Hornby 2020 range mk1 RB

[davidw]

1 hour ago, CUCKOO LINE said:

I assume this is due soon as Hornby have an advert for it in the latest Hornby Magazine ?

I've been told with two weeks. But listening to the news today, there's blockages at ports. In the scheme of things another week here and there......

 

[davidw]

On 09/12/2020 at 17:43, davidw said:

I've been told with two weeks. But listening to the news today, there's blockages at ports. In the scheme of things another week here and there......

 

Model rail magazine indicates Spring.... More than a week here or there.

Edited December 13, 2020 by davidw

[davidw]

Clarity at last. These are in stock at Hornby.

Edited December 15, 2020 by davidw

[rembrow]

7 hours ago, davidw said:

Clarity at last. These are in stock at Hornby.

Agreed, received an e-mail from Hornby this afternoon, advising all versions are now available, original and refurbished.

[davidw]

Had anyone actually got their hands on one yet?

[CUCKOO LINE]

Not yet, waiting for Hattons to get theirs then I can empty my trunk in one go.

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Here are a few quick snaps of the new RBs (Mk1 Restaurant Buffet), taken with a phone camera in poor light. Thank you Mr.Kohler for these lovely and very useful catering cars, along with others, I badgered him to make these at the last Ally Pally show, pointing out how you can use an RB with so many different ranges of coaches, from pre-nat to sometimes even Mk3. He replied "I get the message!", although of course he may have already had this one planned, and up his sleeve?

 

 

The maroon is a good match for Bachmann's shade either side.

 

 

The usual shade of 21st century Hornby Rail Blue is just too dark and rather oppressive, I realize Hornby are obliged to match their 

other coach types, but I think in the near future they will have to be very brave, and substitute a brighter shade of blue, as Bachmann 

did. We know there is a suggestion that the real Rail Blue was darkened over the years, but it never got this dark.

Here's the Hornby blue-grey RB next a Bachmann Mk1 and Mk2F.

 

 

Finally the SR Green option, with the body off to show the interior.

 

 

In conclusion, lovely models, should sell very well, the only real negative is that dark Rail Blue shade.

                                                                                                        Cheers,   Brian Kirby

[Phil Bullock]

Thanks Brian . Is the blue grey one really an RBR ... what is the difference between that and RB if so?

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Hi Phil,

   Hope the piccies help, the difference between RB and RBR was mainly internal, the bodywork was unaltered.  BK

[Phil Bullock]

Thanks Brian ... that’s probably why I am confused then! Not difficult these days.....

[cravensdmufan]

41 minutes ago, Kirby Uncoupler said:

Here are a few quick snaps of the new RBs (Mk1 Restaurant Buffet), taken with a phone camera in poor light. Thank you Mr.Kohler for these lovely and very useful catering cars, along with others, I badgered him to make these at the last Ally Pally show, pointing out how you can use an RB with so many different ranges of coaches, from pre-nat to sometimes even Mk3. He replied "I get the message!", although of course he may have already had this one planned, and up his sleeve?

 

 

The maroon is a good match for Bachmann's shade either side.

 

 

The usual shade of 21st century Hornby Rail Blue is just too dark and rather oppressive, I realize Hornby are obliged to match their 

other coach types, but I think in the near future they will have to be very brave, and substitute a brighter shade of blue, as Bachmann 

did. We know there is a suggestion that the real Rail Blue was darkened over the years, but it never got this dark.

Here's the Hornby blue-grey RB next a Bachmann Mk1 and Mk2F.

 

 

Finally the SR Green option, with the body off to show the interior.

 

 

In conclusion, lovely models, should sell very well, the only real negative is that dark Rail Blue shade.

                                                                                                        Cheers,   Brian Kirby

Thanks very much for posting Brian.  The coaches do look great apart from the blue and grey one.  Like you say. the Rail Blue is way too dark, plus I would say the Rail Grey is too light!

 

It will be interesting to see how they have rendered the Executive livery.  It will be important that they get it better than previous attempts - even more so when the APT appears!

[stovepipe]

41 minutes ago, Phil Bullock said:

Thanks Brian . Is the blue grey one really an RBR ... what is the difference between that and RB if so?

 

Externally I think it was the door vestibule to the left of the seating on the blank buffet side which was made into a storage cupboard, with the window blanked over.

[warringtonbankquay]

22 minutes ago, cravensdmufan said:

It will be interesting to see how they have rendered the Executive livery.  It will be important that they get it better than previous attempts - even more so when the APT appears!

If the Executive liveried production model is the same as the advanced samples then the lower bodyside red and white bands look too low.  The red band should sit almost touching the underside of the window frames and the white band should run across the window frames.

 

Both bands look too low on Hornby's photos released so far.  I am waiting to see if the production version is correct.

 

Chris

[stewartingram]

OK, a simple question.

Have we had this vehicle produced before by anybody?

Just wondering if I need to get a maroon one (& renumber to E or M?) or not. Easier to ask than search through stored boxes.

 

Stewart

[stovepipe]

Yes Mainline did the RB in Maroon and Blue & Grey. A good model for its time.

[BernardTPM]

1 hour ago, stovepipe said:

Externally I think it was the door vestibule to the left of the seating on the blank buffet side which was made into a storage cupboard, with the window blanked over.

Externally the RB didn't physically alter externally when refurbished to become RBR. The RU, which didn't have a buffet when built, did loose a window when rebuilt to RBR as you say, hence the Bachmann RU is wrong in Executive/INTERCITY liveries, or for later period blue/grey.

[adb968008]

58 minutes ago, stovepipe said:

Yes Mainline did the RB in Maroon and Blue & Grey. A good model for its time.

Replica also ran them, inc Green.

 

[stovepipe]

14 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

Externally the RB didn't physically alter externally when refurbished to become RBR. The RU, which didn't have a buffet when built, did loose a window when rebuilt to RBR as you say, hence the Bachmann RU is wrong in Executive/INTERCITY liveries, or for later period blue/grey.

 

Looking at my Parkin, I'm not sure that is correct, but it depends what you mean by physical appearance. Diag 24 RBs were built with 4 set of doors per side, two of which were emergency doors with no windows, in the seating area. After refurbishment to Diag 33, the doors adjacent to the emergency doors were sealed up, with the former lobby on the bar serving side turned into a cupboard of some sort (can't read the text on the diagram), and the window blanked out, which Hornby have represented on the B&G RB(R). 

[BernardTPM]

The moulding is physically the same, the only differences are in the way it is painted. This is correct for a dia.24, but the Bachmann dia.23 requires a window to be filled in seamlessly. That's what I mean by no physical change - with dia.24 the same body tooling can be used for RB and RBR. Technically there are interior changes, but they're not easily visible. This doesn't hold true for the dia.23. To do the RBR or RBs versons of that new body tooling would be required.

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Yes, Hornby have prototypically painted over the middle door on the blue-grey, steering it towards "RBR" period (orange bucket seats and curtains anyone?), but the impression of a door remained, and doesn't warrant an entirely different body moulding. If bothered, all it requires is for the door and grab handles to be sliced off (although some kept both, so not essential) with a sharp knife/scalpel (be careful of your fingers). I haven't carried out a coach by coach survey of every single one (i'll leave that to someone else!), but were any of these middle doors welded up, or were most/all just permanently locked out of use? I just like to model what was typical, I usually avoid the odd-ones-out.

   More credit for the Hornby designers, I only noticed late last night, that they have correctly incorporated very fine external window frames on the body moulding, Mk1 Restaurant Buffets are regarded as "second generation" Mk1s, so carried these frames from new. They are so neatly done, you can barely see them in my dodgy photos above.

      The body ends have two lower steps at the kitchen end, and three lower steps at the saloon end, generally the vast majority were built like this, although a good friend has shown me a pic of W1644 in works as built, with a full set of steps, including the top one over the gangway, but he suggests this may have been in error, and may have been removed before entering service? Because of the danger of overhead wires, the rest of the fleet would later lose the single third step, and sometimes the second steps too, leaving only the bottom ones, again easy to carve off, but check your chosen number against real photos, there was plenty of variety.

       The Hornby roof ribs are slightly prominent, but not distractingly so, after carving off most of my Bachmann Mk1 ribs, I might pass on this one?      

        Cheers, Brian.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Kirby Uncoupler
Add info

[BernardTPM]

Looks like they kept their door fittings intact.

Edited December 19, 2020 by BernardTPM

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

Apologies, but I'm suffering from information overload, I thought I understood the vagaries, but is the b/g version suitable for an as built RB?

 

Mike.

[Kirby Uncoupler]

Yeah, we're getting a bit head-banging, in blue-grey it all hinges on that the middle door (pun), behind the bar. After conversion to RBR, the door window would be painted over in Rail Grey, as per this model, but of course it took years to do the lot. Prior to this (c.1966-77), the inference is that this door still had plain glass, but there would have been various improvement schemes, during the 60s and 70s, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn of some of these windows being obscured prior to refurbishment. I doubt the crews enjoyed being viewed from behind in stations?

    Many green/maroon and a few blue-grey RBs ran on BR plate bogies (B1/B2?), you could easily swap bogies with another suitable Hornby Mk1 donor, they are just a clip fit. Most, if not all, blue-grey RBs with plate bogies were upgraded to B4/B5 bogies long before refurbishment, Commonwealth fitted stock (as per model) remained unaffected. Some staff toilet windows could change from frosted to opaque. I'd lop off that third end step for blue-grey period too. Oh dear, we're getting complicated again!      

                                                    Cheers, Brian.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Kirby Uncoupler
Add info

[mark54]

The door that Brian refers to was built with a dual use function. The prototype Mk1 RB had been built with 2 external doors – one for passenger use and one for staff. The design with a transverse bar allowed space for 2 doors. On the production Mk1 RB the bar was changed to be longitudinal and there was no longer space for 2 doors. Instead, there was a single door with a small lobby behind leading to an internal roller shutter door to separate if from the bar.

 

When they were refurbished and re-coded RBR from 1976 onwards, the lobby was removed and the space became part of the bar area. The external door was now for staff use only and marked with a Kitchen label and the door glass painted body colour.

[Fredo]

Hi, can anyone help me establish which year W1743 and W1739 were built. Thanks Fred