Hornby Junior

[Martin_R]

Is this going to attract more youngsters into modelling railways?

 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/shop/all-sets/Hornby-junior.html

[No Decorum]

Is this going to attract more youngsters into modelling railways?

 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/shop/all-sets/Hornby-junior.html

Who knows? It’s a good try. Lots of accessories and reasonably priced. I’ve been wondering about one for the little ones which cluster around my legs. Unlike the starter sets, you don’t get rails which you can keep on using. Wagons would have more play value.

 

I find the idea of a fold-up card tunnel adding to the realism amusing.

[Wacol]

It may get them playing trains - the first step in a long journey.

[Phil Parker]

We saw this at the Toy Fair earlier this year.

 

 

 

 

 

By the look of it, the mountain has become a hill and a few extra elements have been added to the pack.

 

It's similar to the Marklin system. According to Hornby, the trains will run on OO track, but not through the points. No plans yet for extra plastic track (No idea if you could use the Marklin version which is available) but I'd be surprised if this doesn't appear in the future.

 

Now, who will be the first to P4 one?

[brushman47544]

Well I think it's a great idea. It looks like there will be a different (high speed?) train for each domestic market but the other contents will be the same.

[Wonderbolt]

This will but them head to head with the Marklin toy system, in fairness I think the Hornby unit looks better. Must be a relitivly viable product as the Marklin range is quite big.

[phil_sutters]

There have been plastic tracked sets in various sizes (I wouldn't use the term 'scale') available in places like Poundstretchers for quite a few years, especially in the run up to Christmas. The box art is often quite at odds with the content. One has a photo of a Southern M7 with relatively appropriate coaches in green, but inside is a crude American style steam tank loco, with a mixture of four-wheeled veranda coaches and American open wagons. 

It's difficult to know what grabs children's attention and gets them into railway modelling. I think the point about play potential is valid. We bought our boys a HST set when it first came out, but apart from going round and round there was nothing else to do with it. Neither grew up with any interest in railways - real or model. I quite liked helping build free-lance War Hammer afvs!

Edited June 9, 2017 by phil_sutters

[JeremyC]

This will but them head to head with the Marklin toy system, in fairness I think the Hornby unit looks better. Must be a relitivly viable product as the Marklin range is quite big.

I think Hornby have missed a trick compared to Marklin in not having a wireless remote control.

The Marklin marketing also seems slicker with the title 'My World' suggesting it's part of a system, not a stand-a-lone one off.

Edited June 8, 2017 by JeremyC

[28XX]

LJ popped into the workshop/gym/garage this afternoon and asked what was up my ladder. Well the proper answer is "Stourhampton" but I replied, "my toys". I doubt that answer will be enough to satisfy her curiosity for long, so I may dig out my stash of Super 4 Track and some 1960s wagons. Does anyone know of a battery powered 00 locomotive for 4 year olds, apart from the above?

[Chrisr40]

I think Hornby have missed a trick compared to Marklin in not having a wireless remote control.

The Marklin marketing also seems slicker with the title 'My World' suggesting it's part of a system, not a stand-a-lone one off.

My two boys had similar sets to this from Fisher price I think but they always wanted to go on my layout because there was a controller with buttons and knobs. Nice try but its not really much different from what's available in lots of pound shops up and down the country.

[Hroth]

Looking at the bottom of the box, under "Battery Operated" it says "Adult assembly required".  Ok, this probably refers to the batteries, but it sends mixed messages to parents.

 

Its been noted above that the Marklin offering is wireless controlled, but what you also have to factor in is that as well as the working headlight that Hornby offers, the Marklin train also has sound effects and magnetic coupling, rather than a fragile bit of plastic.  Hornby wants £40 for this, its possible to find the Marklin set for about £15 more.  If I were in the market for a starter train set, I think I'd gravitate towards the competition....

 

So. Apart from a P4 upgrade, who's going to be first to put decent couplings on one, and perhaps add some realistic weathering?

[ruggedpeak]

I assume the Hornby set is likely to end up in high street stores that don't stock a niche brand like Marklin eg Argos, John Lewis etc

 

I also think clockwork is due a resurgence. It has far more interactive value then a simple electronic device.

[brushman47544]

I also think clockwork is due a resurgence. It has far more interactive value then a simple electronic device.

If it is, then I think there needs to be a better design than a big keyhole in the side of the loco to wind it up.

[cal.n]

Surprised they haven't branded at as a 'pendolino', 'azuma' or even a HST because Hornby has the rights for that and it would make it stand out and become a little less 'generic'.

[Coryton]

I'm rather disappointed by this, and I would definitely recommend the Marklin "equivalent" instead to anyone considering getting this.

 

The Hornby offering looks like a generic, non-extendable "train set" with a mark-up because it has the Hornby name.

 

Consider the differences from the Marklin system (the "toy-like" battery powered "My World" trains)

 

Marklin: runs on regular H0/00 track including points. Hornby: apparently doesn't do points.

Marklin: Very robust track. You can dent it by putting a chair leg on it and sitting down, but robust against being walked on. Hornby: Doesn't look all that strong to me.

Marklin: fairly cheap track extension packs available - straights, curves and points, and track diagrams on offer. Hornby: no sign of expansion (OK early days yet, maybe later? I suspect not though.)

Marklin: Chunky magnetic couplings. Very easy to use by small children. Hornby: Couplings look fiddlier and more fragile

Marklin: Four-wheel vehicles. Hornby: Bogies. So Hornby is more realistic - but this is for 4 year olds and up (3 years for Marklin). Re-railing a 4 wheel vehicle is a lot easier, AND the Marklin vehicles look a lot more robust. Not sure how well the Hornby ones will take to being trodden on. 

Marklin: Caricatures of real rolling stock but highly recognisable (though apart from Eurostar nothing for the UK...yet). Hornby: Neither livery nor shape look particularly like anything from the UK (or elsewhere?) More detailed, but therefore more fragile by the look of it

Marklin: Remote controlled (albeit infrared) with lights and sound. Multiple speeds, forwards and backwards. Hornby: Looks like one speed, one direction, no remote control.

Running a train round and round a loop can get dull after a while, but if you can remotely start it, stop it, run it backwards, sound the horn, make announcements and put the headlight on before going through a "tunnel", then it gets more fun (even - for a little while - for an adult). Even more so with two linked sets and cross-overs and/or points, getting two trains to not crash (or, if you prefer, to crash - they won't come off the worse for it).

Marklin: Various different sets and extra rolling stock and accessories. Hornby: Nothing yet by the look of it.

Also: on the more recent Marklin trains you can disengage the driving wheels from the motor and make it push-along if the users prefer.

 

Overall these look like two very different things.

 

Now I know that the Marklin offering has been around for a while and it is perhaps unfair to criticise Hornby's lack of expansion packs and other rolling stock. But this doesn't look to me like the start of a range, it looks like an existing set that's had the Hornby name slapped on it, whereas the Marklin range looks as if a lot of thought has gone into it. The models are as realistic as they can reasonably be while making the compromises that make them robust toys suitable for young children, while still having the recognition factor. 

 

I have watched the Marklin range expand with interest. You might be able to guess from what I've written that I'm rather a big fan.

 

I had high hopes that Hornby could do something similar. It appears not.

 

Interestingly, Marklin also use the "My World" brand for their equivalent of Railroad - possibly deliberate to encourage a move upwards? There is even an adaptor car between proper HO couplings and magnetic ones. They seem to have set out to build a path from toys to a first model railway. Will the Hornby set do this? Not in the same way, I think. A shame.

 

I wonder Hornby's license for "Thomas" models would extend to this. If so, perhaps this is a missed opportunity. A Thomas set built along the lines of the Marklin trains would do very well, I would have thought.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

We saw this at the Toy Fair earlier this year.

Yes. I'm a bit surprised, given everything, that it saw the light of day.

 

I guess they had committed (sunk) investment into the product and need to recover that. Hopefully they will sell a lot of them. They will need to to break even on this investment.

 

Other than one or two, 'to see how it goes' retailers should probably stay away from this. This one will sell through the likes of Argos or Toys R Us.

Edited June 10, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[Coryton]

Yes. I'm a bit surprised, given everything, that it saw the light of day.

 

I guess they had committed (sunk) investment into the product and need to recover that. 

 

 

Hmm.

 

Maybe they have tooled up something completely new.

 

On the other hand they might be taking someone's existing product, paying for a run in a vaguely British looking livery (yellow front) and packaging it up themselves with a few bits of cardboard.

 

I would have guessed the latter, considering the photos above showing a train based on no recognizable British prototype and with an "FS" logo on the front.

 

And a quick internet search on Italian high speed trains suggests an ETR 500 as the prototype, which then let me find this:

https://www.amazon.it/Motorama-502552-Freccia-Rossa-Batteria/dp/B0130OUKMA

which has a rather familiar look.

 

(With 10 out of 13 reviews giving it one star, a price of Euro 18 and a note that they won't ship to the UK....)

 

I don't like to be too negative - it's easy to criticise how someone else runs a company when you don't have to make the decisions yourself, but it's possible that while this might do well enough in the short term, selling a poor toy train at around twice the going price because it has some bits of cardboard in and the Hornby name on might not be so good for the brand.

 

It's been said on rmweb before that no matter what happens the Hornby brand will survive. I'm sure it will...but I'd hate to see it end up used to exclusively sell things like this that sell because everybody knows that Hornby is the name for toy trains.

[Steamport Southport]

Isn't the Italian one European N gauge though?

 

 

 

Jason

[Coryton]

Isn't the Italian one European N gauge though?

 

 

Ah. I saw what I thought was the same set elsewhere as 1:87 at a similar price and assumed the scale was an error on Amazon's part.

 

But it seems there are different sets from the same company.

 

The HO one is around Euro 40 (though for a 4, not 3 coach train) and has much better reviews on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.it/Mac-Due-Motorama-497384-Batteria/dp/B005JRILFA

 

The HO one I came across before at Euro 15 has one power car and one coach and just a circle of track.

https://www.amazon.it/Motorama-502545-Freccia-Rossa-Batteria/dp/B0130OUCSW/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys&ie=UTF8&qid=1497100406&sr=1-1&keywords=Motorama+-+Treno+Freccia+Rossa+a+Batteria+1

 

So I was being a bit unfair.

 

But now I'm very confused because I've just seen this:

https://www.amazon.it/Lima-HL1401-Treno-Batteria-Frecciarossa/dp/B00NPXNILC/ref=pd_sim_21_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=P7W574KHH1YJDNM7705C

 

Something very similar seems to be already in stock and with reviews, under the Lima brand.

 

So maybe I was jumping to conclusions, the Motorama sets are a red herring, and the reason the Hornby Junior set in the Toy Show looked Italian was because Hornby had already come out with this with their Lima brand.

 

Either way, it strongly suggests no new tooling for the UK version...and the RRP of the Lima one, with four coaches, seems to be Euro 25...

[Steamport Southport]

I think the Lima one looks about right.

 

Strange the varied reviews though. It's either one star, mediocre or it's Bellissimo (beautiful) and Buon Treno (good train).

 

 

 

Jason

[Phil Parker]

Yes. I'm a bit surprised, given everything, that it saw the light of day.

 

I guess they had committed (sunk) investment into the product and need to recover that. Hopefully they will sell a lot of them. They will need to to break even on this investment.

 

Other than one or two, 'to see how it goes' retailers should probably stay away from this. This one will sell through the likes of Argos or Toys R Us.

 

There has been quite a gestation. This was on the stand in 2016.

 

 

Several other items from Airfix shown that year have never appeared, although I've been told they are "delayed".

[HonestTom]

Hornby's made a few attempts at the kiddie market over the years, but apart from Thomas and (sort of) Railroad, none of them seem to have really stuck.

 

My suggestion for a range like this would be to start with something with more play value - a caricatured Class 66 with a couple of container wagons and a container crane to enable loading and unloading, maybe a container lorry. Expand the range with playsets like a dockside (with container ship), a scrapyard (with open wagons), oil depot (with tanker) and other industries along those lines. Include figures as well. This would enable kids to actually play with the trains, rather than just run them round and round, and it would be educational. By sticking to modern image, they could produce the same items in several liveries for different markets. The aim would be to give the kids something to play with while nurturing an interest in real life railway operations. Maybe later add passenger trains, stations etc. As with Marklin, maybe make it remote controlled to make shunting easier and more realistic.

 

It seems odd that Hornby is going for such a basic set when Brio, Tomica and Marklin have all produced toy trains along similar lines with much larger play potential.

[rue_d_etropal]

I wonder if anyone has noticed that Hornby are actually working with Marklin, or have at least license Marklin to market the Hornby Thomas range ioutside the UK under the Marklin label. I only found it by chance when I was looking for something online.

I have not seen anything official about this though, just do a search on ebay for Markin Thomas. They even try to describe it as HO!

 

It does seem odd that the new Hornby models won't go through points, that really is pointless!!!!

Edited June 13, 2017 by rue_d_etropal

[Legend]

Hornby's made a few attempts at the kiddie market over the years, but apart from Thomas and (sort of) Railroad, none of them seem to have really stuck.

 

My suggestion for a range like this would be to start with something with more play value - a caricatured Class 66 with a couple of container wagons and a container crane to enable loading and unloading, maybe a container lorry. Expand the range with playsets like a dockside (with container ship), a scrapyard (with open wagons), oil depot (with tanker) and other industries along those lines. Include figures as well. This would enable kids to actually play with the trains, rather than just run them round and round, and it would be educational. By sticking to modern image, they could produce the same items in several liveries for different markets. The aim would be to give the kids something to play with while nurturing an interest in real life railway operations. Maybe later add passenger trains, stations etc. As with Marklin, maybe make it remote controlled to make shunting easier and more realistic.

 

It seems odd that Hornby is going for such a basic set when Brio, Tomica and Marklin have all produced toy trains along similar lines with much larger play potential.

While I suspect capital or cash to develop a new range is tight, I have to agree with the above. No doubt this is intended to be a low cost product to get into the likes of Smyths or Toys r Us , but I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

 

Who really gets excited by a battery train going round in circles these days. It might have worked in the 60s but not with today's sophisticated youngsters. If I can go to Mankind and buy a drone that is controlled by my iPhone for less than £50 , should this trainset not be remote control like the Marklin ones? And as Tom has pointed out something with a bit more play value like a Container wagon with container transferable onto a lorry or ship would have been more exciting.

 

This could then lead onto a revamped Railroad range with 66, HST , 156 all in today's colour schemes with container trucks and same lorries and boats. Leading people onto main range.

 

But I'm afraid as a stand alone item, this does not have potential , costs more than Marklin and has much less functionality.

[rue_d_etropal]

I do wonder if everyone is looking in the wrong direction here. the Marklin connection is relevant. Marklin labelled Hornby Thomas suggests to me a connection. The lack of publicity on this suggests they are trying to keep it quiet.

Now As someone who models in a large range of scales I think I see a broader picture emerging.

At the moment Bachmann have the license to produce Thomas in G gauge. Marklin have the biggest G gauge company under their wings, namely LGB, and maybe Hornby and Marklin are going to try to get the G gauge license for Thomas.

As to why Hornby are producing a relatively poor quality battery train set, not really that much better than what can be bought in cheap shops, I do not know. It would make far more sence to actually market the Marklin My World with a Hornby label.