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Hornby Announce L&MR 0-4-2 "Lion"?


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As for Hornby making announcements pre-empting other manufacturers cast your mind back to the Terrier. Hornby had placed a lot of time, effort and money into developing their Terrier model when Rails announced their Terrier model. It seems to me that they don't want it to happen again so they fire a shot across the bows of any competitor that comes near.

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2 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

As for Hornby making announcements pre-empting other manufacturers cast your mind back to the Terrier. Hornby had placed a lot of time, effort and money into developing their Terrier model when Rails announced their Terrier model. It seems to me that they don't want it to happen again so they fire a shot across the bows of any competitor that comes near.

But I do wonder just how much had Hornby actually sunk in to their Terrier when Rails announced theirs.

 

When it did emerge, there were relatively minor, but easily avoidable, shortcomings that I'd normally expect Hornby (or anybody else for that matter) to eradicate between the first and second EPs. That suggests to me that the transition from CAD to tooling was rushed, it only went through one EP stage, or both. Either way, Hornby might not incurred much more than CAD costs prior to the Rails announcement.  Rails, given what they showed us at the time, were already past the point of no return, so also put their foot on the gas. Consequently, their models have a few small niggles too, albeit different ones. 

 

Between the two, there's a damn good model Terrier struggling to get out. That neither is "Pooch Perfect" (sorry) is living proof that "healthy" competition produced the goods quicker, but not necessarily better...

 

If Rails had kept quiet about their Terrier for a few more months, and if (as I suspect) Hornby didn't really get stuck into theirs until they heard the cage rattling, the whole tale might have played out very differently....

 

John

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1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So are we expecting an immaculate gent in a topper or perhaps a scruffy stoker using string to keep his pants up?

 

Both extremes would be out of place. The L&M's drivers and firemen were neither gentlemen or mere labourers but the locomotive superintendents of the future: self-improving Geordies such as the brothers Thomas and Matthew Kirtley, who were driver and fireman respectively. They both went on to locomotive superintendent positions, Thomas on the North Midland and Matthew on the Birmingham & Derby Junction. When those two companies amalgamated with the Midland Counties, Matthew got the top job. Thomas moved to Brighton, replacing John Gray, but died very soon after taking up that appointment. 

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On 10/03/2021 at 04:16, Legend said:

But I think I'm correct in saying you can only buy direct or maybe through Rails . They don't have widespread coverage  to the general market . So very niche. 

 

Incorrect.

 

Rails of Sheffield currently offers Rapido's North American product.

 

Rapido UK is accepting applications from UK retailers currently, and much like the ability to order direct I assume that announcing of retailers is being held back by the inability of a UK bank to open a business bank account for them.

https://rapidotrains.co.uk/retailers/

 

 

 

Edited by mdvle
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On 14/03/2021 at 11:04, The Stationmaster said:

Several years after the H&S Act passed into law is the answer to your final question.   So why wouldn't it be allowed?  As it happened certain things in that photo were obviously at that time not in line with Group Standards - just as they wouldn't be with the equivalent Standards today.  All it would need is a full risk assessment, identification and implementation of whatever mitigations might be needed to make it ALARP and you could do it.  The $64,000 question is whether anybody would want to do it or could affiord the cost of doing it.

Is /was there a rule as to how many on the footplate?. It is not obvious but there  are SIX on this run.

Mike Wiltshire

 

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Edited by Coach bogie
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17 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

Is /was there a rule as to how many on the footplate?. It is not obvious but there  are SIX on this run.

Mike Wiltsire

 

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Unless it's changed again, it's four nowadays*, but I think the limit was imposed by NR (possibly at the behest of the regulator or the HSE), so it wouldn't have applied at that time.

 

Considering the size of the loco and tender, it doesn't look especially overcrowded! I'm unsure if there was a hard and fast rule back then, but six seldom seems to have been exceeded, if only because the fireman would be impeded with more present, even on a bigger engine. 

 

* Driver, Fireman, Inspector, Owner's Representative.

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Is /was there a rule as to how many on the footplate?. It is not obvious but there  are SIX on this run.

Mike Wiltshire

 

SKM_75821031907181.jpg

SKM_75821031907182.jpg

 

Judging by the second picture, one of the people on board seems to be there as additional fuel...

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2 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

Is /was there a rule as to how many on the footplate?. It is not obvious but there  are SIX on this run.

Mike Wiltshire

 

SKM_75821031907181.jpg

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Limits then were to rail staff and that was rather flexible ;) Tight controls and more importantly enforcement of it are really relatively recent in the last ten years. I rarely had to show a cab pass in the early 2000’s if wearing some kind of railway uniform. Now you can’t get in without one , even with drivers you know well, without risking getting them in trouble if a manager turns up. I used to ride in cabs frequently as route refreshers for my Signalling area without any issue but that became difficult about three years ago with limited passes available. 

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10 minutes ago, Coach bogie said:

Just a taster of what hopefully will be available from Hornby. This is the reason I am going for the Hornby and not the Rapido.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

Bit of an assumption there given Rapido have stated their models will also be available in "the historic liveries they wore outside the film"

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1 minute ago, Butler Henderson said:

Bit of an assumption there given Rapido have stated their models will also be available in "the historic liveries they wore outside the film"

 

Indeed, I can think of no reason why Rapido would not be able to produce Thunderbolt as Lion. The problem, I suspect, is rather the other way around, and that's a problem unique to Hornby, which apparently lacks the necessary licence.

 

I may well buy a Hornby one, too, and it would certainly be interesting to see both up close together and to run both, but if the Rapido model appears equally as good, if not better, I not going to say 'no' to it just because Hornby happen to have made the 1930s replica coaches.

 

It might be that Hornby's Lion will feature the same crappy coupling "system" as the coaches; for me compatibility with a sub-optimal solution is no great advantage, and certainly not a decisive one; frankly I cannot see these couplings lasting very long 'in service' on any of my Hornby models; even string would work better!

 

   

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On 16/03/2021 at 12:53, Michael Hodgson said:

Presumably this style of loco would look ridiculous in motion unless it included a crew - dressed like a character out of a period movie.

So are we expecting an immaculate gent in a topper or perhaps a scruffy stoker using string to keep his pants up?

 

 

LTC Rolt's George & Robert Stephenson - or at least my edition - features amongst the plates a charming drawing attributed to Alexander Nasmyth stated to date to just before the opening , and depicting Northumbrian with George and Robert Stephenson as crew. Robert is firing, in top hat , shirt sleeves and possibly braces, whilst George, in top hat and tails , is kneeling beside the cylinder with an oilcan on the ground beside him.

 

To the right are two couples who might have stepped straight out of a Jane Austen novel, though the middle-aged Regency buck on the far right with his curved topper, shiny boots and pose leaning on his cane is certainly not Mr Darcy, the only one of her characters far enough north to pay a visit. His wife has a pug dog on a long ribbon with a bow about its neck.

 

Top hats are clearly the thing, for every man with any pretentions to politeness

 

In the background is an inn with a signboard reading "Coach and Horses" and a stage coach just about to depart.

 

This may not be an exact transcript of an actual scene, and the crew's dress may be intended more for the need to recieve the gentry on a PR exercise (which these trial trips were) than for the practicalities of engine driving, but it's certainly instructive.

 

As far as I can judge the representation of Northumbrian appears to be extremely good and very sharply observed , so there's no reason to believe the tender is simply fiction. That is a very squat little thing with no barrel and what looks like an oblong tank at the back of a near-square vehicle. The coal rails are in the form of a balustrade

Edited by Ravenser
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Just received my copy of the newly released book "Locomotives of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway" by Anthony Dawson (Pen and Sword ISBN 978 1 52676 398 3) - there are certainly lots of Liverpool and Manchester Railway locomotives and rolling stock shown that could be modelled in the future. 

 

Plenty to keep everybody happy in the years to come!

 

Keith

 

 

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2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

Indeed, I can think of no reason why Rapido would not be able to produce Thunderbolt as Lion. The problem, I suspect, is rather the other way around, and that's a problem unique to Hornby, which apparently lacks the necessary licence.

   

 

They both have a problem. Hornby's with the film license, while Rapido's being compatible to couple up with Hornby L&M rolling stock. Like others had said, I do feel that they are targeting very different markets.

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Surely Rapido can provide a small peg in addition to a standard NEM coupling? I can’t see how Hornby could stop them if they decided to.

 

And even if they can’t or are unwilling to make their Lion compatible with Hornby’s Rocket rolling stock I’m sure they’ll be a 3D printed solution along within a few weeks of release!

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51 minutes ago, JSpencer said:

 

They both have a problem. Hornby's with the film license, while Rapido's being compatible to couple up with Hornby L&M rolling stock. Like others had said, I do feel that they are targeting very different markets.

I'd think there's a fair chance Rapido might make coaches too, either the centenary replicas as modelled by Hornby or others derived from old illustrations. If so, any need for compatibility with Hornby's will be rendered moot.

 

In any case, from the look of the Hornby couplings, they are only really fit for static display and those who want to run the models with any regularity will be needing something more robust in the not-too-distant future.

 

A simple home-made wire hook and goalpost should do the job unobtrusively and can be arranged to uncouple magnetically.  Anything that needed to be 3D printed would, for me,  smack of overkill. 

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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2 hours ago, JSpencer said:

 

They both have a problem. Hornby's with the film license, while Rapido's being compatible to couple up with Hornby L&M rolling stock. Like others had said, I do feel that they are targeting very different markets.

 

For the reasons already given, I really don't see that is a problem.

 

As Watto and Dunsignalling say, really any home improvised solution is actually better than Hornby's for running purposes.  If you can't even bend a paperclip ....!

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