Hornby 2022 - Trains on Film

[Harlequin]

7 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

But is it?  Perhaps in variety but not in volume.  The sales today are a fraction of what they were in the 1960’s.

Can you back that statement up with some facts and figures?

 

[Chuffed 1]

2 minutes ago, Corbs said:

 

One would hope that the manufacturers were not basing their sales strategy on the market of 60 years ago. 
 

It’s a niche market, now.  Small runs where accuracy, finish and reliability are paramount.  Many models are just collected for collection’s sake, to admire in a glass cabinet.

The aim has been to avoid, not create open competition.  Likewise the new rules don’t always favour the bigger company.

[Din]

8 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

But is it?  Perhaps in variety but not in volume.  The sales today are a fraction of what they were in the 1960’s.

 

There were also basically no companies back then. I'm sure Hornby would love to go back to the 60s where they had absolutely no competition until the arrival of Palitoy and the Mainline Range in the 80s!

 

Of course you're going to shift nearly 20,000 units when yours is the only option! Most models run a, what? 2,000 unit run or so? When you consider that's "most models" as well its likely sales are healthier in some ways than they were 60 years ago, never mind the cottage industry attached.

[Chuffed 1]

1 minute ago, Harlequin said:

Can you back that statement up with some facts and figures?

 

Not tonight, I’m off to bed. But back in the sixties most shopping streets had a model shop and there were no computer games!

[Chuffed 1]

5 minutes ago, Din said:

 

There were also basically no companies back then. I'm sure Hornby would love to go back to the 60s where they had absolutely no competition until the arrival of Palitoy and the Mainline Range in the 80s!

 

Of course you're going to shift nearly 20,000 units when yours is the only option! Most models run a, what? 2,000 unit run or so? When you consider that's "most models" as well its likely sales are healthier in some ways than they were 60 years ago, never mind the cottage industry attached.

Tri-ang we’re the big name then. Until 1964 there was Hornby Dublo, ( then Wrenn) also Trix and Graham Farish, so not quite a one-horse race!

Edited January 10, 2022 by Chuffed 1
Spelling!

[Din]

1 minute ago, Chuffed 1 said:

Until 1964 there was Hornby Dublo, ( then Wrenn) also Trix and Graham Farish, so not quite a one-horse race!

 

Ah yes, a 3 horse race.

 

So much better.

 

Go and have a good long stare at this section of the forum. Rather a few more than 3 all commissioning models in approx 2,000 runs or so.

[Chuffed 1]

Look up lines brothers annual production numbers across their whole range - go on, I’m sure Wikipedia has it. Most kids had a train set back then.  How many homes have one today?

[melmerby]

5 minutes ago, Din said:

 

Ah yes, a 3 horse race.

 

So much better.

 

Go and have a good long stare at this section of the forum. Rather a few more than 3 all commissioning models in approx 2,000 runs or so.

I can remember when you went to Birmingham Lewis's 5th floor - the toy department and there were always 3 working layouts. Triang, Trix & Hornby Dublo.

The Princess, Jinty and red & cream coaches were always available over the counter from a stockpile kept in store.

The sun always shone, the music was better, traffic jams didn't exist and buses were blue and cream (or occasionally red).

 

What went wrong?

[Lastbroadcast]

To me the principle is simple - is this competitive behaviour, or uncompetitive behaviour?

 

Hornby been willing to test copyright and licensing law to the limits, and possibly beyond - to ensure that no smaller manufacturer will be able to make a successful and financially viable product. 

 

That's not fair competition. 

[Chuffed 1]

6 minutes ago, melmerby said:

I can remember when you went to Birmingham Lewis's 5th floor - the toy department and there were always 3 working layouts. Triang, Trix & Hornby Dublo.

The Princess, Jinty and red & cream coaches were always available over the counter from a stockpile kept in store.

The sun always shone, the music was better, traffic jams didn't exist and buses were blue and cream (or occasionally red).

 

What went wrong?

Birmingham City Council gave way to WMPTE!

To answer the previous poster, there were over 20,000 Tri-ang Brush type 2 locos made, one of 114 models, and as it wasn’t a mainstream loco you can do the maths and understand the scale!

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, asmay2002 said:

The Rolls Royce name is owned by Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd who make jet engines, etc.  None of the car makers has ever had anything other than a license to use the name.

Except for the original RR motor company? That was the company that started the aero engine business.

Vickers who bought the car company were given/leased/whatever the right to use the name for car manufacturing and it was Vickers who sold those on to BMW.

Rolls Royce AFAIK did not receive anything from the 'sale' of the name to BMW but, I assume, would need to have approved it.

BMW definitely paid Vickers for the use of the name, they didn't get it from RR.

There was quite a bit in the financial press at the time of how Vickers "sold" RR twice.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Of course Rapido's response coukd be..

*shrug* We're not going to take legal action, because we know our product is far better.

While that is no doubt absolutely true the really big loser in this could be Studio Canal or indeed any company owning film rights which enable them to sell  licences for reproductions of something seen in a particular film.  If Hornby get away with the 'Inspired by...'  line but then actually copy things which were in the film it does look like a dangerous precedent for anybody to take stuff out of films and sell models which look exactly like the characters etc in the film 

[mdvle]

56 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

But how much of a ‘mass market’ is there nowadays?  The days of mainstream model railways are long gone.

 

By mass market, I mean the model railway market.

 

56 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

And, if I know all about Rapido ( and Accurascale and Hattons and Dapol and Rails) you can bet your bottom dollar Simon Koehler knows ten times as much.  It’s his job.

He has form in this game.

 

Yes, but they aren't the consumers buying the product.

 

The general poster on RMweb is far better informed about what is happening in this hobby than most people in the hobby.

 

Rapido North America has been operating for 15+ years now and there are still model railroaders in the US who don't know they exist - or if they do know they exist assume they still only sell Canadian stuff (which hasn't been true for about 10 years).

 

Excluding operations like Hattons or Rails (because they can't effectively sell Hornby anyway), for the average model train shop in the UK stocking the Hornby item as a shelf item will be far safer than stocking the Rapido version - because every person walking through their door knows who Hornby are, while most won't currently know who Rapido are - so the Hornby version will be an easier sale.

[Andy Hayter]

44 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Can you back that statement up with some facts and figures?

 

 

As a throw away statistic.  I saw a short article in the Toddler - probably end 70s maybe early 80s.  They were announcing Hornby doing a rerun of the Rocket set and that it was going to be a limited edition with only 3500 sets produced as opposed to the original 10,000.  

 

Can you imagine any limited edition today with 3,500 units?

[mdvle]

35 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

Look up lines brothers annual production numbers across their whole range - go on, I’m sure Wikipedia has it. Most kids had a train set back then.  How many homes have one today?

 

Which nails it.

 

What has disappeared is the kids with a train set, those kids who didn't buy much more than that train set and left it behind in their teens never to return.

 

For those who really take to this hobby - that is they return to it (and yes occasionally never left it) as an adult - they still have trains as a kid.

 

So it all depends on how you want to measure it.  If you measure it by the dedicated hobbyists then the hobby has never been healthier and bigger.  If you want to measure it by the kids who had trainsets as kids and never returned, then maybe it is smaller - but that doesn't matter.

 

48 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

It’s a niche market, now.  Small runs where accuracy, finish and reliability are paramount.  Many models are just collected for collection’s sake, to admire in a glass cabinet.

 

Small runs but of a much larger number of items.

 

The large production runs of the past were of a very small number of items.

 

So on the whole it has balanced out to be about the same, and probably bigger.

 

48 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

The aim has been to avoid, not create open competition.  Likewise the new rules don’t always favour the bigger company.

 

Not really.  There never has been "open competition" as everyone's product is interoperable with everyone else is.

 

The real competition isn't within model trains, but model trains vs computer games vs golfing vs ...

[mdvle]

7 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

As a throw away statistic.  I saw a short article in the Toddler - probably end 70s maybe early 80s.  They were announcing Hornby doing a rerun of the Rocket set and that it was going to be a limited edition with only 3500 sets produced as opposed to the original 10,000.  

 

Can you imagine any limited edition today with 3,500 units?

 

Could a person back then imagine the variety of new tooled items being created each year, all competing for the hobby pound?

 

Measuring a single metric - the size of a production run of a single item - without considering the market as a whole is misleading.

 

Looking at the mobile phone market, anyone looking at the number of Blackberry phones would think the mobile phone market was in trouble....

Edited January 11, 2022 by mdvle

[Corbs]

19 minutes ago, Chuffed 1 said:

Birmingham City Council gave way to WMPTE!

To answer the previous poster, there were over 20,000 Tri-ang Brush type 2 locos made, one of 114 models, and as it wasn’t a mainstream loco you can do the maths and understand the scale!

 

So if 114 models sold 20,000 each that's 2,280,000.

 

Hornby currently list 312 locomotives on their website.

 

Each of these would need to sell 7,308 units to equal the 2,280,000 above.

 

Of course this is solely locos/train packs (not rolling stock) and solely based on the range currently on the website. I am unsure if the 114 models of the 1960s range refers to locomotives or models across the whole range.

[SomethingTrainLover]

11 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Will it thought?  Let's think back, Bachmann couldn't release TR versions of Skarleoy and Rheanus because of Hornby's exclusinve rights to TTE, similarly Bachman's start set that used a non face, non TTE liveried Thomas and Percy.

Actually that's not true. Bachmann's TTTE engines across all its ranges are under contract to only be used for those ranges, ie, the tooling can only be used for the Thomas ranges. It goes double for Skarloey and Rheneas, as I believe they were initially commissioned by Mattel to start. SO yeah, nothing to do with Hornby there. Well bar Bachmann being unable to sell their main OO scale range(s) in the UK till Hornby released the UK rights.

 

Though on the subject at hand, there's definitely some IP breaches going on with this. Like it was bad enough that Hornby rushed to announce Lion before Rapido officially announced theirs's(they had announced an announcement weeks prior), but the fact that they're trying to cut in on the Titfield stuff so blatantly is just ridiculous. Like it honestly would've been one thing already to do Lion, but this? Good lord.

 

And the tragic thing is is that the Trains on Film range idea isn't bad at all, but it's clearly being done primarily to try and get away with the titfield lot. 

[adb968008]

Anyone remember this…

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/oct/22/bastian-schweinsteiger-nazi-doll-sue

 

The story quietly dissapeared, just 1 line at the very end of this article, 2 years later.. in 2017…

 

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/30305680

 

Quote

The Manchester United midfielder threatened legal action over that doll, which the company had named "World War II German Army Supply Duty Bastian".

 

Cheung told AFP that DiD had never received a lawsuit from Schweinsteiger

 

It is still on sale at various outlets.

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by adb968008

[drt7uk]

3 hours ago, Vanguard 5374 said:

Back To The Future

 

Scalextric already do DeLorean cars from the movies, so a 1/87 version of the third incarnation along with a model of Sierra Railroad No. 3 could work as a standalone pack. The locomotive could then end up in the Rivarossi range.

 

https://uk.scalextric.com/products/delorean-back-future-part-3-c4307

 

Good list! I recreated this for my N Gauge layout

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIiXUHIHyxG/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

The locomotive is a replica of Jupiter.

 

[adb968008]

10 minutes ago, drt7uk said:

 

Good list! I recreated this for my N Gauge layout

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIiXUHIHyxG/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

The locomotive is a replica of Jupiter.

 

The real loco in the film, is a historic loco in its own right..

 

its been in dozens of movies, listed here..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_No._3

 

based at Jamestown California. The railway runs through “little house on the prairie” landscape ( as that was filmed locally too).

Jamestown itself is a historic cowboy western style town, also worth dropping into.

 

The railway there has a real “out wild west” feel to it, from the wooden shed, to the wooden station / platform and the line itself. 

 

if covid lifts, its a well worth visiting place, a few hours from San Francisco, and on the way to Yosemite national park.

Edited January 11, 2022 by adb968008

[RichardT]

1 hour ago, County of Yorkshire said:

All said it’s a strange hill to die on. 

Yes, exactly.  I notice several recent posts where people are wondering what’s wrong with both companies producing the loco, which is *not* the point at issue. It’s Hornby putting their good name in jeopardy by playing silly childish games with contractual licensing agreements for a specific iteration of the model.  Given how Hornby rely on licensing agreements being honoured for other, possibly more high profile & valuable, products it does seem stupid to risk your reputation for a not-quite Titfield Thunderbolt!

 

Richard

[PhilJ W]

Surely Studio Canal would be able to demand royalties from Hornby for using the Titfield Thunderbolt name.

 

[RichardT]

Yes. I think we’re just going round in circles now.  (Yes, I know - guilty as charged…)

 

RT

[mozzer models]

12 minutes ago, RichardT said:

Yes. I think we’re just going round in circles now.  (Yes, I know - guilty as charged…)

 

RT

1st 2nd or 3rd radius