2021 hopes

[Dunsignalling]

16 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

Less dangerous, as well. 

 

My theory is that if you are old enough and have sufficient no-claims to be able to afford to insure a fast car, there's not much point...

My preference has always been for "sleepers" with bags of go in bodywork that people don't expect to contain it....

 

John

 

To avoid any doubt, the principle can be extended to women as well as cars....

Edited December 23, 2020 by Dunsignalling

[Gibbo675]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

My first train set was a Triang...................................................................................................xmas market for train sets with big fast glamour stock.

 

I have never felt the need to overcompensate by buying a sports car. 

Hi Johnster,

 

That last line really was worth the read, it made me chuckle somewhat.

 

Gibbo.

[TomScrut]

32 minutes ago, mdvle said:

One of the false assumptions frequently made is that the only market for a new model is people upgrading from an existing model.

 

I agree with most of what you're saying TBH, the bit above I was not assuming most sales are upgrades, but upgrades are a way of creating growth as otherwise when you're already the market leader for a particular product (which Hornby are with the A4) then you're just stealing sales from yourself a lot of the time. (I do know that in the case of a metal chassis it would be another growth creation). Most of my purchases are hoarding rather than replacing 

 

But in the case of normal models this is why we have all these conversations on here about "X needs an upgrade" but in reality other than people such as yourself with the 50 putting your money where your mouth is and not buying, it would just literally be stealing sales off the old model in most cases and therefore the small gains probably aren't worth it. Which I think is what you're getting at in that case.

 

And for the record, I'd probably have a metal P2, A1, A3 or A4 depending on what number and livery it was. This isn't a subject I am particularly fussy about as I like most big LNER stuff, I am just playing devil's advocate to an extent.

 

Maybe a more interesting question in fact might be that IF they did an A1/3 or A4 would they go with usual suspects Flying Scotsman/Mallard or something different? I'd expect those two to be excellent from a collector's perspective but I would think a lot of the modelling/layout market would already have at least one model of them if it's their thing. Since a model of each is on my long term shopping list I'd probably be pleased with them doing that!

[TomScrut]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Well, of course, there are people with sports cars who are sports car enthusiasts and I'm not accusing them of overcompensating, but stating that I have never felt the need to overcompensate with a sports car, probably because I'm not really interested in sports cars. 

 

Exactly, and I know you didn't originate the subject.

 

It's just a lot of people automatically assume that somebody with a sports car/expensive watch/designer whatever/20 bedroom house have bought it simply to show off/overcompensate for some other shortcoming they might have.

 

In reality I expect a lot of people actually have these things because they like nice stuff and they enjoy it. I aren't denying vanity purchases happen (I think they will a LOT), but I don't assume that is the case.

 

This is one of the few hobbies I have had over the years where there don't seem to be people who see it all as a competition, or if there are I haven't encountered any and I do find it better for being like this. Well, I say that, we are all in competition to get what we want making made (bringing it back to the topic ) but I meant more who has the most/biggest/best.

Edited December 23, 2020 by TomScrut
Double negative

[Hilux5972]

2 hours ago, TomScrut said:

 

And you're suggesting that a P2 wouldn't be a popular model? Especially given they are building a new one?

 

I am more thinking that somebody with a £100 OK P2 is more likely to want to spend £250+ on a mega new one than somebody with £160 already brilliant A1/3/4s.

 

TBH whatever they do will probably sell well I just thought a P2 was maybe going to plug a market gap more than yet another A4 (for example) where there are already 4 in the market I think.

Compare the 2 classes. A class of 6 with many many variations between the 6 locos, involving multiple tooling variations that would inevitably drive the price higher still, or a class of 35 locos with minor variations pretty much limited to double or single chimneys. 

[Hilux5972]

1 hour ago, G-BOAF said:

I'm biased as I have all my required preserved A4s and spares.... BUT I really don't see major improvements in a retooled A4. The rebuilt W1 does not seem to be any finer than the A4, except in some minor aspects like the bogie (with has provision for a front coupling). This a) shows how good the current A4 is (although the tooling needs some repairs in the Cab roof area) and b) that even a new tooled model that is very similar is not actually better.

We aren’t talking about retooling the A4. It definitely is one of the best available, since Dapols Black Label seems to be out of stock everywhere. We are talking of the possible introduction of a metal bodied version like the Duchess was. It was said further back that engine shed said the “reintroduction of Hornby Dublo” leading to thoughts that the brand could be expanded with further metal bodied locos under the dublo name. 

[Gibbo675]

35 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

Exactly, and I know you didn't originate the subject.

 

It's just a lot of people automatically assume that somebody with a sports car/expensive watch/designer whatever/20 bedroom house have bought it simply to show off/overcompensate for some other shortcoming they might have.

 

In reality I expect a lot of people actually have these things because they like nice stuff and they enjoy it. I aren't denying vanity purchases happen (I think they will a LOT), but I don't assume that is the case.

 

This is one of the few hobbies I have had over the years where there don't seem to be people who see it all as a competition, or if there are I haven't encountered any and I do find it better for being like this. Well, I say that, we are all in competition to get what we want making made (bringing it back to the topic ) but I meant more who has the most/biggest/best.

Hi Tom,

 

Just remember, non of it loves you back, and when you croak it will all end up in landfill anyway !

 

Its only a big silly game we play, that said I've got three Ducatis and a KTM because cars are for girls, Ha ! Ha !

 

Gibbo.

[TomScrut]

10 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Tom,

 

Just remember, non of it loves you back, and when you croak it will all end up in landfill anyway !

 

Its only a big silly game we play, that said I've got three Ducatis and a KTM because cars are for girls, Ha ! Ha !

 

Gibbo.

 

Definitely not! And I don't have a sports car for the record it's just I find it strange how people judge somebody on what they have spent their (hard earned a lot of the time) money on.

 

23 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

We aren’t talking about retooling the A4. It definitely is one of the best available

 

No but in terms of the body (which is a decent proportion of the detail of the loco) it is a retool meaning that essentially it would be regarded accordingly I think.

 

30 minutes ago, Hilux5972 said:

Compare the 2 classes. A class of 6 with many many variations between the 6 locos, involving multiple tooling variations that would inevitably drive the price higher still, or a class of 35 locos with minor variations pretty much limited to double or single chimneys. 

 

Weirdly enough I nearly put that exact piece in my own reply to @mdvle saying my argument about the P2 sorta shoots itself in the foot with variations but I felt I'd said enough really. So yes I do agree having considered that aspect of it.

[DutyDruid]

21 hours ago, rovex said:

Does Hornby make more money on these big locos than on the small ones?

 

I can't think of any other reason why they churn out all these Pacific's when most modellers have small layouts and can make more use of smaller tank and tender locos.

 

You would be surprised.

 

One of my co-presenters from MRTV had a "thing" going at one time.  He would buy wood, track and track mats and build "train sets" to order on boards that were just the right size for the track mat (just a bit bigger than 6 x 4), build the set up and sell it - not for children - but for adults in the 55+ age range who lacked the skills to do it themselves to go in their garden sheds or conservatories. 

 

Most of the sets he built had a RailRoad Flying Scot going one way and a RailRoad Mallard going the other, both with 3 mainline coaches...

 

I used to go with him to deliver them because I had a suitable trailer to carry the things.  When we would talk to the customer about maybe having a smaller engine and some trucks they usually said that they weren't interested because that wasn't a proper train set.

 

As I said somewhere else in this frothfest, what pays Hornby's bills are the train sets and a seriously large number of their customers - event the adults - don't think about these things in the way that we  on this forum do.

[DutyDruid]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

My preference has always been for "sleepers" with bags of go in bodywork that people don't expect to contain it....

 

John

 

To avoid any doubt, the principle can be extended to women as well as cars....

I once saw a split screen Morris Minor that had had the 945 side valve engine surgically removed and a 1998 Dolomite Sprint engine transplanted under the hood.  To be fair, if you looked at it end on you realised that something had been done to the suspension and it had somewhat fatter tyres - but at a quick glance it wasn't that obvious...

[TravisM]

I must admit that Hornby continually churn out A3 Flying Scotsman and A4 Mallard in huge numbers in both RR, full fat and in sets, which I don’t have a issue with as they basically pay Hornby’s bills.

 

I’d like to see Hornby would do the survivors with made it into 1965/66, such as A3’s 60041 Salmon Trout, 60100 Spearmint and 60052 Prince Palatine; as well as A4’s 60004 William Whitelaw, 60024 Kingfisher and 60034 Lord Farringdon which met the gas axe.

 

I know they’ve probably been done but it would great to see them in their mid 60’s grubby condition.  I believe that 60024 nearly made it but 60009 was chosen instead because it was in slightly better condition, though they swopped tenders.

[wombatofludham]

Aaanyways - 12 days and counting.  I'm not expecting anything, so that if they do decide to announce, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, an AL1 (because it is old Triang Hornby territory after all and we know how possessive Hornby are...), or miracles of miracles, a WCML overhead electric multiple unit, I'll be hapus fel mochyn mewn cachu, but if, as I expect, most of the announcements are of large tea kettles from before I was even swimming round my late father's happy sacks, my expectations won't have been dashed.

Pessimists are never disappointed.

[TomScrut]

12 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

Aaanyways - 12 days and counting.

 

Wow it's coming round quickly isn't it!

[CazRail]

6 minutes ago, TomScrut said:

 

Wow it's coming round quickly isn't it!

Still feels a world away with Christmas and New Years to go through first!

[TomScrut]

5 minutes ago, CazRail said:

Still feels a world away with Christmas and New Years to go through first!

 

Yeah that's what I meant really. As in it seems a long way away but it's not really and will be on us quickly!

 

I am off that week so at least I can sit and watch it on the edge of my seat instead of having to look at the thread on here to see how badly my wallet will fare!

[Pacific231G]

6 hours ago, The Johnster said:

My first train set was a Triang (I'm not quite old enough for pure Rovex) Black Princess and even at the age of 4 I was aware of it's literal shortcomings and the unrealistic curves.  Next xmas brought a 748 Saddle tank and some goods vehicles (cattle van, dropside steel medium, and toad), some extra track and two turnouts, and this was probably the single most influential moment in my modelling history.  748 looked much more at home than Princess Elizabeth on the curves, and I discovered shunting.  Future layouts build by dad during my childhood all featured an outer circuit that a passenger train could be left to it's own devices on, an inner circuit with sidings off it, and a trailing crossover. 

 

I still favour smaller locos and went for end to end layouts with lots of shunting as soon as I realised they were a thing, when I was about 12 or 13 and started taking MRC (CJL, you have a lot to answer for, but thanks!).  I suppose that, for a first train set, the big fast glamour stuff is what people who are not necessarily enthusiasts recognize but, really, who wants FS and 2 coaches/a 3 car Eurostar, or whatevs, going back to HD 3-rail Duchesses and A4s, when all they do is go round and round.  Then you can take them off the track and make them go round and round the other way. Then you can do it slowly, with one coach, pushing one coach and pulling another, or light engine, and you have now exhuasted your play value; the thing gets put in it's box, stowed in the attic, and 60 years later you approach me in the pub because you know I'm into this stuff and ask me how much it'll go for on the 'Bay, to be a bit irritated when I tell you that you can't give away Duchess of Montose tinplate 3 rail; 'but there was one on 'Going For A Song' that went for thousands the other day, and I'd never even heard of it, Bassett Loco or something...'.

 

Play value turns into serious prototypical operating and is best achieved with a small loco, few wagons but at least one open, and at least one preferably two sidings.  A bit of imagination (and kids are good at that) about loads and your train can be carrying anything from anywhere to anywhere for any reason.  This will probably be steam based and there may well be some of those awful Hornby 4-wheel coaches, but current image can wait until the kid is a bit older, has developed a prototypical interest, and can make informed decisions; even  then, Eurostars will not be the best use of space in most cases.

 

But nothing I have said or written on this point in the last 60 years will prevent parents with the best intentions buying Hornby train sets for  their anklebiters at xmas and going for FS, Eurostar, etc, when Smokey Joe is a better bet.  To be fair to Hornby, they are trying to use the Covid situation to market 'family fun project' stuff which addresses this and is far more likely to lead to serious modelling, and will be proper family fun even if it doesn't, but they would be idiots not to pander to the xmas market for train sets with big fast glamour stock.

 

I have never felt the need to overcompensate by buying a sports car. 

Hi Johnster

Had you or your Dad by any chance just read Alan Wright's "Wright Lines" article when you went down that much more fruitful road? It's just that a loop with two sidings, a small loco and some wagons sounds like a very similar layout.

My own first layout in the mid 1950s  was Hornby Dublo with a Dutchess of Atholl two coaches and a couple of wagons. It was bought second hand so was properly mounted on a 5x3ft baseboard complete with wire in tube to control the three points from a "proper" lever frame. As my grandfather was a signalman this was a feature that I really liked but the trackplan was an oval with a reversing loop (HD 3 rail so no electrical issues)  and a single siding. This was fairly useless as all you could do was ti run the train round the oval anticlockwise, take it over the reverse  curve once and then run it clockwise. I suppose I  could have backed it over the reverse but my three or four year old mind didn't quite grasp that. 

It's interesting that Loco-Revue's crowdfunded Train in'Box ends up as a circuit with a passing loop and a blind siding running through the scenery from a choice of French regions but that's more a beginner's model railway, somewhat marketed as a family project, than a traditional train set. The box contains literally everything needed to build the layout which uses die cut card for the baseboard and trackbed,  Peco flexible track,  card building kits and everything from  flock to PVA to put it together. I think the idea of this was to encourage the hobby by taking would be railway modellers through every step to building a first - and probably somewhat disposable- layout. I've often wondered whether the tradiional train set with its loop of track and the train going round and round and doing nothing else actually put more youngsters off the hobby than it encouraged. Perhaps a different story from the Hornby 0 gauge tinplate that preceded the electric train set. In the following years I certainly got a lot more satisfaction from my Meccano set.

Edited December 23, 2020 by Pacific231G

[Chris56057]

Just more 56's please, that is all. 

[Marcoblanco]

Redo the 08 with lights and stay alive!! Gotta get radical Hornby !! Everyone else is moving ahead!!

[adb968008]

5 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Tom,

 

Just remember, non of it loves you back, and when you croak it will all end up in landfill anyway !

 

Its only a big silly game we play, that said I've got three Ducatis and a KTM because cars are for girls, Ha ! Ha !

 

Gibbo.

trains impress the ladies.

my wife and I met due to a conversation about Poznan station toilets.

She impressed me further about stories of bunking school to ride pociag ozobowy (slow trains.. ie steam hauled services from Krakow).

 

I duly responded on one of our first dates by taking her from Pickering to Whitby, including walking her in the rain from Goathland to Pickering to watch 4771 fail.

 

And to go whole circle, my 10 year old daughter loves saturday morning adventures to watch ballast trains, shes miffed with me seeing 66709 (Sorrento) a few weeks back without her.. it was 130am..I do set some limits.

 

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, wombatofludham said:

Pessimists are never disappointed.

O yes we are; you'd be surprised how often it turns out even worse than you'd expected!

 

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Had you or your Dad by any chance just read Alan Wright's "Wright Lines" article when you went down that much more fruitful road? It's just that a loop with two sidings, a small loco and some wagons sounds like a very similar layout.

No; I didn't do any model railway reading before taking out a subscription to MRC in 1965 when I was 13, but I did have some knowledge gleaned through 'Airfix Magazine'.  Dad was not into railways at all, and would if I had not badgered him have simply made the oval bigger over time with more tunnels and scenery.  He understood the attraction of two trains passing each other, but shunting was beyond his ability to comprehend.  As I say, 748 put me on the right track, and the Jinty did  the same for most of my mates, or the R1 for the Dubloites.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

I've often wondered whether the tradiional train set with its loop of track and the train going round and round and doing nothing else actually put more youngsters off the hobby than it encouraged. Perhaps a different story from the Hornby 0 gauge tinplate that preceded the electric train set. In the following years I certainly got a lot more satisfaction from my Meccano set.

I'm sure that the loop of track, loco and two coaches format did not attract more people to the hobby than it repelled, but one must remember that, back in late 50s, it was considered miraculous for electric trains, especially 00/H0, to work at all.  I can recall in some of the first MRCs I read the dying embers of an opinion that 2-rail didn't work, and there were still a good few 0 gauge clockwork layouts about.  Now, I was a child of the electric age, so thought in that way, but I could not see the point of winding a clockwork loco up and setting it off on it's journey around Grantchester or wherever, as there was no real interface between the operators and the trains.  You let the thing go, the skill being knowing how many turns of the key would bring it in to it's destination slowing down nicely, but suppose you needed to stop at a junction signal?  All other traffic on your whole system that might make conflicing movements had to be stopped; not realistic at all. 

 

Those early days left me with a desire for fine precision control and perfect slow stop/starts and runninvg which is closer to being satisfied now than at any previous time by the best of current RTR models, but I still want better and can't afford DC, as I'm only (cue tragic violins) a poor pensioner.

[Mark Hamlin]

I fancy an SR banana van and updated GW Siphons

[Gibbo675]

7 hours ago, adb968008 said:

trains impress the ladies.

my wife and I met due to a conversation about Poznan station toilets.

She impressed me further about stories of bunking school to ride pociag ozobowy (slow trains.. ie steam hauled services from Krakow).

 

I duly responded on one of our first dates by taking her from Pickering to Whitby, including walking her in the rain from Goathland to Pickering to watch 4771 fail.

 

And to go whole circle, my 10 year old daughter loves saturday morning adventures to watch ballast trains, shes miffed with me seeing 66709 (Sorrento) a few weeks back without her.. it was 130am..I do set some limits.

 

Hi adb,

 

In my experience Salsa dancing classes impressed the ladies no end.

 

Vertical representation of horizontal ability !

 

Gibbo.

[G-BOAF]

12 hours ago, jools1959 said:

I must admit that Hornby continually churn out A3 Flying Scotsman and A4 Mallard in huge numbers in both RR, full fat and in sets, which I don’t have a issue with as they basically pay Hornby’s bills.

 

I’d like to see Hornby would do the survivors with made it into 1965/66, such as A3’s 60041 Salmon Trout, 60100 Spearmint and 60052 Prince Palatine; as well as A4’s 60004 William Whitelaw, 60024 Kingfisher and 60034 Lord Farringdon which met the gas axe.

 

I know they’ve probably been done but it would great to see them in their mid 60’s grubby condition.  I believe that 60024 nearly made it but 60009 was chosen instead because it was in slightly better condition, though they swopped tenders.

Did you mean 09 or 19? 09 was chosen as it was in good condition as one of the last A4s overhauled and a scottish engine all its life. I dont think Cameron was ever looking at 24. 09 donated its corridor tender to scotsman and got the w1 tender as a replacement, but this was never previously fitted to 24

 

19 did not swap tenders with anyone and today has the tender it was built with (albeit rebuilt with a corrodor body at its last overhaul)

Interestingly 10 also has the tender it entered service with (whic still sported the extended side sheets for the chrome edging), but worked with a few others in between.

[Guest Jack Benson]

If Hornby are looking for a quick win, whilst using existing bits and revisiting old Margate products, then a Maunsell L1 might be an answer. A medium sized loco, they served on the Kent coast and Eastleigh, nice contrast to other Eastern division models etc. An L1 with a rake of Bachmann Birdcages would be rather spiffing.

Have a safe Christmas and a better 2021