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

[PhilJ W]

I wonder if Hornby will produce a 14xx?

[Legend]

7 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

I wonder if Hornby will produce a 14xx?

More likely re- release  their Railroad ex Dapol ex Airfix 1978 one . 

Edited April 1, 2021 by Legend

[Dunsignalling]

27 minutes ago, Legend said:

More likely re- release  their Railroad ex Dapol ex Airfix 1978 one . 

To be fair, it's only the body that dates from 1978, the (ex-Dapol) chassis is a couple of decades newer, runs much better and doesn't fill the cab with motor. 

 

If Hornby don't announce a "full-fat" 14xx to replace it, we'll now all be expecting Rapido to do so, to add to their Titfield line-up. Had Bachmann not already produced the 64xx to go with their Hawksworth Auto-trailer, they'd be a prime candidate, too. Of course, the Hornby one owes more to Dapol than it does to themselves anyway, and they have recently made a rather good job of the class in 7mm scale.....

 

Let's just hope it won't be the case that everybody leaves it alone in 4mm because they all think somebody else must be working on one.

 

John

Edited April 1, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[JSpencer]

What we learned from today's Rapido letter is that their's is called Thunderbolt, has a tension lock coupling and is part of a Titfield set. So I think people wanting Titfield will buy Rapido, people wanting it for their L&M stock will buy Hornby and doubtless some will buy both.

[BlueLightning]

On 01/04/2021 at 22:14, JSpencer said:

What we learned from today's Rapido letter is that their's is called Thunderbolt, has a tension lock coupling and is part of a Titfield set. So I think people wanting Titfield will buy Rapido, people wanting it for their L&M stock will buy Hornby and doubtless some will buy both.

 

They made a comment on Facebok earlier that suggested it would be compatible with Hornby's L&M stock, I'm sure with time they could rig something up that would pull the Queen Mary! and they have said they are doing Lion as well (With different tooling to Thunderbolt)

Edited April 3, 2021 by BlueLightning

[The Johnster]

I have some hopes that indeed Rapido will tick the Titfield boxes with a 14xx, and that Hornby will be levered into competing with them with a better version of their own 14xx, but we have seen problems before with this prototype which seems to be difficult to balance properly for reliable pickup and running.  The original Airfix model was a lovely runner, well mine was at least, once you'd disposed of the pickup compromising traction tyre, but of course had long term reliability issues of it's own.  Now, I am not particularly in the market for a 14/48/58xx because there were none in my area at my period (one turned up later at Tondu, 1422, as a stationary boiler and was not scrapped until 1965), but if Hornby retool their 14xx or Rapido bring one to the market as a Titfield loco, one or both of the companies might, just might, consider an auto trailer for it, and that auto trailer might be a retooled A30 to current standards or something not yet produced at all.  A retooled A30, or an A10 or a diagram N would be perfect for my layout!

[Edwardian]

I'd prefer a Rapido 14XX, especially if they tooled for a pukka pre-War 4800 at the same time. 

 

I'd hate to see Hornby rush to spite a Rapido 14XX, however, because the only thing likely to be worse than a DJM 14XX would be an Oxford one! 

[Dunsignalling]

If I were (anyone other than Hornby) considering making a rtr 14xx in OO, I'd make no announcement of it until they were actually going into production, thereby allowing a couple of months to attract pre-orders, but not long enough for "a rival" to cobble together a spoiler.

 

OK, that would mean no opportunity for garnering advice on prototype variations on here, but one maker has already done a load of R&D for a model in another scale which seems to have turned out well. I'd be very surprised if they have not at least done a feasibility study on repeating it in 4mm.

 

John

Edited April 2, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

If I were (anyone other than Hornby) considering making a rtr 14xx in OO, I'd make no announcement of it until they were actually going into production, thereby allowing a couple of months to attract pre-orders, but not long enough for "a rival" to cobble together a spoiler.

 

OK, that would mean no opportunity for garnering advice on prototype variations on here, but one maker has already done a load of R&D for a model in another scale which seems to have turned out well. I'd be very surprised if they have not at least done a feasibility study on repeating it in 4mm.

 

John

 

Yes, if it were me, I'd .... 

 

 

[Compound2632]

Give me a ring when it's ready.

[Nick C]

It's always a problem when trying to work out when to announce a model- if you announce it early on, as Bachmann often do, then people wail about how long it takes. On the other hand if you tend to wait until it's nearly ready, you run the risk that someone else will also announce the same thing, and you then get accused of copying. 

 

We will never know how much work Hornby did on this before finding out that another party were interested, but as others have said, they have shareholders to please and can't just drop things unless there's a good commercial reason to do so, and they can't make deals with other manufacturers, as that'd be illegal. 

[Butler Henderson]

Beats me why people are  obsessed with the coupling arrangement. If the Rapido one is the better model, be it the one that will cope with handling without bits breaking / falling off, then it will be a simple task to (assuming Rapido use NEM mounts) to trim a tension lock coupling down to a stub and drill a hole in for a chopped down Peco track pin (or similar) to act as the peg.

[PaulRhB]

54 minutes ago, Nick C said:

and they can't make deals with other manufacturers, as that'd be illegal. 

They can as long as it doesn’t fix prices, Bachmann were allowed to sell large scale Thomas in the UK despite Hornby having the OO range. In this case it would mean Rapido ceding part of their license with Studiocanal’s involvement as I guess it would need to be a separate license from studiocanal rather than Rapido selling part of their right. That would depend on the wording of the license as to whether Rapido can do it, unlikely knowing how tight film companies are on such things. 
When Hornby forced their hand though would you cede the license with the way Hornby are going after Lion?  

Edited April 2, 2021 by PaulRhB

[Hroth]

The venerable Hornby 14xx isn't in this years catalogue, so I'd not be surprised if they were retooling it*, but having been forced into the open over "Lion", they're keeping quiet, whilst pushing up development of a new 14xx so they can pop it out next January.  After the fuss over the Terrier and the Class 66 announcements a couple of years ago, they may consider that only dropping one bombshell per year might be a good policy...

 

Unless someone else encroaches onto what they consider to be their territory!

 

 

* Though they didn't get overexcited about the Hattons/DJM model. Do we know who has the DJM tooling now?

 

 

[Miss Prism]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

Do we know who has the DJM tooling now?

 

It is owned by Hattons.

[PeterH]

Did I miss something with the Hattons/DJM 14xx/48xx etc? I’ve got one and have been entirely satisfied with it but it seems rather dismissed! 

[Dunsignalling]

41 minutes ago, PeterH said:

Did I miss something with the Hattons/DJM 14xx/48xx etc? I’ve got one and have been entirely satisfied with it but it seems rather dismissed! 

Mine seems fine too, but I gather other purchasers have had contrary experiences with theirs.

 

John

[Edwardian]

Perhaps they're fed up of sweeping up all the ash 

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Unless someone else encroaches onto what they consider to be their territory!

 

 

 

Yes, because the Airfix-Dapol 14XX has "always" been in their range.

 

Oh, no, wait ... it was the 1989 Dapol Terrier, that had "always" been a Hornby model 

 

Mind you, you cannot necessarily take such comments at face value, after all, in the course of the same exchange, the gentleman from Margate also threatened to burn down Rails of Sheffield.  Obviously he didn't mean that!

 

Oh, no, wait ... 

 

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Mind you, you cannot necessarily take such comments at face value, after all, in the course of the same exchange, the gentleman from Margate also threatened to burn down Rails of Sheffield.  Obviously he didn't mean that!

 

Heat of the moment, m'lud...

 

Honest!

 

[Edwardian]

48 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Heat of the moment, m'lud...

 

Honest!

 

 

I'll thank you not to make such incendiary remarks!

 

 

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, PeterH said:

Did I miss something with the Hattons/DJM 14xx/48xx etc? I’ve got one and have been entirely satisfied with it but it seems rather dismissed! 

It rapidly developed a reputation after it was introduced of being like the little girl, you know, she had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  And when she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid.  Captain Kernow sent his back 3 or 4 times for replacement, as each replacment ran just as badly as the last.  I think the issue was with the gears-to-all-3-axles type drive, which on the face of it sounds like a good idea but proved difficult in this case to install reliably at an acceptable level of quality control.  It requires very precise meshing of the gear that drives the trailing axle, as this must turn at higher rpm than the coupled wheels to produce the same speed at the rim/railhead interface.  If you bot a good one, great, but if you didn't, and it seems to have been entirely down to good or bad luck, then it must have been a great disappointment. 

 

Hornby re-issued their ex-Airfix 48xx shortly after this with a retooled mechanism which also turned out to have problems, and have re-tooled the mech again, though the price has gone up by a considerable amount, though AFAIK the model runs ok.  The bodyshell tooling is unaltered from the original Airfix, though, and while this was game changer when it was introduced 40 odd years ago, it is really not up to the mark nowadays.

 

The same goes for the companion A23/A30 hybrid auto trailer, also of Airfix parentage.  I doubt very much if any of my gentle hints  and lobbying for new toolings will bear fruit, but then I never thought I'd see any GW non gangwayed coaches other than the old B sets, and then H blindside me with the Collett 57 bowenders.  I can only keep plugging away and hoping...

[Dunsignalling]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

It rapidly developed a reputation after it was introduced of being like the little girl, you know, she had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  And when she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid.  Captain Kernow sent his back 3 or 4 times for replacement, as each replacment ran just as badly as the last.  I think the issue was with the gears-to-all-3-axles type drive, which on the face of it sounds like a good idea but proved difficult in this case to install reliably at an acceptable level of quality control.  It requires very precise meshing of the gear that drives the trailing axle, as this must turn at higher rpm than the coupled wheels to produce the same speed at the rim/railhead interface.  If you bot a good one, great, but if you didn't, and it seems to have been entirely down to good or bad luck, then it must have been a great disappointment. 

 

Hornby re-issued their ex-Airfix 48xx shortly after this with a retooled mechanism which also turned out to have problems, and have re-tooled the mech again, though the price has gone up by a considerable amount, though AFAIK the model runs ok.  The bodyshell tooling is unaltered from the original Airfix, though, and while this was game changer when it was introduced 40 odd years ago, it is really not up to the mark nowadays.

 

The same goes for the companion A23/A30 hybrid auto trailer, also of Airfix parentage.  I doubt very much if any of my gentle hints  and lobbying for new toolings will bear fruit, but then I never thought I'd see any GW non gangwayed coaches other than the old B sets, and then H blindside me with the Collett 57 bowenders.  I can only keep plugging away and hoping...

The trailing axle on the DJM/Hatton's 14xx is not powered.

 

AFAIK, the only UK model that has ever had that is the Rapido Stirling single. I wonder if it will feature in Thunderbolt/Lion?

 

John

Edited April 3, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Miss Prism]

Haulage should not be an issue for Lion on its four coupled wheels. The problem is there is no sign Hornby is willing to improve its 0-4-2 chassis game. Decent suspension is simply not something that bothers Hornby's mindset. It's because Hornby won't spend £2.50 on a good gearbox and a couple of simple springs. It expects you to pay top dollar though for the same old stuff, because it knows you mugs will pay. Money spent on the chassis is not cost-effective for the collectors' market.

 

[Dunsignalling]

That's the trouble with duplication, it's so easy to forget which thread one is in!

 

Having clarified that the DJM 14xx mechanism doesn't drive on the trailing axle, and citing the Rapido model that does, my musing related to what they might do on their Thunderbolt.

 

Like you, I would expect Hornby to use authentic Victorian blacksmithing in their Lion.

 

John 

Edited April 3, 2021 by Dunsignalling