Hornby 2022 - Wagons

[TomScrut]

1 hour ago, scottrains29 said:

afterall the Accurascale biomass wagons are far superior

 

That's a bit of a funny one.

 

The Accurascale ones are objectively better as a model (if we forget that they need modifying to get round corners). These wagons however have a different appeal for three reasons IMO.

 

1. They tend to be on the Liverpool-Drax runs and therefore work differently to the GBRF ones regionally which tend to be on the Tyne-Drax runs.

2. From across the room the Drax ones look better as they are bright blue and have nice pictures on the side.

3. You see DB/EWS 66s on these rakes, giving buyers more options. I don't think that happens with the GBRF takes.

 

1 hour ago, scottrains29 said:

available for months now at around the same price for a pair (TMC, Rails sales etc).

 

Isn't £30 a wagon we have seen the cheapest these have been? That's still 20% more than £25.

 

47 minutes ago, jonnyuk said:

they are about on a par

 

The detail is better on the Accurascale ones, I don't think I can agree with you there. And the bogie/hopper/coupler combination is a bit naff (although that doesn't bother me for the price).

 

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

I remain baffled by the pricing of these wagons: two quite big/fancy/complicated wagons (by Hornby standards) 

 

I don't think they are very complicated to be honest. That said, I too am a bit baffled. I did think the pricing was more likely to be £49.99 a wagon given how Hornby seem to be at the moment with pricing. They don't price stuff on simplicity, they price on what they think they can get away with. I think they underestimated what they could do here. I aren't sure the demand would have been the same for £50 a wagon, as I doubt the £75 Railroad 66 market would have gone for that. Maybe it is in response to the fact they make next to nothing prototypical for all those 66s to pull?

Edited January 6, 2023 by TomScrut

[big jim]

Heads up, topp trains in Stafford have 4 of each packs in stock! 
 

be quick 

 

 

[adb968008]

The first lot of Drax wagons were for Drax themselves, with a limited number outletted to Hattons… way back in 2016 ! Yes 7 years ago now.. with Hattons getting a few more in 2019.

 

Has this batch also been requested by Drax ?

if so that may explain why they went Tier 1 in a small batch.

 

I just dont understand the packing or pricing…. I wasnt expecting 2 wagons at £50 when last time 1 wagon was £83.

It was a run of 2000 wagons (1000 each).

I cannot find an online quote, but Olivia's suggest a limited edition if 500.. if true then puts this at 2000 also, but 500 x 4 numbers.

 

if 6 say is a minimum rake, thats c300 buyers… which isnt a lot really, indeed 600 buyers isnt a lot if you consider both runs.

 

Whilst frustrating, at £55 a wagon each (£110 per pack) on ebay, its kind of what I was expecting originally anyway as I thought there was only 1 at £50.

I re-read the thread back in Jan 2022, and it seemed like it was 1 wagon per pack, there was only 1 wagon number listed… I wonder if this was a mistake at Hornby HQ or if Drax permitted the toolings use but not at regular commercial gain  ? It just seems too good to be true.

 

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by adb968008

[big jim]

6 packs left now in topp trains as 2 got sold to someone in here off the back of my last post! 
 

I bought 4 packs for myself while in there, definitely going to give them a run later with my existing pair

mad an aside, lots of nice modern image 2nd hand in there atm too

[4630]

8 minutes ago, big jim said:

6 packs left now in topp trains as 2 got sold to someone in here off the back of my last post! 
 

I bought 4 packs for myself while in there, definitely going to give them a run later with my existing pair

mad an aside, lots of nice modern image 2nd hand in there atm too

 

Thanks for that Jim.

 

Only 4 packs left now!

 

[jonnyuk]

one less pack of r61077, i'd found 1 pack of r60176 on the gaugemaster site at 7am this morning, by the time i'd complicated my order it was out of stock, so whether it was just pack or not, not sure.

[stonesboy]

I have no idea how many were produced but with one shop quoted as having 100 of each, if they produced 1000 of each that certainly wouldn’t leave many for the rest of the tier 1 shops let alone all the other railway shops.

[newbryford]

48 minutes ago, stonesboy said:

I have no idea how many were produced but with one shop quoted as having 100 of each, if they produced 1000 of each that certainly wouldn’t leave many for the rest of the tier 1 shops let alone all the other railway shops.

 

Does anyone know how many tier1 shops there are?

[big jim]

Got my rake of wagons out for a run this evening, picked up 4 more packs from topps trains to make a rake of 10 wagons, took me a while to get them running properly, kept derailing, I don’t think they like code 75 track, particularly the crossovers and points, one point is particularly dodgy so I might swap it for a spare one I have in stock, it seems to dip into the frog and come off

 

One thing I did notice when investigating the derailments was the one piece box body on a number of wagons wasn’t sitting properly on the chassis, see how the chassis bends slightly downward which in turn I think is causing the bogie to sit ever so slightly wonky too (inner wheel raised up a bit)

 

This is a correctly seated one 

 

Coupled together you can see the buffers pointing downward slightly 

 

A simple click back in place and it’s level 

 

 

I might add a bit more weight to them over the bogies with some DCC supplies weight shot 

[TomScrut]

2 hours ago, newbryford said:

 

Does anyone know how many tier1 shops there are?

 

I don't, but the amount of shops that got these wagons means there's quite a few of them. There aren't many I am aware of that haven't got these.

[scottrains29]

10 hours ago, TomScrut said:

The Accurascale ones are objectively better.

Isn't £30 a wagon we have seen the cheapest these have been? That's still 20% more than £25.

Last month I purchased some HYAs packs for £51.15 (£25.57 a wagon) from TMC. They regularly post discount codes on Facebook so worth keeping an eye out. Accurascale were also selling them direct for £54 on black Friday so the price is comparable to Hornby if you shop around.

I'd say the Accurascale ones are better as they have more added detail parts (much of the Hornby detailing is moulded on) they also have extra features such as sprung buffers and working tail lights. Admittedly, they need a little mod to go round sharp curves but otherwise they're great wagons.

 

The Hornby ones are still fantastic value especially when comparing to other Hornby models. Even the latest Bachmann HTA (now quite an old tooling) has an RRP of £63.95 per wagon!! I do wonder if Hornby made a mistake somewhere by producing packs of two rather than two single packs. It wouldn't be the first time a Hornby factory has messed up. It'll be interesting to see if there is any mention about them at next week's 2023 range launch.

[TomScrut]

7 hours ago, scottrains29 said:

I'd say the Accurascale ones are better as they have more added detail parts (much of the Hornby detailing is moulded on) they also have extra features such as sprung buffers and working tail lights. Admittedly, they need a little mod to go round sharp curves but otherwise they're great wagons.

 

I agree with this, it's what I meant by it is objectively a better model. It's just that the prototype itself is a bit more mundane than the Drax ones.

[TomScrut]

12 hours ago, big jim said:

might add a bit more weight to them over the bogies with some DCC supplies weight shot 

 

I am going to add some weight to mine.

 

Not sure how much that weight shot is you're on about but I use car wheel balancing weights.

[big jim]

I was thinking about the same method of car weights but there’s not much room in front of the bogies on the chassis, I found the shot in my cupboard (I bought it to add weight to a 009 loco) so thought that may be easier to ‘pour’ into the space and secure with pva,  I don’t have any precision scales to see what they weigh before and afterwards though

 

I might have a go at one later tonight after work though see if it makes a difference 

Edited January 7, 2023 by big jim

[big jim]

32 minutes ago, scumcat said:

I have tried using liquid lead shot with pva before, never successfully the glue takes an age to dry. I saw an article in Hornby magazine were he was adding weight to a Hornby 92 and used shot and a very runny super glue made by the makers of rocket card glue

I’ve used it successfully in the 009 loco securing it with PVA but as you say it took a while to dry, im going to problem try some glue and glaze I’ve got as that’s runny, put it in the chassis and drop the weights into it then once dry put some more over the top 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by big jim

[TomScrut]

1 hour ago, big jim said:

front of the bogies on the chassis

 

Why do you need to be in front of the bogies? There's loads of space between them on top of the existing weight.

[scouse889]

9 hours ago, scottrains29 said:

Last month I purchased some HYAs packs for £51.15 (£25.57 a wagon) from TMC. They regularly post discount codes on Facebook so worth keeping an eye out. Accurascale were also selling them direct for £54 on black Friday so the price is comparable to Hornby if you shop around.

I'd say the Accurascale ones are better as they have more added detail parts (much of the Hornby detailing is moulded on) they also have extra features such as sprung buffers and working tail lights. Admittedly, they need a little mod to go round sharp curves but otherwise they're great wagons.

 

The Hornby ones are still fantastic value especially when comparing to other Hornby models. Even the latest Bachmann HTA (now quite an old tooling) has an RRP of £63.95 per wagon!! I do wonder if Hornby made a mistake somewhere by producing packs of two rather than two single packs. It wouldn't be the first time a Hornby factory has messed up. It'll be interesting to see if there is any mention about them at next week's 2023 range launch.

 

I think these two points are together the key thing - whichever out of the Accurascale or Hornby model is better, they are both in a price bracket which means I don't have to take out a second mortgage to assemble a decent length rake, and so allow me to play trains. I consider them both good value.

 

Then compare the Bachmann HTA at ca £60 per wagon and relatively speaking this pricing doesn't make sense to me - does it really cost over double to produce the Bachmann wagon?

 

The other good example of this, at least in my mind, is the Dapol IOA, Accurascale PTA and Revolution JNA - they are all in essence the same sort of size open hopper/box wagon, but the prices per wagon are around £25, £30 and £55 respecively - the Accurascale model is arguably superior to the Dapol model, but is the Revolution model really nearly twice as good as the Accurascale, or again does it cost twice as much to produce to justify the price?

 

Using any of these models in a way which recreates their prototypical use requires purchase of multiple items, and so the price differential really does add up; as I answer both my questions above as no, it leaves me feeling that the Bachmann and Revolution models are, quite frankly, priced so they are a bit of a rip-off..... and so I avoid them. Perhaps I am naive in my thinking here, or looking at it in too simplistic a way, but I figure I am not alone - a lot of people have made related comments in this thread about buying the Hornby Drax wagons for over £60 a pop on eBay.

 

I think retailers are seeing a slow down, with higher priced items generally being harder to shift - for example, I have been subscribing to RoS mailing list for over 10 years and in the past 12 months I have had more "5% off sitewide", "10% off all eBay listings", "15% off everything over £10", "20% off everything" offers than in the previous 9 years combined - a retailer just isn't going to sell something off with a discount if they are flying out the door full price.

 

There is obviously a lot of talk about 2023 ranges at the moment, but what I would like from all manufacturers is that they produce their models at competitive and consistent pricing across the board; I appreciate costs of everything are going up and this will be reflected in increasing RRP's, but these should be in line with RRPs of comparable items.

 

Aren't we supposed to be getting a new TTA from Hornby this year - I wonder how they will price that?

 

[TomScrut]

19 minutes ago, scouse889 said:

Then compare the Bachmann HTA at ca £60 per wagon

 

Yeah, the Bachmann alternatives make a really hard sell IMO comparatively speaking. Saying that, I thought the same with the HKA and they sold out I believe. AS on the other hand still have HYAs available. Therefore I wonder if Bachmann are happy making small batches of expensive wagons rather than lots of cheaper ones?

 

20 minutes ago, scouse889 said:

The other good example of this, at least in my mind, is the Dapol IOA, Accurascale PTA and Revolution JNA

 

Whilst I see where you're coming from, the Revolution ones were cheaper when pre ordering direct. It will be interesting to see what the next run costs. Their FNA-D is competitively priced vs Accurascale for example, and although I can't remember the price I don't think the HOA stacks up badly vs the AS shorty HYA, although I think it is a bit dearer.

 

 

21 minutes ago, scouse889 said:

the past 12 months I have had more "5% off sitewide", "10% off all eBay listings", "15% off everything over £10", "20% off everything" offers than in the previous 9 years combined

 

I agree, although I expect a lot of it on Rails' part is to get rid of second hand stuff they maybe shouldn't have taken in. Most of the discounts big enough to make you buy something are either in the bargains or eBay codes, not sitewide. Likewise TMC's sale seems a bit like DFS where it just changes name based on the time of year.

 

I do think things will tighten up. I aren't saying it will be doomsday for the industry or anything but I think it won't be a particularly easy year for anyone.

[big jim]

3 hours ago, TomScrut said:

 

Why do you need to be in front of the bogies? There's loads of space between them on top of the existing weight.

dunno really, just though about spreading the weight about a bit, I’ve ordered some stick on weights off Amazon too, cheap enough to give that a try too

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by big jim

[adb968008]

On 07/01/2023 at 11:57, scouse889 said:

 

I think these two points are together the key thing - whichever out of the Accurascale or Hornby model is better, they are both in a price bracket which means I don't have to take out a second mortgage to assemble a decent length rake, and so allow me to play trains. I consider them both good value.

 

Then compare the Bachmann HTA at ca £60 per wagon and relatively speaking this pricing doesn't make sense to me - does it really cost over double to produce the Bachmann wagon?

 

The other good example of this, at least in my mind, is the Dapol IOA, Accurascale PTA and Revolution JNA - they are all in essence the same sort of size open hopper/box wagon, but the prices per wagon are around £25, £30 and £55 respecively - the Accurascale model is arguably superior to the Dapol model, but is the Revolution model really nearly twice as good as the Accurascale, or again does it cost twice as much to produce to justify the price?

 

Using any of these models in a way which recreates their prototypical use requires purchase of multiple items, and so the price differential really does add up; as I answer both my questions above as no, it leaves me feeling that the Bachmann and Revolution models are, quite frankly, priced so they are a bit of a rip-off..... and so I avoid them. Perhaps I am naive in my thinking here, or looking at it in too simplistic a way, but I figure I am not alone - a lot of people have made related comments in this thread about buying the Hornby Drax wagons for over £60 a pop on eBay.

 

I think retailers are seeing a slow down, with higher priced items generally being harder to shift - for example, I have been subscribing to RoS mailing list for over 10 years and in the past 12 months I have had more "5% off sitewide", "10% off all eBay listings", "15% off everything over £10", "20% off everything" offers than in the previous 9 years combined - a retailer just isn't going to sell something off with a discount if they are flying out the door full price.

 

There is obviously a lot of talk about 2023 ranges at the moment, but what I would like from all manufacturers is that they produce their models at competitive and consistent pricing across the board; I appreciate costs of everything are going up and this will be reflected in increasing RRP's, but these should be in line with RRPs of comparable items.

 

Aren't we supposed to be getting a new TTA from Hornby this year - I wonder how they will price that?

 

If its true ;-) , my guess is it might just be £34.99 rrp, and the other controversial wagon might be £38.49 rrp

 

Drax, despite being only used twice since 2016 works out £25 a wagon. We dont know if / when it will appear again. But my guess is its unlikely for a while.

it looks despite the despair, one model shop came good with my order after all and sent me an email saying they had my order.. 

i’m hoping they show up 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by adb968008

[Ravenser]

On 07/01/2023 at 11:02, big jim said:

I’ve used it successfully in the 009 loco securing it with PVA but as you say it took a while to dry, im going to problem try some glue and glaze I’ve got as that’s runny, put it in the chassis and drop the weights into it then once dry put some more over the top 

 

 

 

 

Be warned . It's been shown that the PVA is acid and over time corrodes the lead, resulting in swelling . I think it was MRJ that first brought this to light - an etched brass kit where the boiler had been filled with lead, and over time the swelling of the lead resulted in the boiler being forced apart.

 

Added to which, the corrosion product of lead is white lead which is highly toxic

 

I believe some folk have taken to pouring superglue in to secure the lead, instead ofr PVA

Edited January 8, 2023 by Ravenser

[adb968008]

14 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

Be warned . It's been shown that the PVA is acid and over time corrodes the lead, resulting in swelling . I think it was MRJ that first brought this to light - an etched brass kit where the boiler had been filled with lead, and over time the swelling of the lead resulted in the boiler being forced apart.

 

Added to which, the corrosion product of lead is white lead which is highly toxic

 

I believe some folk have taken to pouring superglue in to secure the lead, instead ofr PVA

Worthwhile note,

 

 

maybe this should be pinned somewhere.

 

[big jim]

18 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

 

Be warned . It's been shown that the PVA is acid and over time corrodes the lead, resulting in swelling . I think it was MRJ that first brought this to light - an etched brass kit where the boiler had been filled with lead, and over time the swelling of the lead resulted in the boiler being forced apart.

 

Added to which, the corrosion product of lead is white lead which is highly toxic

 

I believe some folk have taken to pouring superglue in to secure the lead, instead ofr PVA

 

interesting!

 

I’ve gone down the weight route, the ones I got off Amazon were small enough to sit in front of the bogies and allow the body to clip back in place easily, I’ve added 30g to each wagon, so 300g overall weight to the full rake  

 

seem a bit more surefooted now, still a few derailments, they really don’t like the frogs on code 75, I did swap a dodgy point out and it rides better over that but they clunk over the diamond crossovers!

 

seems to be the same couple of wagons derailing, one I’d not clipped the corner of the body down correctly after adding the weights which made the bogie sit wonky on the track but the other I couldn’t see an issue but moving it to the front of the rake seems to have cured it, there really isn’t much up and down movement on them which isn’t ideal given my layout has inclines but I got them running for over an hour without derailments again

[newbryford]

6 hours ago, big jim said:

 

interesting!

 

I’ve gone down the weight route, the ones I got off Amazon were small enough to sit in front of the bogies and allow the body to clip back in place easily, I’ve added 30g to each wagon, so 300g overall weight to the full rake  

 

seem a bit more surefooted now, still a few derailments, they really don’t like the frogs on code 75, I did swap a dodgy point out and it rides better over that but they clunk over the diamond crossovers!

 

seems to be the same couple of wagons derailing, one I’d not clipped the corner of the body down correctly after adding the weights which made the bogie sit wonky on the track but the other I couldn’t see an issue but moving it to the front of the rake seems to have cured it, there really isn’t much up and down movement on them which isn’t ideal given my layout has inclines but I got them running for over an hour without derailments again

 

Check the wheel back to backs IMO Hornby wheels are generally the worst for "variation"

[big jim]

20 minutes ago, newbryford said:

 

Check the wheel back to backs IMO Hornby wheels are generally the worst for "variation"

I’ll have to get myself a new btb gauge, one thing I did notice is there isn’t much  side to side play in the brake block/rigging moulding if rhe wheels are a tad out (I’ll get a pic tomorrow)