The Case of Hornby's Dissapearing Diesels

[tubs01]

I'm sure someone else has noticed, but since about 2010, many of Hornby's diesel models have just disappeared altogether, never to appear again. This include, but are not limited to:

 

Class 25

Class 29

Class 35

Class 58

 

 

I know the class 37 and 47s were replaced with the ex-Lima toolings, but this wasn't the case for the locos I mentioned as Lima never made those locos. I just wondered whether anyone knows why they all dissapeared? I think the hymek/Class 35 is the worst case considering by 2008, when it was last released, it had sprung buffers, separately fitted horns and coupling hooks, and wire handrails.

['CHARD]

Because they had been surpassed by other manufacturers' releases (Bach 25, Heljan 35 and 58) or were so woefully rubbish (class 29) that they were rendered unsaleable.  The tooling could have been life expired too.

[tubs01]

17 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

Because they had been surpassed by other manufacturers' releases (Bach 25, Heljan 35 and 58) or were so woefully rubbish (class 29) that they were rendered unsaleable.  The tooling could have been life expired too.

Obviously more detailed models are available, and have been for a while, but I don't think that would have stopped them, I mean just look at the ex-Lima 66

[w124bob]

Even a simple relivery of the class 31 to give us a blue pre/early TOPS or green full yellow end(a common ER version)seems beyond them, just another rerun for what we already have. They can't even be bothered to simply swap bodies to give us a Blue body on a cut away buffer beam chassis instant ETH version! It would appear that obscure one off kettles is where the money is. Happy to give us decent MK1's in various BR versions but nothing to pull them. They've given us some superb steamers J15, Maude, forth coming 78xxx 2MT for example but diesels (and wagons) forget it. No new tooling required for a pre TOPS 50, guess we are getting a new variation on the class 56 so it's not all bad. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by w124bob

[andyman7]

Upon the move of production to China, there was a period when the ex-Margate diesel models were reissued with better finishes and the revised Ringfield mechanisms with all wheel pickup. The models affected were the 25, 29, 35 (Hymek), 37, 47 and 52 (Western). The Hymek also got separate horns and wire handrails but bizarrely retained the non-flush glazing making a sort of half-superdetailed mash-up. However, none of these were DCC ready, something that was still normal in the early 2000s but by 2010 was not suitable for the market. As a result, I think we can consider all of this tooling family now obsolete. Every single one has been superseded by alternatives; in the case of the 37 and the 47 this includes budget Hornby Railroad versions made from the superior ex-Lima tools now owned by Hornby and fitted with new DCC ready mechanisms. Presumably Hornby also has the ex-Lima Western tools as well.

If you want the older versions there is a lifetime's supply floating around on the secondhand market....

[tubs01]

1 hour ago, andyman7 said:

Upon the move of production to China, there was a period when the ex-Margate diesel models were reissued with better finishes and the revised Ringfield mechanisms with all wheel pickup. The models affected were the 25, 29, 35 (Hymek), 37, 47 and 52 (Western). The Hymek also got separate horns and wire handrails but bizarrely retained the non-flush glazing making a sort of half-superdetailed mash-up. However, none of these were DCC ready, something that was still normal in the early 2000s but by 2010 was not suitable for the market. As a result, I think we can consider all of this tooling family now obsolete. Every single one has been superseded by alternatives; in the case of the 37 and the 47 this includes budget Hornby Railroad versions made from the superior ex-Lima tools now owned by Hornby and fitted with new DCC ready mechanisms. Presumably Hornby also has the ex-Lima Western tools as well.

If you want the older versions there is a lifetime's supply floating around on the secondhand market....

Just a shame the later hymeks are so hard to come by! and 58s also seem to go for a lot more than they're worth a lot of the time, I'm planning on getting a 58 and getting one of the 80s ones and getting a brass detailing kit is only just as expensive then getting a china made one

[tubs01]

2 hours ago, w124bob said:

Even a simple relivery of the class 31 to give us a blue pre/early TOPS or green full yellow end(a common ER version)seems beyond them, just another rerun for what we already have. They can't even be bothered to simply swap bodies to give us a Blue body on a cut away buffer beam chassis instant ETH version! It would appear that obscure one off kettles is where the money is. Happy to give us decent MK1's in various BR versions but nothing to pull them. They've given us some superb steamers J15, Maude, forth coming 78xxx 2MT for example but diesels (and wagons) forget it. No new tooling required for a pre TOPS 50, guess we are getting a new variation on the class 56 so it's not all bad. 

yeah I wish they did focus more on diesel and electric, I understand steam is where the money's at but I feel like it could all be so much better, and when they do some good modern stuff they usually end up discontinuing within months, e.g. the yellow submarine eurostar, they stopped selling the coaches by the end of 2020 so now the only way to get them is eBay where they sell for atleast 150 quid. and you can't even get an EWS 66 anymore? and then you've got the 37s and 47s, which they love pumping out in hundreds of era 10 and 11 liveries with nothing for them to pull

[Halvarras]

16 hours ago, andyman7 said:

The Hymek also got separate horns and wire handrails but bizarrely retained the non-flush glazing making a sort of half-superdetailed mash-up.

 

I was surprised at the effort expended on this 1967 tooling, only to produce just three versions (D7046/92 in green and D7067 in weathered blue - I think D7092 was advertised as weathered too, if so it must have been very light!) Presumably the cab door handrails were shortened to clear the underframe moulding internally. The tidied-up engine room side windows looked completely at odds with the untouched cab "glazing" and I can only assume the budget didn't extend that far. As somebody who pre-ordered the original release (on 19/4/67, received 8/9/67 - I've still got it, repainted maroon over 20 years ago!) I was tempted to get one and finish the job to see how it could/should have looked but in the end didn't bother, as I'd already done up a couple of older ones, with Lima running gear, and I still have those too.

 

I recall seeing a new China-produced green D6704 on sale in a shop window and being shocked at the RRP, considering that the only body assembly was pushing in the four headcode panels and gluing in the "glazing" behind those truly 'orrible cab windscreens! I always felt sorry for the Class 37, mounted first on Class 31 bogies and then on Class 47's, when all it needed at the time of going 'ringfield' was a single new moulding - a completely missed opportunity. Nah, let's do something more worthwhile instead, like an LBSCR brake van.........

[andyman7]

2 hours ago, Neil Phillips said:

I always felt sorry for the Class 37, mounted first on Class 31 bogies and then on Class 47's, when all it needed at the time of going 'ringfield' was a single new moulding - a completely missed opportunity. Nah, let's do something more worthwhile instead, like an LBSCR brake van.........

Bizarre, wasn't it? The Hymek got brand new correct wheelbase bogie frames for its Ringfield conversion; the Class 29 had correct pattern bogie frames despite pretty much everything else on it being wrong and possibly being the most obscure UK diesel it was possible to model, yet the only RTR model of the 309-strong class 37 fleet had to make do with its second set of hand-me-down incorrect bogie frames. Then in the 1980s the nose ends get retooled but the windscreen apertures were not touched despite being approximate at best. Yet the bodyside of the Class 37 was one of the best Triang mouldings of all.....

Edited May 23, 2021 by andyman7
Spelling

[tubs01]

1 hour ago, andyman7 said:

Bizarre, wasn't it? The Hymek got brand new correct wheelbase bogie frames for its Ringfield conversion; the Class 29 had correct pattern bogie frames despite pretty much everything else on in being wrong and possibly being the most obscure UK diesel it was possible to model, yet the only RTR model of the 309-strong class 37 fleet had to make do with its second set of hand-me-down incorrect bogie frames. Then in the 1980s the nose ends get retooled but the windscreen apertures were not touched despite being approximate at best. Yet the bodyside of the Class 37 was one of the best Triang mouldings of all.....

I think what ruins the 37 for me IS the nose end, it works fine for earlier 37s but when Hornby retooled the nose ends, instead of adding the exposed bufferbeam, they just made it completely smooth and painted a black strip where the bufferbeam should be.... As for the 47, it looks alright but it looks too high on its chassis and the bufferbeam valance stick out too far, and the buffers are too chunky, and the headcode panel was just horrendous, I still love them though

[andyman7]

Ah, the 47 headcode panel. The irony was that the class 25 illuminated headcode panel was lovely, one of the best, yet the 47 had this weird insert, which was then reversed in the 1980s when the working lights were deleted to supposedly represent the plated panel. Eventually a proper smooth inset panel was tooled, the final versions of the 47 were better in this regards. I must admit though that I too have soft spot for the Triang/Hornby family of Margate D & E models.

[Halvarras]

I still remember picking up my first Hornby 'Silver Seal' Class 47 D1738 in Bristol in 1975 (we had to wait until the class was TOPS-numbered before we could buy an RTR model of BR's most numerous type??!!), the one with the die-cast underframe, suspect bogie pivot arrangement and split-sleeve-axle trailing bogie wheelsets where the back-to-back measurement was meaningless as the pick-up strips pushed the two halves apart at every opportunity, such as pointwork. Whoever thought THAT was a good idea?!

Hah - the reversed headcode panel with tooling marks on (what should have been) the inside! Brilliantly simple solution to headcode deletion, nobody will notice......

Thing is, much of Hornby's diesel output nailed the basic shape pretty well - many modellers still put the 1977 Hornby Class 25 body on Bachmann chassis, judging the end result to be worth the effort. The Class 29 was an aberration which caught everyone on the hop I think, because it came out just one year after the '25' - we weren't used to such rapid output (Lima had only just arrived on the scene....!) That one had excellent bogie detail and wire hand rails, but also a number of issues due to poor research as we all know, as well as dimensional problems caused by Hornby's usual tactic of jacking things up a couple of millimetres to clear couplings and train set curves, and the decision to beef up the cab window corner pillars to withstand play room knocks simply ruined its overall appearance. Still, as a diesel-hydraulic modeller I for one was glad it was released, although I did one Class 29 and two Class 21s before getting the razor saw out on a couple more, by which time we had A1 Models Class 22 conversion kits, yay! 

 

Apologies if I've posted these before, but I think they show just how well some of the early Tri-ang Hornby tooling polishes up with a bit of work.....

 

 

[BernardTPM]

Nice. As well as giving us a longer wheelbase, putting the ringfeld bogies in the Hymek made it much easier to lower the body down to scale height.

[John M Upton]

I had one of the earliest releases of the Class 58.  Utter rubbish even by the fairly woeful standards of RTR of the time, no rice pudding skin was worried with one of these, it could barely move itself.  The same utterly abysmal type of workings also appeared under the Class 466 Networker, another model that seems to have been quietly dropped down the back of the proverbial sofa in the hope nobody will notice.

 

 

[tubs01]

6 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Ah, the 47 headcode panel. The irony was that the class 25 illuminated headcode panel was lovely, one of the best, yet the 47 had this weird insert, which was then reversed in the 1980s when the working lights were deleted to supposedly represent the plated panel. Eventually a proper smooth inset panel was tooled, the final versions of the 47 were better in this regards. I must admit though that I too have soft spot for the Triang/Hornby family of Margate D & E models.

funnily enough it's the panel on the later 47s I'm talking about! the worst part is the painted on lights 

 

still got sad when I missed out on bristol bath road in first gw livery on eBay!

[tubs01]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

I had one of the earliest releases of the Class 58.  Utter rubbish even by the fairly woeful standards of RTR of the time, no rice pudding skin was worried with one of these, it could barely move itself.  The same utterly abysmal type of workings also appeared under the Class 466 Networker, another model that seems to have been quietly dropped down the back of the proverbial sofa in the hope nobody will notice.

 

 

I'd assume it improved over the years because as far as I know they use the type 7 motor found in the railroad 0-6-0s, which run beautifully and have great pulling power

[tubs01]

While I have talked about ex margate locos I wouldlove to see the return of the lima 60 and 67 however that one's more of a case of 'because I like it' rather than it actually making sense

 

the 67 was in Hornby's range for quite some time, don't think they changed the motor though. I've got a lima 67 and it's quite loud, and apparently it's lima's quietest model! as for the 60 by the time they accquired lima they were making their super detail 60. oh well! still think the hymek should be brought back, probably in the same category as the 66 because it's more detailed than the 66 but it aint exactly super detail

[Halvarras]

1 hour ago, BernardTPM said:

Nice. As well as giving us a longer wheelbase, putting the ringfeld bogies in the Hymek made it much easier to lower the body down to scale height.

 

Quite so. The original model's worm drive motor bogie wheelbase scaled out at 9'3" against 10'6" in reality. The ringfield version came in at 10'0", which was lucky for me as I fitted Lima Class 33/42/87 motor bogies which were spot on. I opened out the bogie sideframes to show off the bigger wheels! I also cut the bufferbeams off the underframe and glued them inside the body, to get rid of the gap, leaving a ledge behind each which a tongue of plasticard off the cut end of the underframe located onto with a screw to secure body to chassis. 

 

Why bother with the Lima transplant? Apart from the bigger wheels these two Hymeks were part of a diesel hydraulic fleet where I'd standardised on Lima power.

[HonestTom]

8 hours ago, tubs01 said:

While I have talked about ex margate locos I wouldlove to see the return of the lima 60 and 67 however that one's more of a case of 'because I like it' rather than it actually making sense

 

the 67 was in Hornby's range for quite some time, don't think they changed the motor though. I've got a lima 67 and it's quite loud, and apparently it's lima's quietest model! as for the 60 by the time they accquired lima they were making their super detail 60. oh well! still think the hymek should be brought back, probably in the same category as the 66 because it's more detailed than the 66 but it aint exactly super detail

The upgraded Hymek strikes me as an obvious candidate for the Railroad Plus range.

 

I don't know how common my way of doing things is, but there are certain prototypes that I'd quite like to own, but not enough to spend huge amounts of money on. I acknowledge that I'd be getting a much better, more detailed model, but the engine isn't a "must have." Therefore, a model that is a decent representation, but more affordable, is more up my street.

[andyman7]

2 hours ago, HonestTom said:

The upgraded Hymek strikes me as an obvious candidate for the Railroad Plus range.

 

I don't know how common my way of doing things is, but there are certain prototypes that I'd quite like to own, but not enough to spend huge amounts of money on. I acknowledge that I'd be getting a much better, more detailed model, but the engine isn't a "must have." Therefore, a model that is a decent representation, but more affordable, is more up my street.

Potentially yes, but it would need a new chassis as even in its last incarnation it used the now obsolete non-DCC ready Ringfield. The original Class 58's pulling power was woeful but on a train set oval not too obvious - the later ones were better; but in terms of body shape it has the makings of a great budget model. It suffered from being tooled up before the production machines went into service, so missed out on having the solebar plated over and the handrails were wrong. Neither would be difficult to rectify.
 

[andyman7]

11 hours ago, tubs01 said:

funnily enough it's the panel on the later 47s I'm talking about! the worst part is the painted on lights 

 

still got sad when I missed out on bristol bath road in first gw livery on eBay!

I thought that the painted on effect worked quite well to represent the end of a 47 with the white opaque discs and rubber grommet surrounds. Not so good for the other end though. The one that really annoyed me was the 86, they tooled it with a headcode box even though every version made was from the plated over era, yet they never did what would have been a very simple retool. Even for the first release, I've never seen any evidence that 86219 Phoenix was named before losing it's headcode box. The only photo that I am aware of for an 86 in such a state is of 86209 City of Coventry which would have been in that condition for a matter of weeks or months only.

[andyman7]

Here are two 'classic' Hornby diesels in makeover. Both the Class 25/3 and 29 exist as superdetail models so why would anyone put this much effort in? Because it's fun and inexpensive - both of these models were acquired by me cheap, unloved and already modified - I expect were cast off when said superdetail models became available. The 25/3 had been done using a conversion kit from the pre-Bachmann era. It was painted a weird green shade and had lost one of its side overlays. I'm taking the opportunity to model one of the examples with sheeted over boiler grilles as per late 70s Derby overhauls - a variant not modelled RTR to date. The 29 had been modified on the ends/bodyside but retained the thick window pillars which I filed down. It's back in the workshop to have the roof details corrected as I now have the Dapol model as a pattern, never having been able to track down a decent roof view of a 29!

[tubs01]

About the 47, could anyone name exactly what is wrong with it? I know the dimensions are pretty spot on but it still seems.. off.. 

 

especially the bufferbeam area, though I suppose it wouldn't take much to rectify it, just sand it back and add new (lima??) buffers 

[tubs01]

18 hours ago, andyman7 said:

Here are two 'classic' Hornby diesels in makeover. Both the Class 25/3 and 29 exist as superdetail models so why would anyone put this much effort in? Because it's fun and inexpensive - both of these models were acquired by me cheap, unloved and already modified - I expect were cast off when said superdetail models became available. The 25/3 had been done using a conversion kit from the pre-Bachmann era. It was painted a weird green shade and had lost one of its side overlays. I'm taking the opportunity to model one of the examples with sheeted over boiler grilles as per late 70s Derby overhauls - a variant not modelled RTR to date. The 29 had been modified on the ends/bodyside but retained the thick window pillars which I filed down. It's back in the workshop to have the roof details corrected as I now have the Dapol model as a pattern, never having been able to track down a decent roof view of a 29!

amazing! it's always nice to see people upcyle models. I know people will always says get a Dapol or Heljan one but surprise surprise, doing up the old Hornby ones is almost always cheaper (and probably better, the old Heljan 47 was too wide and the new one looks too thin!)

[Alcanman]

40 years ago it was fun upgrading Hornby diesels, but things have moved on and my next class 25/3 will be from SLW!