Hornby 2021 - 4 & 6 wheel period coaches

[Jenny Emily]

Hornby have clarified the concave appearance of the buffers. They noted this feature on prototype coaches in period photographs and decided to replicate this in light of the photographic evidence.
 

I’ve seen one of the pictures (a LBSCR coach) and they are definitely concave though as I don’t know who owns the copyright in the picture I cannot share it here.  

[Steamport Southport]

20 hours ago, jcm@gwr said:

 

 

I'm confident that you are both capable, like many others on here, but you are missing the point!

I agree we should encourage newbies, or those who are late developers (modelling wise!), but

not by telling them they're doing it wrong, and they have to build a kit!

Once they've had success with doing a cut-n-shut, they'll have the confidence to do more, on the

other hand, if they feel they are being criticised before they've even started, they are more likely

to give up and try wargaming, or anything without rivet counters.

 

Good luck there if you will put up with inaccuracies!  

 

As someone who used to be involved in wargaming and fantasy games, they made the most ardent "rivet counter" seem like a child playing with his first Brio train set!

 

But I guarantee that a gamer will point if you've got the wrong type of elf or the soldiers in that particular regiment weren't issued with that rifle until 1853.

 

One of the reasons I gave up with gaming. There seemed to be a quite rabid bunch appear in the 1990s that were sticklers for detail rather than being in it for a game and a few pints.

 

 

 

Jason

[johnd]

9 minutes ago, Jenny Emily said:

Hornby have clarified the concave appearance of the buffers. They noted this feature on prototype coaches in period photographs and decided to replicate this in light of the photographic evidence.
 

I’ve seen one of the pictures (a LBSCR coach) and they are definitely concave though as I don’t know who owns the copyright in the picture I cannot share it here.  

 

Interesting, there will be some that will say could it be a trick of the light on the surface. !

Edited January 13, 2021 by johnd

[The Johnster]

10 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Exactly that, if it’s that difficult (which it’s not) to design a decent 6 wheeler, just make the centres flangeless, it’ll be impossible to notice and it’s already done on quite a few 4-6-2 Locos with the rear pair fixed......no one seems to mind that.

I would, and wouldn't buy a loco or 6 wheel coach with flangeless wheels.  I 'get' why Hornby did that with the trailing wheels of pacifics, but they made a rod for their own back as the tender coupling swings out to overhang the curve to a much graeter extent than if it could follow the run of track by being attached to a working trailing pony or radial.  The gap between loco and tender could thus be closer as well.

 

11 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

all that flickering lighting going on?

 

It was full on disco lighting as well, not just an occasional flicker.  I don't like the Hattons lighting anyway; much too bright for the feeble electric filiament bulbs used in steam age coaches and insanely overbright for gas or oil lighting.  Hornby take the honours in this regard, but at the cost of illuminating a compartment with a floor at seat level!  But I'll be backing the Hattons horse anyway, buying unlit 4 wheelers, firstly because they can be made to suit my needs better, and secondly because the underframe detail, brake blocks in line with wheels, end detail, and buffers are a lot better than Hornby's, especially as there's only a single beer token's difference in price!

 

My layout is DC, and I have a couple of auto trailers lit by third party Chinese lighting kits from Amazon that work in much the same way as Hornby's clever lighting, and might be interested in buying the Hornby lighting kits, which are available separately, for future lit coaches as they are much better quality than the Amazon versions. 

[Compound2632]

29 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

It was full on disco lighting as well, not just an occasional flicker.  I don't like the Hattons lighting anyway; much too bright for the feeble electric filiament bulbs used in steam age coaches and insanely overbright for gas or oil lighting.  Hornby take the honours in this regard, but at the cost of illuminating a compartment with a floor at seat level! 

 

In my opinion, the insistence on a lit option for the Hattons carriages and the desire to make the centre axle removable have adversely affected the appearance of the underframe - notably over-thick axleguards and the break in the lower footboard.

[bigherb]

1 hour ago, Jenny Emily said:

Hornby have clarified the concave appearance of the buffers. They noted this feature on prototype coaches in period photographs and decided to replicate this in light of the photographic evidence.
 

I’ve seen one of the pictures (a LBSCR coach) and they are definitely concave though as I don’t know who owns the copyright in the picture I cannot share it here.  

I've seen them before but seem to remember only one diagonally at each end, so the domed buffer fitted into it.

 

[Miss Prism]

What is the width of the doors?  (They look too wide to me, but maybe it is because the sides are too shallow.)

 

[tomparryharry]

As far as I remember, a 6-wheel coach only has brakes on the leading & trailing axle sets. The centre set has allowances to allow negotiation of curves. Although the brakes come up fairly close to the wheel, if the radius of the curve is too tight, the brakes could & would  bind. The coned buffer is an attempt to keep the stock in line in the case of a heavy shunt. It's repeated nowadays with modern stock.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

In my opinion, the insistence on a lit option for the Hattons carriages and the desire to make the centre axle removable have adversely affected the appearance of the underframe - notably over-thick axleguards and the break in the lower footboard.

Which doesn't bother me much as I have no need for 6 wheelers, and will be buying 4 wheeled unlit coaches. Tha Hattons underframe and the ends are light years ahead of the Hornby equivallents.  My scoring system; Hatton, better underframe, end detail, suitable brake compos to act as brade 3rds with the ducket in the corrent place on my layout, domed and more 'scale' looking buffers, and useable lamp irons.  Hornby; £1 per coach less, a saving of £4 in my case.  Hornby have better and more effective lighting, but I'm buying unlit coaches anyway.  Hattons 5, Hornby 2. 

[The Johnster]

Just read that concave buffers were a genuine period feature; apologies Hornby and my day has not been wasted as I have learned something...  But AFAIK they were never used on GW 4 wheelers, certainly not on those that survived to be used on the Glyncorrwg miner's.

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Just read that concave buffers were a genuine period feature; 

 

Rather an obscure one - certainly not standard practice. Were they a feature of Stroudley's block trains?

[Nile]

And just to complicate matters these 4 wheels coaches often operated in fixed rakes with much shorter buffers (and gaps) between the coaches.

[Bucoops]

18 minutes ago, Nile said:

And just to complicate matters these 4 wheels coaches often operated in fixed rakes with much shorter buffers (and gaps) between the coaches.

 

The GER jazz trains and even the 54ft bogie suburbans used short buffers in fixed rakes.

[Compound2632]

13 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

The GER jazz trains and even the 54ft bogie suburbans used short buffers in fixed rakes.

 

Also numerous Midland suburban sets, from the 4-wheeler sets built for Moorgate services in the 1870s, through 6-wheel sets of the 1880s, to bogie sets from 1900.

[Hilux5972]

These are now arriving at retailers. Given that we know new models generally take around 18 months, which takes us back to July 2019, can we stop all this “Hornby are deliberately going after retail manufacturers” lark? Too much to ask I reckon! 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Hilux5972 said:

Given that we know new models generally take around 18 months, which takes us back to July 2019, can we stop all this “Hornby are deliberately going after retail manufacturers” lark? Too much to ask I reckon! 

 

You express yourself vigorously there but can you provide some rigour before presuming to instruct others how to think?

 

What is your evidence for that figure and what uncertainty or range would you put on it?

 

It has been stated by an "inside" source that Hornby were doing some fieldwork in November 2019, the month after Hattons made their public announcement; we don't know for how long before that either party had been developing their project; whether either party had knowledge of the other's plans is also unknown, I think.

Edited January 13, 2021 by Compound2632

[jonnyuk]

lets face it, no one has the facts, it's all opinionated, all guess work. these are good models, made to a price point, after watching Jenny's video i shall be making a couple of southern and LSWR purchases to go behind my two Terrier's, Hornby have succeeded in what they set out to do, tempt the not 100% accurate, prototypical modeller to part with their money.

Edited January 13, 2021 by jonnyuk

[boxbrownie]

17 minutes ago, jonnyuk said:

lets face it, no one has the facts, it's all opinionated, all guess work. these are good models, made to a price point, after watching Jenny's video i shall be making a couple of southern and LSWR purchases to go behind my two Terrier's, Hornby have succeeded in what they set out to do, tempt the not 100% accurate, prototypical modeller to part with their money.

Would you have bought the Hatton’s versions though?

[Dragonfly]

No, none of us have the facts, but...

 

In my opinion it's just too much to be a coincidence. For both to have come up with the idea of generic 4 and 6 wheel coaches, at similar time, with no "trigger" event* preceding them... It's both too big and too specific.

My thinking is that Hornby were already planning to do the Stroudleys, had the scan booked etc, but, after Hatton's announcement and overall positive interest, decided to go down the generic route too.

I'm generally an optimist and have been singing Hornby's praises for the last couple of years, with their Pecketts, Sentinel (diesels), and 48DSs, but this... I'd feel naive if I dismissed this as coincidence.

 

* "trigger event" like how 2007 Prince of Wales being announced as the new P2 is being built, the Blue Pullman HST being announced because a full-size liveried one is on the tracks again, etc. There hasn't been a high-profile event like this with 4/6-wheel coaches, has there?

[GreenGiraffe22]

Remember Hatton's originally didn't announe any in LBSCR livery , they changed their mind after a lot of demand, some of us (me) at the time suggested perhaps another company was working on actual LBSCR prototypes (Tbh I suspected Rails of Sheffield), perhaps they knew Hornby were working on Stroudleys, perhaps it's all just coincidence, but for better or worse it just is what it is now 

[PaulRhB]

2 hours ago, Hilux5972 said:

can we stop all this “Hornby are deliberately going after retail manufacturers” lark?

End of the day Simon Kohler said it in the tv program about protecting ‘their models’ it’s him that started it so is there any surprise people asscociate another direct comparison to these

I understand it but equally it doesn’t hurt for them to realise what people are thinking with an aggressive policy when they admit it. 

[eldomtom2]

1 hour ago, GreenGiraffe22 said:

Remember Hatton's originally didn't announe any in LBSCR livery , they changed their mind after a lot of demand, some of us (me) at the time suggested perhaps another company was working on actual LBSCR prototypes (Tbh I suspected Rails of Sheffield), perhaps they knew Hornby were working on Stroudleys, perhaps it's all just coincidence, but for better or worse it just is what it is now 

Are you suggesting Hornby decided to genericify Stroudley coaches when they learnt of what Hattons was doing?

Edited January 13, 2021 by eldomtom2

[BlueLightning]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Rather an obscure one - certainly not standard practice. Were they a feature of Stroudley's block trains?

 

No, I have works drawings for LBSC buffers, they never had any concave buffers, and the close coupled block trains had a single central buffer with the coupling built into it.

 

and besides, surely a concave buffer is more likely to lock as the buffers wont glide over each other nicely, but could well dig in? Me thinks a trick of the light has fooled someone (Happy to be proved wrong if anyone has evidence otherwise, and would love to see the picture in question)

 

Gary

[Nile]

10 hours ago, eldomtom2 said:

Are you suggesting Hornby decided to genericify Stroudley coaches when they learnt of what Hattons was doing?

Yes.

[Forward!]

I think this is welcome news.

 

1) Anything that 'normalises' pre-group modelling is a good thing. As the period moves into time beyond memory, modelling it has been dying a death and is now almost exclusively the preserve of finescale modellers working their way through stashes of long-discontinued kits or worse, building stock completely from scratch. Several key types of vehicles built in their thousands in the early C20 are simply no longer available in kit form as those manufacturers interested in the period retire. And we're not talking the esoteric stuff, but the basic furniture of C20 railways- like earlier types of GWR minks or even an Open A wagon.

 

2) I can build an etched brass carriage kit, but I COULDN'T paint and line it in a pre-group livery to anything like the standard of a modern printed rtr product. It is a significant barrier for those who want to model the pre-group era with minimal effort, and I suspect I am not alone in being willing to sacrifice prototype fidelity for something that looks as crisply finished as the loco that is hauling it.

 

3) It has also just occurred to me that with a bit of T-cut to the existing markings and replacement decals, those NBR carriages could just about pass as GWR 1912-1922 crimson lake.... They're generic anyway, so what would be the harm?