New hst

[Legend]

Of course it could just be Simon Kohler up to tricks . Maybe hes sitting back now having a right good laugh at response stirred up in forums. Its not like him to give much away 

 

We know there is a lot on the TV program thats specifically there for a bit of drama . It could be that limited modifications to the HST (the coupling) are being over emphasized into a "new HST" . Actually theres not much wrong with the existing one .....................except the the price!   So he has got wind of a potential competitor .  I sincerely hope so  because the model is over priced .  I think you would get more bang for your buck with Accurascale or Hattons .   Could it be Hattons ?  They are very quiet of late . Starved of new Hornby models to supply (the Tier system), are they going out to generate their own sales . An HST in a myriad of liveries could do that . No need for new coaches if they match existing Hornby ones , or maybe developing Mk3s as well , but thats a fairly crowded market.    The main issue here is , as well as developing the "Rolls Royce" HST , Hornby still have the perfectly adaquate Limby one  and so could torpedo anyone entering the market with a series of low cost , high spec paint jobs , just like the 66s which came out in response to .......Hattons 66

 

It really would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at this years trade days . Will Hattons and Rails even get an invite , and if they do , would they go .   Now thats the real drama I'd like to see on Hornby a model world , but unlikely I think !

Edited November 23, 2021 by Legend

[BR Blue]

It is the coaches that let the current model down the most in my opinion. I know they have re-tooled the later versions but there was no mention of new coaches. They were comparing the old CAD of the power car to photographs and pointing out errors in position and size of windows, hinges etc. so it does look like there is going to be a fully retooled power car. It is not just internal changes for speakers and a change to the position of the coupling hook. We will be able to run a newly tooled model with ancient coaches including a mismatched TGS and vent-less buffet car. Hopefully coaches are coming next.

[H2O]

13 minutes ago, Legend said:

Of course it could just be Simon Kohler up to tricks . Maybe hes sitting back now having a right good laugh at response stirred up in forums. Its not like him to give much away 

 

We know there is a lot on the TV program thats specifically there for a bit of drama . It could be that limited modifications to the HST (the coupling) are being over emphasized into a "new HST" . Actually theres not much wrong with the existing one .....................except the the price!   So he has got wind of a potential competitor .  I sincerely hope so  because the model is over priced .  I think you would get more bang for your buck with Accurascale or Hattons .   Could it be Hattons ?  They are very quiet of late . Starved of new Hornby models to supply (the Tier system), are they going out to generate their own sales . An HST in a myriad of liveries could do that . No need for new coaches if they match existing Hornby ones , or maybe developing Mk3s as well , but thats a fairly crowded market.    The main issue here is , as well as developing the "Rolls Royce" HST , Hornby still have the perfectly adaquate Limby one  and so could torpedo anyone entering the market with a series of low cost , high spec paint jobs , just like the 66s which came out in response to .......Hattons 66

 

It really would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at this years trade days . Will Hattons and Rails even get an invite , and if they do , would they go .   Now thats the real drama I'd like to see on Hornby a model world , but unlikely I think !

The earlier series was much more 'fly on the wall' and allowed a look under the bonnet of the model railway business.  As others have said this series seems much more of a vehicle for promoting Hornby, and well done to them for getting so much free positive publicity on prime time TV in the run up to Christmas - their competitors must be envious.

[G-BOAF]

The HSTs are good models EXCEPT for the coupling. Quite why, as a corridor vehicle, they didn't have a cam coupling when launched is a mystery, given that the Class 50 released a few years earlier did have (but having no corridor connection, really didn't need it at all). 

 

I do wonder how much they are changing. Potentially the bogies could remain, but it seems like underframe detail will be upgraded, along with body tweaks (though what exactly is wrong with the existing body?)

 

I'm pleased I held off getting 43002 a year or so ago.

Hope there will be a 43002/102 NRM release at some point...

 

Also curious as to who else is planning an HST. Unless this is just 'drama' for the cameras. I can't imagine SK hears about something one day and actions Hornby designers the next; surely there is a process of approval that has to be gone through, and time in the designers' schedules to block out...

[scottrains29]

At 4:43 Simon mentions "we've done the sliding doors and it needs to have all the bells and whistles". Is he referring to the opening cab doors or will the new model also have sliding guards doors too....

 

Whilst the competition is now including features such as illuminated cab detail, diesel smoke, servo operated pantographs and roof fans, full lighting suite, Hornby on the other hand have been progressively making their models worse over the last few years. For example removing rotating fans, no more opening cab doors, very poor cab interiors (eg class 67,87) and sticking with limited functionality 8 pin DCC sockets. It will be nice to see Hornby finally upping their game to compete with the competition.

[Darius43]

6 minutes ago, scottrains29 said:

At 4:43 Simon mentions "we've done the sliding doors and it needs to have all the bells and whistles". Is he referring to the opening cab doors or will the new model also have sliding guards doors too....

I think he was referring to the newly-tooled sliding door Mk3 coaches rather than actual sliding doors in model form.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

[adb968008]

13 hours ago, Markn said:

On the show, they photographed and measured the ex FGW powercar at Crewe Heritage Centre, then 're-vamped' their current offering around the rear doors, front lights and coupling mechanism.  They also mentioned that a double sugar cube speaker would be present and new led lighting functions.  It looked pretty good!  Especially the coupling!

 

Such a shame the FGW set are finally being re-released on the old chassis :-(

Iput this on another thread but wonder if its pertinent here but…

 

43018 is an empty shell I understand. Unless its been resprung, or weighed down, its going to sit higher on its bogies (potentially even as far as being out of gauge).

 

picture here (Facebook link auto embedded / not my image)

 

 

Wouldnt it be ironic if the reason the door handles and runners were thought to be in wrong position on the current model, was not due to their current model being inaccurate, but due to 43018 sitting a few inches higher on its springs when they measured it and making it look wrong ?.. I hope they checked the spring aspect before tooling….

 

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by adb968008

[G-BOAF]

4 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Iput this on another thread but wonder if its pertinent here but…

 

43018 is an empty shell I understand. Unless its been resprung, or weighed down, its going to sit higher on its bogies (potentially even as far as being out of gauge).

Wouldnt it be ironic if the reason the door handles and runners were thought to be in wrong position on the current model, was not due to their current model being inaccurate, but due to 43018 sitting 2-4 inches higher on its springs when they measured it and making it look wrong ?.. I hope they checked the spring aspect before tooling….

 

 

Good point. You might want to email Hornby about this.

Hopefully they will be measuring body details from other known points on the body (i.e. bottom of bodyside), not just 'rail level' otherwise a whole host of things will be off

[adb968008]

10 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Good point. You might want to email Hornby about this.

Hopefully they will be measuring body details from other known points on the body (i.e. bottom of bodyside), not just 'rail level' otherwise a whole host of things will be off

They would never listen to me, that i’m sure.

 

Besides, the date on Railcam, on the filming was May 2021… That power cars changed a lot since then.

Tbh imo a trip to Ruddington might be more fruitful, plenty of powercars and lifetime experts there… of course Laira, Haymarket still are active.

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by adb968008

[G-BOAF]

16 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

They would never listen to me, that i’m sure.

 

Besides, the date on Railcam, on the filming was May 2021… That power cars changed a lot since then.

Tbh imo a trip to Ruddington might be more fruitful, plenty of powercars and lifetime experts there… of course Laira, Haymarket still are active.

 

 

Also felt it was weird looking at Railcam, rather than phoning CHC and asking if they could measure, and was the vehicle accessible.

 

One would hope they would check measurements against works drawings. Would be an awful shame if we ended up with a Class 43 riding too high due to the particular state of the one they measured!

[RyanN91]

A FGW HST at Newton Abbot from June 2012. Quite a rare shot as one of the MK3 coaches is in the original BR Class 41 HST protype liveries perhaps a loan from the InterCity 125 group. 

 

Original Image © The Railway Center . com 2012 2021 All Rights Reserved. 

[phil-b259]

27 minutes ago, RyanN91 said:

A FGW HST at Newton Abbot from June 2012. Quite a rare shot as one of the MK3 coaches is in the original BR Class 41 HST protype liveries perhaps a loan from the InterCity 125 group. 

 

 

That was painted up by FGW to be put on display with the Prototype power car at a NRM event over a decade ago (IIRC) - well before the IC125 group started acquiring actual rail vehicles (the HSTs were still in front line service at the time with the 800s not even on the drawing board!)

Edited November 23, 2021 by phil-b259

[G-BOAF]

EDIT - wot he said above!

Plus the fact that the TGS TS(D) in question was actually originally a coach in the prototype HST formation, and was liveried up to its original condition (albeit it didn't have the accessible lav feature when in prototype set) to match the power car.

 

Don't know what has happened to it now. Hopefully its historical significance will be recognised to save it from scrap....

 

EDIT (again) change from TGS to TS(D)

Edited November 23, 2021 by G-BOAF

[RyanN91]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

That was painted up by FGW to be put on display with the Prototype power car at a NRM event over a decade ago (IIRC) - well before the IC125 group started acquiring actual rail vehicles (the HSTs were still in front line service at the time with the 800s not even on the drawing board!)

Sorry I didn't engage the date of the photo with the events! Yes it was a few years before the IC 125 acquired rolling stock.  

[RyanN91]

2 hours ago, G-BOAF said:

EDIT - wot he said above!

Plus the fact that the TGS in question was actually originally a coach in the prototype HST formation, and was liveried up to its original condition (albeit it wasn't a TGS when in prototype set) to match the power car.

 

Don't know what has happened to it now. Hopefully its historical significance will be recognised to save it from scrap....

Oh I didn't notice that this HST had two TGS  MK3s it looked like a TS MK3! It also looks like there is no TRSB coach. 

[mdvle]

6 hours ago, jonnyuk said:

don't know how you can say at the detriment of modellers who would prefer a better model. the HST is a good model already, it only needs a bit of spit and polish.

 

This comes up every time someone announces (or is rumoured) to be creating a new version of a model.

 

Some people are happy with the existing model and don't see a need for a newer, better model.  That is perfectly fine.

 

But some of us prefer a better model out of the box.

 

And the HST - particularly the Mk3 coaches - needs a new version for many of us.

[IRC]

Fingers crossed this happens from one manufacturer or another. The second hand prices of some of the power cars in certain liveries is ludicrous. £500 + wasn’t it for a pair of IC Executive ones a couple of months ago?

[G-BOAF]

1 hour ago, RyanN91 said:

Oh I didn't notice that this HST had two TGS  MK3s it looked like a TS MK3! It also looks like there is no TRSB coach. 

Sorry its NOT a TGS. My bad, it is a TS Accessible Lav. My mistake. Either way it was converted from a normal TS that it was in the prototype train

[surfsup]

3 hours ago, G-BOAF said:

EDIT - wot he said above!

Plus the fact that the TGS TS(D) in question was actually originally a coach in the prototype HST formation, and was liveried up to its original condition (albeit it didn't have the accessible lav feature when in prototype set) to match the power car.

 

Don't know what has happened to it now. Hopefully its historical significance will be recognised to save it from scrap....

 

EDIT (again) change from TGS to TS(D)

 

That specific TSD Is the somewhat unusual 42353 (formerly 12002 in the prototype rake and later 42001) which was re-liveried specifically for the 2012 York Railfest at the NRM. It certainly wasn't painted though and used large vinyl overlays on top of the Dynamic Lines livery, applied in Laira Depot - unfortunately they had to be removed prior to re-entry back into service. As for what it was doing in this picture, FGW - in their cleverest days when such moves were possible, just used this HST set to shift it to London where it was removed out of the set at OOC and hauled up to York and back behind record holder 43159 and 57604. 

 

Just to add to 42353s somewhat unusual history, it was one of a small number of vehicles used by FRH as prototype vehicles for the big 2007 FGW HST Refurbishment and displayed in Swindon STEAM Museum for a short while. Thankfully, the IC70 seats with incredibly gaudy moquette was dropped from it, though it's a shame the PIS system also found itself benign dropped out of the program too. 

 

As for it's present situation - It is currently one of the First Rail Holdings owned vehicles which has been heavily stripped for spares at WABTEC Doncaster to provide spares for the GW short sets. It might have a future soon though, as Northumbria Rail (owners of it's preserved sister vehicle 42356 at Eastleigh) are after it - further details about it and how you can donate to it can be found here: 

 

https://www.facebook.com/donate/4345756752189682

 

[surfsup]

26 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

Sorry its NOT a TGS. My bad, it is a TS Accessible Lav. My mistake. Either way it was converted from a normal TS that it was in the prototype train

Just to add to the confusion - it is a Porterbrook design TSD too. The Angel design featured a more simple arrangement of half a window blanked off in the main saloon due to the extended toilet space. The later Porterbrook design saw the redundant toilet window moved over to the other side, and a new small window fitted into the toilet space. 

 

As for the program itself. I too found it frankly bizarre - From the measuring of the empty 43018 which was both heavily stripped and missing it's internal equipment (so will be out of gauge) to this idea of creating the "Rolls Royce" of HST power cars, but absolutely no mention of the Mk3s desperately needing an upgrade to run with them. Then the talk of upgrading the sound - but filming at Tenderton on the KESR. Unfortunately, as someone with some involvement and knowledge of the HST Fleet, there's a lot more that needs fixing with it if this were to become the ultimate model. Bogies have differences between Refurbished and original variants, there's the radiator cut out in the grilles (which vary between PCs so be warned!) getting the right radiator / cooler group variants correct etc, as well as the light cluster arrangements. 

 

Interestingly though - given the brief talk about lighting upgrades in the business meeting at the end, I wonder if this may mean that Hornby can finally produce the correct style MML PC with it's 3 light lenses?  (The MML style utilised the original light fittings but replaced them with LEDs and "tubes"). 

 

[norfolkchinaclay]

Just been watching last nights programme and wondering why the guy went all the way from Margate to Crewe to look at an HST when the 125 Group’s power cars and coaches at Ruddington and Leicester would have been much closer, not to mention the TOC and off lease HST vehicles in store at other locations.

 

Perhaps 125 Group are working with the hinted at competition (which is therefore likely to be a more accurate product bearing the correct paint colours and sound etc).

 

If Hornby are serious about trying to up their game and improve their current offerings as SK said at the start of the programme I hope they are going to do it properly rather than cutting corners (by checking quality control on incoming products, not omitting important detail parts etc) as has been witnessed a few times now with some of their recent D&E releases.

Edited November 23, 2021 by norfolkchinaclay
Typo

[atom3624]

So was the SK comment just a red herring, or is there another manufacturer about to release a HST in OO scale?

 

Al.

[romley midland]

23 minutes ago, norfolkchinaclay said:

Just been watching last nights programme and wondering why the guy went all the way from Margate to Crewe to look at an HST when the 125 Group’s power cars and coaches at Ruddington and Leicester would have been much closer, not to mention the TOC and off lease HST vehicles in store at other locations.

Just a thought but seeing as the same gent was at Crewe earlier in the series to check the colour of the APT, I wouldn’t be surprised if both visits were in fact a single visit filmed all at once which would make a lot of sense. I would think it likely that a lot of it staged for the TV show anyway. They would probably visit other sites if doing a serious job of a new HST, but for the TV show to have the same chap visit various places to see the same thing could get a bit boring pretty quickly I reckon!

[43179]

2 hours ago, surfsup said:

, there's a lot more that needs fixing with it if this were to become the ultimate model. Bogies have differences between Refurbished and original variants, there's the radiator cut out in the grilles (which vary between PCs so be warned!) getting the right radiator / cooler group variants correct etc, as well as the light cluster arrangements.

 

Here here ! - plus my own particular irk is the diaphragm gangway,  correct for, I think, a single GNER power and wrong for everything else!  The air tanks sit too high up as well - I Imagine they were “pushed up” to allow the first design of bogie mounted coupling to swing underneath them .  The chunky overscale radiator slats wouldn’t be on my Rolls Royce power car I’m afraid either - I’d rather have the right number of slats at the expense of  them being see-through. Some acknowledgement of the aerials fitted in the early 90s would be nice too - the Intercity models look a bit bald without them!  Replace the silver coloured plastic brake disc insets with some nice etched ones while we’re at and then I’d be interested! 

 

Jon

Edited November 23, 2021 by 43179

[scouse889]

4 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

And the HST - particularly the Mk3 coaches - needs a new version for many of us.

I think this is the key thing here - despite the fact I love the HST (and perhaps it’s just me here), I just can’t get excited about the thought of Hornby moving the door handles a fraction to the left, and adding three more rivets to one of the roof panels, and so on, if these new absolutely fantastically spot on power cars are still going to be released with the current mixture of Hornby and ex-Lima vehicles which have very obvious visual differences from each other (let alone worrying about whether either is true to the prototype) - and these very obvious differences are relevant if we are talking about a game changing “bells and whistles” product. Plus, the closest Hornby seem to get to the “bells” part with their current HST releases is when they make a clanger of an error with the livery application - which is then entirely another issue!