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jonnyuk
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I really hope someone else IS doing an HST and they stick with it. Hornby seem to think they have god given right to certain models yet generally produce models that are well below par.

 

Rather than bullying other manufacturers who will most likely make a decent job of it, they should probably stick to Railroad/toys and leave the high spec models to those who are capable of producing them!! 

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Just adding a little further, I must say I think something's 'off' in the area around the headlights, I can't quite place exactly what, but the position of them makes it tricky to do masking for some of the liveries I've painted, when compared to real life.

 

Maybe the lights are a little large or rest too high up, I can't quite say!

 

Great Western Trains respray, the green bands were very tricky to site exactly -

 

51073699916_d2c0bdea0d_k.jpgGreat Western HST Power Cars by James Makin by James Makin - Account 2, on Flickr

 

My FGW 'Fag Packet' with the stripes, again tricky to align the gold stripe to the lights and especially with the pinstripes then following through to the doors, something is subtly off here somewhere!

 

28010173140_1dd732127a_b.jpgHST power cars by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

What makes the existing model good for me though is the running qualities, better than we've had before, and once whizzing along at 125mph then it'd be tricky to pick fault. I'd just like more of the 'forgotten' liveries like these to be released instead of another modern day celebrity one-off pack...after all, it's not like the above liveries covered the majority of the country's entire HST fleet at any one time is it..! ;):lol:

 

Cheers,

James

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2 hours ago, scouse889 said:


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!

I have noticed in the office, at the desk a bunch of Oxford boxes, which suspiciously look like mk3’s… they might be the “upgrade”.

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28 minutes ago, James Makin said:

Just adding a little further, I must say I think something's 'off' in the area around the headlights, I can't quite place exactly what, but the position of them makes it tricky to do masking for some of the liveries I've painted, when compared to real life.

 

Maybe the lights are a little large or rest too high up, I can't quite say!

 

Great Western Trains respray, the green bands were very tricky to site exactly -

 

51073699916_d2c0bdea0d_k.jpgGreat Western HST Power Cars by James Makin by James Makin - Account 2, on Flickr

 

My FGW 'Fag Packet' with the stripes, again tricky to align the gold stripe to the lights and especially with the pinstripes then following through to the doors, something is subtly off here somewhere!

 

28010173140_1dd732127a_b.jpgHST power cars by James Makin by jamesmakin2002, on Flickr

 

What makes the existing model good for me though is the running qualities, better than we've had before, and once whizzing along at 125mph then it'd be tricky to pick fault. I'd just like more of the 'forgotten' liveries like these to be released instead of another modern day celebrity one-off pack...after all, it's not like the above liveries covered the majority of the country's entire HST fleet at any one time is it..! ;):lol:

 

Cheers,

James

Yes James these are two of my favorites HST franchise regions liveries from the very start of the Privatisation Era! Yes a proper 1983 InterCity Executive livery would be nice without the InterCity 125 filled in white and with correct MK3s. I never really got why since 2008 Hornby did not release the BR Class 43 power cars alongside some MK3 coaches as a train pack Yes the price would be more perhaps because it was the newly tooled model and the price wouldn't attract the collection who possibly just wanted the power cars separate from the MK3 carriages. Or even in 2019 when the HST power cars was reintroduced into the RailRoad range in the original BR Blue Grey livery that could have been made up into a train pack with the older toolings for MK3s perhaps the powecars alongside TF a TS and TRSB perhaps for people on a lower budget or someone new to the hobby or a small child who loves InterCity 125s. 

 

Especially as these locomotives were released as train pack (I have these both new when they were on sale with Hatton's) with the correct suitable passenger coach and freight rolling stock. 

R3399_3197079_Qty1_box2.jpg

518dxVjyX-L._AC_SL1000_-1.jpg

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Throughout the show it's mentioned various times about the need for Hornby to turn a profit. Yet currently almost all the online box shifters have had the newly tooled sliding door mk3 XC coaches in their bargain bins for some time now. I bit and bought a full rake at less than £20 a coach. I strongly suspect they are not selling as it's near impossible to get the matching XC power cars. They sold out ages ago. Hornby really need to be improving the ratio of power cars to coaches to keep sales healthy. Had the power cars been available I would have happy paid more for the coaches.

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1 hour ago, scottrains29 said:

Throughout the show it's mentioned various times about the need for Hornby to turn a profit. Yet currently almost all the online box shifters have had the newly tooled sliding door mk3 XC coaches in their bargain bins for some time now. I bit and bought a full rake at less than £20 a coach. I strongly suspect they are not selling as it's near impossible to get the matching XC power cars. They sold out ages ago. Hornby really need to be improving the ratio of power cars to coaches to keep sales healthy. Had the power cars been available I would have happy paid more for the coaches.

 

Any stock that is with a retailer is stock that Hornby HAVE made a profit on, regardless of how little profit that retailer might make with it eventually.

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9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I have noticed in the office, at the desk a bunch of Oxford boxes, which suspiciously look like mk3’s… they might be the “upgrade”.

 

I hope not, the Oxford coaches represent loco hauled coaches (Mark 3a/3b?) and not HST Mark 3s. As I understand it, there are lots of differences, e.g., perhaps one of the most obvious for a model viewed from above the roof hatches are different - three small rectangular ones on loco hauled stock and a single square one on the HST stock.

Also, a big one, because these are loco hauled coaches, there is no TGS coach in the Oxford range as this vehicle type is specific to the HST.

Again, if we are talking "the ultimate bells and whistles Rolls Royce" of an HST, which is the way Hornby present it, using the current Oxford coaches would be no better than the current Hornby/ex-Lima set-up. It would take us back to 1997 again, when Hornby re-tooled their HST Mark 3 to the current offering, but omitted the TGS.

But then again, nothing surprises me these days, so you may well be right!

 

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13 hours ago, atom3624 said:

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

 

Al.

I think it is just his way of motivating the troops, create a fictitious enemy. Noting that major wars have been started over little more than unsubstantiated rumours or misdirection.......

 

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8 hours ago, scottrains29 said:

Throughout the show it's mentioned various times about the need for Hornby to turn a profit. Yet currently almost all the online box shifters have had the newly tooled sliding door mk3 XC coaches in their bargain bins for some time now. I bit and bought a full rake at less than £20 a coach. I strongly suspect they are not selling as it's near impossible to get the matching XC power cars. They sold out ages ago. Hornby really need to be improving the ratio of power cars to coaches to keep sales healthy. Had the power cars been available I would have happy paid more for the coaches.

 

Isn't this mainly to do with the fact that Hornby released 18 different XC coaches and one set of power cars - so with a prototypical XC rake having seven coaches, what exactly are the other 11 coaches out the 18 supposed to be for, and so who would buy them? Only those who want to get a second pair of power cars, get them renumbered and then run two rakes side-by-side?? Even so, why then not 14 for two complete rakes..... 18 isn't even a multiple of 7.... The same thing is happening with the LNER (ex-VTEC) mark 3 coaches - Hornby have now done three runs of these (a complete prototypical set of nine to accompany the release of the LNER power cars, and two follow up incomplete sets of 7) and you can already pick up the 2021 coaches for under £30 (£27.99 is the cheapest I have seen, and this isn't a special offer or Black Friday deal). Granted, you can use the LNER coaches with the earlier VTEC power cars, but again I've never really been sure what the motive is behind releasing more and more of these coaches when even the original versions are not yet fully sold out.

But as @scottrains29 says, it isn't Hornby's problem as all the unsold stock is mainly sitting with the distribution network and not Hornby itself, so Hornby have their profit and it is now up to the retailers to sell on stock which doesn't really have an obvious purpose.

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The volume of LNER coaches is quite odd.

 

whilst there is VTEC HSTs power cars including locomotion, VTEC and 1xLNER all of these power cars are all now somewhat scarce, and releasing 1 set of coaches without a set of power cars at the time was quite odd.

 

The way to soak them up is EMR power cars at this point. though savvy modellers probably have their set already and just swap the power cars. EMR is already fading to memory so peak demand on these has passed, indeed I think peak HST demand is passed and Hornby sated it quite well.

That’s why I’m surprised at a retool, once EMR, 43102/272 and Blue Pullman are done the story is pretty much complete.

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

The volume of LNER coaches is quite odd.

 

whilst there is VTEC HSTs power cars including locomotion, VTEC and 1xLNER all of these power cars are all now somewhat scarce, and releasing 1 set of coaches without a set of power cars at the time was quite odd.

 

The way to soak them up is EMR power cars at this point. though savvy modellers probably have their set already and just swap the power cars. EMR is already fading to memory so peak demand on these has passed, indeed I think peak HST demand is passed and Hornby sated it quite well.

That’s why I’m surprised at a retool, once EMR, 43102/272 and Blue Pullman are done the story is pretty much complete.

 

 

 

 

Could this not be to do with Power Cars made in one factory and Coaches in another . Just a theory , I dont know . But it does seem that Hornby are struggling for manufacturing capacity again , let alone synchronising the availability of power cars and coaches . In fact they appear to have given up on last point !

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8 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

The way to soak them up is EMR power cars at this point.

 

As far as I am aware, the only discernible external difference between a VTEC HST and an LNER HST is the branding on the sides of the power cars. However, when the trains transferred to EMR, in addition to the power cars being rebranded again, the coaches had "EMR INTERCITY" added to their bodysides in quite large black lettering, and the sets were shortened and so the coach letters were changed, indicated with round EMR-style bodyside stickers rather than square VTEC/LNER ones. So, there are a few obvious external differences on the EMR coaches as compared to the VTEC/LNER ones; thus Hornby's current releases don't very accurately represent these coaches operating for EMR. I would very much like an EMR set next year, but I hope it doesn't arrive in the form of just a set of power cars to soak up the existing VTEC/LNER coaches.

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9 hours ago, scottrains29 said:

I bit and bought a full rake at less than £20 a coach. I strongly suspect they are not selling as it's near impossible to get the matching XC power cars. They sold out ages ago. Hornby really need to be improving the ratio of power cars to coaches to keep sales healthy. Had the power cars been available I would have happy paid more for the coaches.

 

Totally agree. I bought the XC power cars R3808 and a set of seven SD coaches (XC03) when they were first released, and if Hornby had subsequently released another set of XC power cars, I would have had that pair along with another full rake (XC01) of seven of the SD coaches (perfectly happily at the £30-35 mark of the coaches when they came out, as @scottrains29says). Sadly I think the window for this happening has passed now, and the coaches are confined to the bargain bins. Oddly though, it did happen with the Scotrail sets - originally (2019) one pair of power cars R3698 announced alongside enough coaches for two prototypical trains to be assembled, and then the following year (2020) another power car pair R3903 arrived.

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1 hour ago, scouse889 said:

 

As far as I am aware, the only discernible external difference between a VTEC HST and an LNER HST is the branding on the sides of the power cars. However, when the trains transferred to EMR, in addition to the power cars being rebranded again, the coaches had "EMR INTERCITY" added to their bodysides in quite large black lettering, and the sets were shortened and so the coach letters were changed, indicated with round EMR-style bodyside stickers rather than square VTEC/LNER ones. So, there are a few obvious external differences on the EMR coaches as compared to the VTEC/LNER ones; thus Hornby's current releases don't very accurately represent these coaches operating for EMR. I would very much like an EMR set next year, but I hope it doesn't arrive in the form of just a set of power cars to soak up the existing VTEC/LNER coaches.

I never saw much difference between VTEC and LNER on the coach exterior, agreed EMR branded was added, but only to some, many LNER coaches just continued as they were unbranded.
 

A modeller can quite easily adapt this.

 

I seem to recall they actually made effort for the last day/week rake to ensure they all have the branding on...as seen here.. that vinyl isnt 18month  old…

27E29D55-617F-40CC-B310-512EED5D5600.jpeg.a248f1f4a468ee1d14d51448ca264933.jpeg
for £320 on a new rake of EMr (exlner) coaches, I instead can just buy a railtec transfer and put them on one side of a few coaches… dont forget ex-LNER and Ex-EMT mixed for a few months to..

 

If Hornby did a 4th run of LNER red coaches, but with EMR branding on i’d think they may not succeed…

 

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24 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I never saw much difference between VTEC and LNER on the coach exterior, agreed EMR branded was added, but only to some, many LNER coaches just continued as they were unbranded.
 

A modeller can quite easily adapt this.

 

I seem to recall they actually made effort for the last day/week rake to ensure they all have the branding on...as seen here.. that vinyl isnt 18month  old…


for £320 on a new rake of EMr (exlner) coaches, I instead can just buy a railtec transfer and put them on one side of a few coaches… dont forget ex-LNER and Ex-EMT mixed for a few months to..

 

 

Interesting, it makes sense that there was a period of overlap with LNER/EMR, and yes the vinyl doesn't look 18 months old. I guess I was coming from the angle that all the pictures and videos I have ever seen of the EMR ex-LNER HSTs have been in 2+6 formation and all have had EMR branding on all the coaches, lettered between A-G (I forget which one was missing). But how long they ran like this and whether this represents all, most, some or not very much of their EMR operation I can't say.

I'm sure it would be very easy to adapt the current offerings to represent an EMR HST if one is that way inclined, but I am not in that camp of people. I would much rather spend my free time playing trains rather than detailing trains - not that I am saying there is anything wrong with wanting to do the latter, at the end of the day we all do whatever it is we do for pleasure; people should enjoy different aspects of the hobby, and it wouldn't do for us all to be the same. I think your original comment is also relevant here in that at least some people who wish to model an EMR set will have already aquired either the VTEC or LNER power cars and added an EMR Railtec transfer to them, plus whatever coaches they want.

So given all this, would the release of an EMR power car pair necessarily create a surge in demand for the existing LNER coaches, which is really the nub of the thing? It would probably shift some I'm sure, but my point is that I would be in the camp of people who were disappointed with that as a strategy, and would feel somewhat fobbed off (particularly if the power car pack turned out to be 43102/43274, which I think EMR took a bit more pride in how their train looked, and is all branded in all the photos/videos I have seen). I would most likely end up buying neither EMR power car pack nor more LNER coaches, but the more people who come to that conclusion the worse it is for the industry as a whole. So it depends on whether others feel the same. I might well be in the minority here, so it might turn out to be a very small camp - maybe even just a one-man tent?

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18 hours ago, Markwj said:

So is the existing tooling going to be used for the R40162 HST power car driving van trailer before it’s retired?

Guess only Hornby can tell us.

Hoping its the new tooled version. a 'cheap' way of getting an extra power car model (albeit unpowered)....!

It would be stupid coupled to otherwise cam-coupling vehicles if it retains the stupid bar arrangement. Then again technically it should be used with the new Mk4s as the Class 43 DVT specifically pre-dates the Mk4/DVT sets....

 

My only disappointment of the clips of the new tooled version is that they seem to be continuing with the plastic chassis in the Dummy car. I was really hoping it would end up as a fully weighted and unpowered (no motor/gears) offering so that, if one wants, it would be possible to have two powered power cars, without having to purchase two power/dummy sets.

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8 hours ago, scouse889 said:

 

I hope not, the Oxford coaches represent loco hauled coaches (Mark 3a/3b?) and not HST Mark 3s. As I understand it, there are lots of differences, e.g., perhaps one of the most obvious for a model viewed from above the roof hatches are different - three small rectangular ones on loco hauled stock and a single square one on the HST stock.

Also, a big one, because these are loco hauled coaches, there is no TGS coach in the Oxford range as this vehicle type is specific to the HST.

Again, if we are talking "the ultimate bells and whistles Rolls Royce" of an HST, which is the way Hornby present it, using the current Oxford coaches would be no better than the current Hornby/ex-Lima set-up. It would take us back to 1997 again, when Hornby re-tooled their HST Mark 3 to the current offering, but omitted the TGS.

But then again, nothing surprises me these days, so you may well be right!

 

On show at the Warley show was the Oxford rail mk3’s with the correct roof vent for the HST so it does look like they made a start on develop them. 

F2293AAB-EDE7-4576-AB05-BD9CFC6E9BC6.jpeg

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3 minutes ago, Cbpete said:

On show at the Warley show was the Oxford rail mk3’s with the correct roof vent for the HST so it does look like they made a start on develop them.

 

Oxford initially promised to do all the Mk3 variations, the problem is Oxford screwed up the tooling resulting in at least one major error and potentially other errors.  It was posted in one of the Accurascale threads that Hornby had considered using the Oxford tooling as a start for their sliding door Mk3 coaches but the errors were such that they couldn't.

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1 hour ago, G-BOAF said:

Hoping its the new tooled version. a 'cheap' way of getting an extra power car model (albeit unpowered)....!

It would be stupid coupled to otherwise cam-coupling vehicles if it retains the stupid bar arrangement. Then again technically it should be used with the new Mk4s as the Class 43 DVT specifically pre-dates the Mk4/DVT sets....

 

My only disappointment of the clips of the new tooled version is that they seem to be continuing with the plastic chassis in the Dummy car. I was really hoping it would end up as a fully weighted and unpowered (no motor/gears) offering so that, if one wants, it would be possible to have two powered power cars, without having to purchase two power/dummy sets.

This is a really good clue. 

"It would be stupid coupled to otherwise cam-coupling vehicles if it retains the stupid bar arrangement."

Not much point putting a cam coupling on the power cars to bogie mounted MK3s........

 

I think (hope) a new cam coupler MK3 slam door range is on the way! Going to be interesting to market all the current announced (2021) range, e.g. Blue Pullmans, if a new 2022 cam range is announced in Jan - unless they are migrated to the new design? _ 

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9 hours ago, adb968008 said:

The volume of LNER coaches is quite odd.

 

whilst there is VTEC HSTs power cars including locomotion, VTEC and 1xLNER all of these power cars are all now somewhat scarce, and releasing 1 set of coaches without a set of power cars at the time was quite odd.

 

The way to soak them up is EMR power cars at this point. though savvy modellers probably have their set already and just swap the power cars. EMR is already fading to memory so peak demand on these has passed, indeed I think peak HST demand is passed and Hornby sated it quite well.

That’s why I’m surprised at a retool, once EMR, 43102/272 and Blue Pullman are done the story is pretty much complete.

 

 

 

Regarding the VTEC Livery on these power cars, although EMR might now be passed it, I reckon it will still be worth Hornby producing another run in this livery as Colas Rail now has at least 6 of the ex EMR / LNER / VTEC Power Cars, Plus the 2 Now in use with NR on the NMT as well. It now means that this livery can be seen with VTEC on the East Coast, LNER on the East Coast (and Cross Country for rare hire-ins), EMR on the Midlands, Network Rail / Colas Rail with the NMT / PLPR trains - and giving Hornby another excuse to shift a run of Yellow Mk2 / Mk3s. 

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16 hours ago, frobisher said:

 

Any stock that is with a retailer is stock that Hornby HAVE made a profit on, regardless of how little profit that retailer might make with it eventually.

True, but unless the retailer has a very  short memory they'll be taking the stock stuck on the shelves into account when placing their next order with Hornby.

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4 hours ago, Cbpete said:

On show at the Warley show was the Oxford rail mk3’s with the correct roof vent for the HST so it does look like they made a start on develop them. 

F2293AAB-EDE7-4576-AB05-BD9CFC6E9BC6.jpeg

So does this mean the 'new' Hornby MkIII HST coaches will actuall be the wrongly-scaled Oxford versions complete with incorrect slope in underframe battery boxes?

Maybe better than another manufacturer really does a good job. A hash job with the coaches will not be a 'Rolls Royce' HST.... With almost any other loco if I don't like manufacturer X coaches, I can probably get Y or Z from elsewhere and it will be prototypical. The HST is different. Almost certainly paint and finish won't match sufficiently well between different manufacturers to make a convincing rake (unless you go with mis-matched Power Cars which would also be prototypical, e.g. IC Powercars and VT coaches, or Retro Powercars and FGW coaches...)

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29 minutes ago, G-BOAF said:

So does this mean the 'new' Hornby MkIII HST coaches will actuall be the wrongly-scaled Oxford versions complete with incorrect slope in underframe battery boxes?

 

Speculation obviously, but if anything I would expect Hornby would use the tooling they created for the sliding door Mk3's (assuming in part they were forward thinking enough to plan for it or it can be done anyway).

 

I doubt Hornby would use the Oxford tooling given they already rejected it once (for the sliding door version) - though anything could happen.

 

Though the other question would be if the sliding door Mk3 tooling is up to a high standard to compete with a competitor (I don't know having never seen the models).

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