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2014 Hornby Announcements


Andy Y

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The likes of Heljan and Dapol work on much smaller volumes and generally higher end prices.

 

That's a very big generalisation, especially if you look at some of the Hornby and Dapol prices.

I'm sure Heljan and Dapol would happily produce larger volumes if the market was there... why wouldn't they?

Have to agree a Class 86/87/90 to the standard of the Bachmann 85 would, I believe, be very popular. Especially if a catenary system appeared.

 

 

Everyone's excited now, but this time next year you'll all be groaning because nothings been delivered, and 'where are all the Hornby models' threads will proliferate... 

 

Apologies if I missed it, but in all previous years, the Hornby new items were all given actual release dates in quarter years. Qtr 1, Qtr 2 etc.

Has this important information been given out, if only so that shops and customers can budget/plan?

It is a very ambitious programme for 12 months. Only hope it all comes to fruit.

 

Regards

Igor

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.... Love the idea of releasing a Crosti 9F but why oh why does it have to be in the railroad range :angry:  and it needs to be weathered as well.

If it wasn't Railroad-grade, we'd have the "why oh why do we have to pay more than £(insert your figure here) for it?" instead.

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Bachmann Farish are on record as saying ACs sell badly (and yet there's new liveries produced each and every year, so perhaps more a case of doesn't sell as well as the better selling items...).

 

Bachmann then produced the 85 in 00...

 

Which appears to have sold not so badly after all (one livery going to an A reissue in the second year joined by a more representative livery variant than the one marked poor seller).

 

So, hmm. I suspect Hornby are sitting on making money from the old rope rather than taking a risk.

 

The Farish AC electrics are all old models though, so not a fair comparison.

 

On the other hand, Hattons seem to have a number of Dapol 86s discounted which rarely happens with Dapol diesel locos so clearly they haven't sold that well.

 

But then again, N and OO are different markets - the Dapol 67026 in the Royal silver livery is still available from the German company which commissioned, many months after it became available, but the Hornby limited edition of 500 (more than is generally in a Dapol N-gauge batch, as I understand it) is now going for silly money on ebay.

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Guest Belgian

On the Hornby website, looking at the details of some of the new locomotives it appears that either the bodies or boilers are diecast; is this the radical change hinted at? The ghost of Binns Road rides again!

The metal body has only so far appeared in the EP of the 700 (unless you've seen things that I haven't) and that can be seen as a logical follow up to the 6 or 7 year old T9 which has been unique in that period as being a Hornby model with a metal boiler. Perhaps the other tiny 0-6-0 (the J15) and 4-4-0 (The Claude) will also have metal boilers.

 

JE

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I see that Hattons is not discounting the new Hornby releases much. For instance Hornby's recommended retail price of the Drummond 700 is £109.99 whereas Hattons is offering them at £101.90. My nearest shop on a preserved railway offers a 10% discount for life members so it will be cheaper for them to buy models there.

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Bachmann Farish are on record as saying ACs sell badly (and yet there's new liveries produced each and every year, so perhaps more a case of doesn't sell as well as the better selling items...).

 

Bachmann then produced the 85 in 00...

 

Which appears to have sold not so badly after all (one livery going to an A reissue in the second year joined by a more representative livery variant than the one marked poor seller).

 

So, hmm. I suspect Hornby are sitting on making money from the old rope rather than taking a risk.

And will carry on doing so for as long as they can. The tooling costs must have been written down to virtually nothing by now which means these models show a good return compared to something all-new.  

 

The 2014 versions of the top-spec diesels have r.r.p's in the region of £150. Any all-singing-and-dancing new electrics would inevitably occupy similar territory and the degree of price-sensitivity in the 25kV electric market relative to more familiar segments is uncertain.

 

Hornby will have a lot more information than us on which to base such decisions and, at least for now, they clearly think there are better investment choices.

 

John

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Apologies if I missed it, but in all previous years, the Hornby new items were all given actual release dates in quarter years. Qtr 1, Qtr 2 etc.

No delivery dates have been published this year; when Hornby have got on top of supply issues they will hopefully be able to give indications into the year. It was testing enough before but if you're using six factories with variables in each it's a bit like playing snakes and ladders; until someone's won you don't know which will get there first.

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Guest Belgian

Did anyone else notice that the pic on the front of the Gloucester train pack is a Britannia numbered 71000 with red Duke of Gloucester nameplates? Not reading anything into that....it's just a bit odd!

 

 

Iain

 That's very odd, as in the picture on MRE it is definately a DoG on the box, otherwise it's identical. As Alice said, 'curiouser and curiouser . . .'.

 

JE

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How can it be 'a bit unique'. Unique means there is only one of them, so something either is unique or it isn't - there's no degrees of uniqueness (and in this case, it isn't the only 31 in this livery so is not unique)!

"The Ferrari leading the race is unique, apart from the one behind which is identical"

 

Murray Walker attrib

 

Keith

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Some interesting stuff. Nothing that really leaps out at me as being a must-have, at least not for my current project. But I started out modelling LNER, and I've got a back-of-my-mind plan to do something based in my homeland of the Fens. So the J15 and D16 have piqued my interest, certainly.

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Guest Belgian

Another little anomoly (I keep finding them - it just shows how anal I am!), I see that some of the new mainstream locomotives have 3-pole motors with flywheels whilst some Railroad ones have 5 pole skew-wound ones. I thought the latter was considered to be a superior piece of engineering in the past and that one of the differences described last year in the 'Design Clever' phase was that Railroad models would have 3-pole flywheel motors and mainstream would have skew-wound 5-polers. Now it's all reversed!! (In USA N gauge, most locomotives have 5-pole skew-wound notors with two flywheels .  . . go figure!)

 

JE

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I see that Hattons is not discounting the new Hornby releases much. For instance Hornby's recommended retail price of the Drummond 700 is £109.99 whereas Hattons is offering them at £101.90. My nearest shop on a preserved railway offers a 10% discount for life members so it will be cheaper for them to buy models there.

 

Just had a look - 194 quid for a paid of HST power cars and over 400 quid for a complete set (2+8 )! :O given that the tooling has already probably paid for itself, this is a pretty steep increase -  I've generally paid in the region of 100-120 for new-tooling power cars. Not quite sure how an increase of not far short of 100% in some cases can be justified!

 

I assumed that the blue-and-grey power cars were the ones already announced, but according to Hattons they are additional - is there enough demand for two batches in the same livery, given that there has already been one batch? The initial batch didn't sell out that quickly, and although now fetching a fair bit on ebay the prices are well short of what the FGW ones are fetching.

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If it wasn't Railroad-grade, we'd have the "why oh why do we have to pay more than £(insert your figure here) for it?" instead.

 

But you are.the retail price is £119 more in line with mainstream range, while Evening Star is £84. I think it's there for no other reason than the existing 9f is there. But really it just shows how deep a muddle Hornby is in

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A decent catenary system would kick start AC loco and EMU models

 

Out of interest does anyone know how well OHLE and associated traction sells on the Continent? Sorry to slightly off topic on this.

Much smaller markets have most if not all of their electrics up to modern standards. They have a lot of modern EMUs too.

Just one manufacturer link

Hornby international Jouef

Hornby international Rivarossi

Hornby international Electrotren

Hornby international Lima

.. and many more.

So, yeah. Pretty much we are the worst when it cames to anything electric.

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I wish Hornby the best of luck - they'll certainly be getting some of my money for the new steam locos, although I doubt if I have the confidence to order in advance, just in case any design-clever elements sneak in. I am surprised that there's no double-chimney Castle with a Hawksworth tender, or BR green Schools with the original chimney, or a late-crest King Arthur with 6-wheeled tender. I guess I'll just have to wait another year. I wonder of the old tooling for the Lima 94xx is broken, as I felt sure that it would appear in Railroad guise as some point?

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But you are.the retail price is £119 more in line with mainstream range, while Evening Star is £84. I think it's there for no other reason than the existing 9f is there. But really it just shows how deep a muddle Hornby is in

 

Is it railroad?

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That's a very big generalisation, especially if you look at some of the Hornby and Dapol prices.

I'm sure Heljan and Dapol would happily produce larger volumes if the market was there... why wouldn't they?

Because they've scaled their business around smaller production batches? It allows them to produce a wider range of livery etc. variations compared to Hornby and Bachmann, and it's why Heljan in particular had favoured models in the past with a multitude of potential liveries.

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