Roger Ford in Modern Railways having a list of the top 10 pointless names in his "Informed Sources".  His second place went to "The Carbon Cutter", with the reasoning being that it made the most polluting Intercity Train slightly better!

 

Regards,

 

C.