New Hornby Signature and Sovereign packs

[JohnR]

Just had an email with these new, previously unannounced packs.

 

Bit of an eclectic mix, to say the least!

 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/signature_and_sovereign?utm_campaign=2450355_Hornby - Sovereign and Signature - week 21 2019&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Hornby PLC&_%24ja=tsid%3A71284&dm_i=2DJZ,1GIPF,23181L,4VKNH,1

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

 

For eclectic read clearance!

 

Mike.

[Phil Bullock]

Hmm 

 

King with Maunsells? 52xx with AB wagons?????

 

Could have found something better for Lord Phil though, could be tempted by that one, he did work out of Kingham on trials

 

Phil

[woodenhead]

A very odd mix especially the 52xx and AB wagons and the 'Last of the private owners' with a Railfreight livery brakevan.

 

Scottish freight with Welsh coalmine wagons......

 

Interesting, Hattons are not on the list of sellers - perhaps they will mop up the ones that don't sell for an eclectic sale in the future.

[JohnR]

That RES Brake van with the early BR J15?

[Darius43]

Nothing like shifting surplus stock with a bit of posh font and words like “signature” and “sovereign” to make the whole package appear that bit more special for the uninformed.

 

You can’t polish a t*rd, but you can roll it in glitter.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[JSpencer]

I'm for a 52XX with a TBA and PCA. 52XXs were often seen running around with air brake stock.

 

There are some sets which do make sense though.

[caradoc]

7 hours ago, woodenhead said:

A very odd mix especially the 52xx and AB wagons and the 'Last of the private owners' with a Railfreight livery brakevan.

Scottish freight with Welsh coalmine wagons......

 

7 hours ago, JohnR said:

That RES Brake van with the early BR J15?

 

The Hornby blurb says they have chosen a 'locomotive together with relevant rolling stock'. Thank goodness they didn't go for irrelevant rolling stock !

 

[trevor7598]

Certainly a bizarre selection, or more likely an attempt to get full price for items clogging up the warehouse.

[Going2theDogs]

Hi All,

Agree with the comments made.

Some of these packs look quite good but then there are others........

Clearance  of old stock I  understand but surely it would make more sense to put these in compatible rakes of appropriate loco & rolling stock.

IMHO it is 'own goals' like this that undermine Hornby & their aspirations.

[GWR-fan]

Years of making beautiful models and yet Hornby still cannot break out of the toy train mould.   If they have surplus stock then flog it off but why try to con the buyer, treating him like an uneducated fool, simply to clear the wharehouse of stock.  Maybe Simon needs to go back into retirement, this time permanently. 

[Ouroborus]

Chill out guys, seems clear that this is just a bundled sale for people to buy as Christmas gifts etc.  I don't think anyone needs to lose their job over it.

[GWR-fan]

12 minutes ago, Ouroborus said:

Chill out guys, seems clear that this is just a bundled sale for people to buy as Christmas gifts etc.  I don't think anyone needs to lose their job over it.

 

For years now Hornby has been upping its game and producing highly detailed models no doubt aimed more towards the experienced end of the market and there in lays the problem.  These quickie Christmas repacks are either treating the purchaser like a fool or implying its a Hornby product why would you not buy it.  Unless the modeller has very eclectic timeframe modelling tastes then combining a P.O. wagon with a steam loco coupled with a guards van from thirty odd years later does seem particularly odd.  If the van was provided at no cost then maybe,  but the packs reflect basically full MSRP.  In an ideal world the pack would be provided with a more appropriate era van but no doubt the applicable van was unavailable and having surplus stock why would you not flog it off in an overpriced special pack to clear the wharehouse stock?

 

I recently saw a video interview with Simon and my lasting impression was that this guy is past his prime and his body language reeked of disinterest.  Simon is a relic from Hornby's past and does not fit the current Hornby market hype where popular enthusiastic You-Tubers who appeal to the much younger amongst us are more preferred by the company to market its product. 

[royaloak]

These packs are not aimed at us, they are aimed at the 'what can I buy my Dad, Uncle, Brother* for Christmas, ooh that looks nice' type of buyer.

 

* delete as applicable.

[Enterprisingwestern]

10 hours ago, CB Rail said:

Hi All,

Agree with the comments made.

Some of these packs look quite good but then there are others........

Clearance  of old stock I  understand but surely it would make more sense to put these in compatible rakes of appropriate loco & rolling stock.

IMHO it is 'own goals' like this that undermine Hornby & their aspirations.

 

The problem is that there are not overstocks of "compatible rakes" to offload, just a disparate mish-mash of things from the dark corners of the warehouse, although a stab has been made at the ones which are likely to have been seen out together, but the bottom of the bowl gets to being scraped fairly early on.

 

Mike.

[Dunsignalling]

47 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

The problem is that there are not overstocks of "compatible rakes" to offload, just a disparate mish-mash of things from the dark corners of the warehouse, although a stab has been made at the ones which are likely to have been seen out together, but the bottom of the bowl gets to being scraped fairly early on.

 

Mike.

The one with the King in it would be laughable even to most beginners and most of the packs include at least one howler.

 

That said, as you go further down the page, they seem to become progressively less ludicrous.

 

The M7 set, both those with the Fowler 2-6-4Ts, the A4, and S15 combos are all OK, though the last would be better with green Mk1s than maroon.

 

Even the "Lord Phil" one with the POs isn't completely daft - but for the pre-WW1 PO liveries on fictitious steel underframed 10' wheelbase wagons. However, Hornby are by no means the only offenders on the PO coal wagon front. Even Bachmann's range, which makes a fair stab at authentic wagon designs, isn't free from anachronistic liveries.

 

John

Edited August 24, 2019 by Dunsignalling

[woodenhead]

What worries me is it shows the actual lack of depth of knowledge that may now exist at Hornby, I was surprised in the recent Engine Shed about the Short Bulleids how little Simon Kohler knew about the coaches stating they were good from 1930s onwards when they were actually introduced in the mid 40s.  If you are going to talk about something or create a set then a little bit of homework would not go amiss, it looks like the marketing department just got a pile of boxes of unsold stock and put them together striking lucky with some and putting out steam locos with AB stock or 1990s liveries in another.

 

At least there wasn't a rake of BSKs - from the old chestnut of never enough TSOs.

Edited August 24, 2019 by woodenhead

[truffy]

10 hours ago, GWR-fan said:

For years now Hornby has been upping its game and producing highly detailed models no doubt aimed more towards the experienced end of the market and there in lays the problem.  These quickie Christmas repacks are either treating the purchaser like a fool or implying its a Hornby product why would you not buy it.  Unless the modeller has very eclectic timeframe modelling tastes then combining a P.O. wagon with a steam loco coupled with a guards van from thirty odd years later does seem particularly odd.

 

More likely trying to expand the market at the bottom end, getting new blood in. That's how I started...many, many (many ) years ago.

 

10 hours ago, royaloak said:

These packs are not aimed at us, they are aimed at the 'what can I buy ...

 

...little Johnny for his first train set?'

[sawyermodels]

The items in each pack come in their original packaging which means us retailers can split the packs up if a customer just wants the loco etc. We did this with the previous packs released just before Christmas last year as we found customers wanted a particular item but didn't want everything else that came with it. 

[melmoth]

21 hours ago, Darius43 said:

 

You can’t polish a t*rd, but you can roll it in glitter.

 

 

I know an "antique" furniture dealer who appears to spend most of his time french polishing turds

[caradoc]

10 hours ago, royaloak said:

These packs are not aimed at us, they are aimed at the 'what can I buy my Dad, Uncle, Brother* for Christmas, ooh that looks nice' type of buyer.

 

* delete as applicable.

 

Understand and agree to some extent, however the Signature packs are trains only, ie no track etc, and the prices of all of the packs are not what I would expect to appeal to an impulse buyer.

 

8 minutes ago, sawyermodels said:

The items in each pack come in their original packaging which means us retailers can split the packs up if a customer just wants the loco etc. We did this with the previous packs released just before Christmas last year as we found customers wanted a particular item but didn't want everything else that came with it. 

 

Fair enough; Are the pack prices low enough to allow an attractive discount on items split from them, rather than buying them separately in the first place ?

 

[Robin Verth]

Nothing new, I remember my first electric train set circa1958/59 a Hornby Dublo N2 with 2 steel opens and an ex GWR brake van labelled Southall it would have been more prototypical with an ex LNER brake van or possibly LMS.

[napierlion]

12 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Understand and agree to some extent, however the Signature packs are trains only, ie no track etc, and the prices of all of the packs are not what I would expect to appeal to an impulse buyer.

 

 

Fair enough; Are the pack prices low enough to allow an attractive discount on items split from them, rather than buying them separately in the first place ?

 

Good morning everyone,

 

I purchased one of the packs containing a loco, track and rolling stock last year for a friend. He was made up with the gift. It got him started in the world of model railways. I agree not an impulse buy but compared to the standard Hornby train sets they are good value as you get higher quality models rather than the railroad items you get in the standard train sets.

 

all the best

 

Charles 

Edited August 24, 2019 by napierlion
spelling

[sawyermodels]

16 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 

Understand and agree to some extent, however the Signature packs are trains only, ie no track etc, and the prices of all of the packs are not what I would expect to appeal to an impulse buyer.

 

 

Fair enough; Are the pack prices low enough to allow an attractive discount on items split from them, rather than buying them separately in the first place ?

 

We were able to sell a J50 for £50 and a J15 for £70 and they didn't last long, so the price must have been right. 

[robmcg]

As a kid of maybe 10 yrs old I would have delighted with any of the packs or sets, and would have not cared about the match of region or time, just maybe when older bought more models.  In 1961 we were not so fussy about authenticity... we ran HD LMS Atholl with BR coaches, Bristol Castle the same....