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Hornby 2020 range "reveal date" = 6th Jan


phil gollin
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2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

OO9 would be a mistake, they'd be treading on a lawn already colonised by other manufacturers, Bachmann, Heljan and Peco already offer OO9 product and Hornby might be seen as merely making a "me too" effort. 

 

 

I don’t think the “someone else is doing it” argument holds.  If that was the case, the other manufacturers wouldn’t be in or enter the OO market!  If anything, it lowers the barrier to entry and reduces the risk on producing something for that market as you can see that others have successfully sold into that market and expanded it.  The same duplication considerations that would apply to any OO loco will apply to an OO9 release.

 

The stronger argument for not going into that scale is that they don’t have the same extent of n gauge expertise that  Bachmann have through the Farish brand.

 

Would OO9 be a wow moment? Probably not - will it sell? Probably but not game changingly so.  

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2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

OO9 would be a mistake, they'd be treading on a lawn already colonised by other manufacturers, Bachmann, Heljan and Peco already offer OO9 product and Hornby might be seen as merely making a "me too" effort.  OO12 wouldn't look that different and might not catch the railway-buying publics attention.

 

I’m not so sure. In 00, Bachmann, Heljan, Peco and others supply things which are compatible. There’s nothing strange about a Heljan loco hauling a Bachmann train on Peco track. We can now have a 009 Heljan loco hauling (with a bit of luck) Bachmann wagons on Peco track. It would be a reasonable move for Hornby to produce an item or two and much easier than it was for Bachmann, Peco and Heljan, which had to blaze the trail. Hornby’s tiny Ruston shows that Hornby is perfectly capable of producing a tiny loco.

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20 hours ago, MM1991 said:

Roco and Fleischmann already sell camera fitted loco's

 

 

 

Hi,

 

Interesting video. The in cab picture quality didn't seem that high and seemed a bit jerky.

I wonder if they slightly smoked the cab windows of the locos to make the camera less obvious when viewed from the side.

 

Regards

 

Nick

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49 minutes ago, No Decorum said:

I’m not so sure. In 00, Bachmann, Heljan, Peco and others supply things which are compatible. There’s nothing strange about a Heljan loco hauling a Bachmann train on Peco track. We can now have a 009 Heljan loco hauling (with a bit of luck) Bachmann wagons on Peco track. It would be a reasonable move for Hornby to produce an item or two and much easier than it was for Bachmann, Peco and Heljan, which had to blaze the trail. Hornby’s tiny Ruston shows that Hornby is perfectly capable of producing a tiny loco.

Yes, but Hornby at least like to think of themselves as producing everything needed for a model railway - which means an OO9 range means loco, rolling stock, track, and controller at the very least...

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37 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Yes, but Hornby at least like to think of themselves as producing everything needed for a model railway - which means an OO9 range means loco, rolling stock, track, and controller at the very least..

But now your not thinking outside the box

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23 minutes ago, rovex said:

But now your not thinking outside the box

 

But "thinking outside the box" is soooooooooooo last-century management speak!

 

It'll be paradigm-shifts next....

 

Shall we run that one up the flagpole?

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Maybe Hornby have done a deal with Protocab to introduce a range of small batteries, in situ battery rechargers, CPUs and radio controllers under the Hornby imprint so that  we can, at last, leap into the 21st century and get away from rail conduction altogether.   I wish !

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2 minutes ago, 1ngram said:

Maybe Hornby have done a deal with Protocab to introduce a range of small batteries, in situ battery rechargers, CPUs and radio controllers under the Hornby imprint so that  we can, at last, leap into the 21st century and get away from rail conduction altogether.   I wish !


Well, that’s one way to go bust rapidly, I suppose.

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27 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

But "thinking outside the box" is soooooooooooo last-century management speak!

 

It'll be paradigm-shifts next....

 

Shall we run that one up the flagpole?


...or go back to the 70’s and see if a bubble rises to the top of the think tank.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

(of course if it were a real tank it might be a bit unfortunate)

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My take on the Simon Kohler teaser video is that the “2020” anniversary announcement has nothing to do with Hornby OO railways as we know them. Rather, it’s something completely new that may complement Hornby’s current products but not in a way be might expect. I’ve no idea what that might be, but I would imagine it’s something technology related that will appeal to kids of today who play computer games and watch videos on tablets, the aim being to encourage those kids to move on to Hornby model railways.

 

I’m sure there will also be the usual new tooling/product announcements as well as reliveries of existing models, but not linked specifically to “2020”.

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5 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

OO9 would be a mistake, they'd be treading on a lawn already colonised by other manufacturers, Bachmann, Heljan and Peco already offer OO9 product and Hornby might be seen as merely making a "me too" effort.  OO12 wouldn't look that different and might not catch the railway-buying publics attention.

 

But narrow gauge might be an interesting proposal in another scale.  O-16.5* might be a possibility, as it allows entry into 7mm scale that other manufacturers are making more "interesting" but is differentiated, quirky and is perhaps suitable for the older modeller :rolleyes:. They could even have Main-Range and Railroad variants too....      Mechanisms would be within Hornbys comfort range and it shouldn't be too difficult to produce suitable sleeper mouldings to go with their OO gauge track geometry.  And with Narrow Gauge we could see a viable resurgence in the use of Radius 1 curves!

 

Another thought, with careful selection of sleeper spacing/size and surface decoration, Hornby O-16.5 track could be promoted as suitable for OO light railway/industrial usage to accompany their Pecketts, Rustons and 0-4-0 starter blobs...

 

 

* And then there would be people looking at O-EM and O-P4 just to be different...

 

Don't Hornby own Joueff? Joueff make 009?

 

Just a thought.

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6 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Part of the problem in my view. Not the first time that a company has taken on other businesses that have ultimately been a burden rather than a benefit.

 

It could have been so different if they had been in a position to maximise the opportunities for these brands in their home markets. It would certainly have been better to take on Jouef when it first became available rather than let it go to Lima.

I bet they sell more HO & N models than they do OO simply because there is a bigger worldwide market. Same applies to Bachmann. Especially in the latter case, OO is relatively small beer.

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While I don't doubt that VR and VR enhanced model railway is on the way, you really want to leave that to some start up to perfect and then buy them out and add it to your portfolio.

 

Hornby's resources are somewhat limited, even dangerous, and all-new inventions cost a lot to development and mostly often fail to take off. History is full of more failures than successes. 

 

Hornby is trying to do two things right now, 1) get the company back to profit, 2) get new blood into the hobby. And they are both two very different and big fronts. They should focus primarily on 1. Which means play it safe and stick to known routes, although if areas like TTS class 66s bring in new blood at the same time, so much the better.

For 2, Hornby is not alone, Bachmann need new blood as much as they do. They could concert effort here. And while I agree as a long term item, this needs to be faced, it is not the immediate problem that they face. 

 

One area they could explore with Corgi and Airfix now that they have a Warner Brothers license, are DC figures. Especially as 2020 sees Wonder Woman 84 coming out. And what about 1/76th scale Harry Potter and DC figures to do with the trains?

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2 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Yes, but Hornby at least like to think of themselves as producing everything needed for a model railway - which means an OO9 range means loco, rolling stock, track, and controller at the very least...

Explain the Hornby-arnold 5BEL set.

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21 minutes ago, Denbridge said:

Explain the Hornby-arnold 5BEL set.

An experiment that, so far at least, either seems not to have been successful enough to warrant a follow-up, or just doesn't tally with where the current management wants to go.

 

Either way, I doubt that becoming a bit-part player in areas where others are already dominant would sit easily alongside Hornby's self-image as a market leader.  

 

John

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3 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

An experiment that, so far at least, either seems not to have been successful enough to warrant a follow-up, or just doesn't tally with where the current management wants to go.

 

Either way, I doubt that becoming a bit-part player in areas where others are already dominant would sit easily alongside Hornby's self-image as a market leader.  

 

John

Alternatively, the introduction of more British outline N is simply on hold as a result of their recent financial woes. 

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My ha'pennyworth …………… just like to see some of the existing great mouldings in my era (very happy with this years' LNER CCT in blue) ie ……...

 

R4531 LNER BG in BR blue

R4409 Hawksworth B/BG in Blue

R6809 LNER 21t coal hopper as a VB version - there were plenty in existence Memory defect

 

but would overjoyed with a "modern" fitted 21t coal hopper  too.

 

I am pleased that these "announcement" days still give me a bit of thrill …………….. long may that continue

Edited by Southernman46
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15 hours ago, Clearwater said:

Interesting that this has appeared in the ads on the page:

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1164250/Model_Builder/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz8qi-ozm5gIV1hIbCh3nogrUEAEYASAAEgIyBfD_BwE

 

I’m somewhat struggling to see the point of pretending to paint, model, glue etc...

 

What would be out of the box, would be an accessible software tool that allowed you to build models that could be 3D printed and painted by the manufacturer. Perhaps take a base model, pick the details you want, get it printed/produced for delivery to you.  More like the way you order a new car with higher levels of consumer customisation.  However, I can’t see that working with the extended supply chain. 

 

I note in the video clip, the virtual "airfix" kit still needs to have moulding flash filed off!

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Well..

 

i just looked outside the box...

 

i found my workbench and a bunch of screws, a cab windshield, a class 47 screen wiper on the floor I lost ages ago and a 10p coin.

 

So i’m happy with the 2020 range announcements so far.

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