Hornby 2022 - Trains on Film

[Legend]

Wonder if thats the shortest lived range ever ?  Whats that a month ?

 

Of course it should never have got this far . Most people could see it coming. I'm still incredulous that no one took advice . So they just thought they would get away with it ? And this is a company that must know implications of Licences as they have them with other companies . It really is incredible 

 

Inspired by Hornby . I dont think so . 

[Din]

I just imagine that StudioCanal finally sent the C&D letter through, Hornby at last called up their lawyer who promptly shouted "YOU DID WHAT?" so loudly birds scattered in a four mile radius.

[eldomtom2]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

I suspect that the 'Trains on film' sets had been planned several months before any announcement. Key to the series was the Titfield Thunderbolt. Any other film feature trains, such as 'The lady with the lamp' would be riding on the back of TTT. But without TTT it would not be viable.

Frankly I think the Lady with the Lamp was planned in rather less good faith!

[Zunnan]

7 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

They've got a licence for that one. 

 

Yes, they presumably have a license for that. But given the Titgate faux pas, for how long do they get to keep that license? 

[wombatofludham]

32 minutes ago, Zunnan said:

 

Yes, they presumably have a license for that. But given the Titgate faux pas, for how long do they get to keep that license? 

Based on my (admittedly in a different field) experience of contracts I expect SC will have lobbed a couple of legal Exocets onto Margate over Titfield, but won't be fussed over the Railway Children.  Legally, Hornby gained the rights to that fairly and squarely, possibly via some sort of tender but in any case via a proper contract.  SC won't want to give Hornby any chance to come back with a legal challenge to StudioCanal if they withdrew the rights to the Railway Children, unless there is a clause in the contract allowing such action.  It's business, and they will want to avoid the costs involved in removing Hornby's rights to produce the Railway Children set.

StudioCanal will see the two things as completely separate issues.

[adb968008]

Fwiw the cat is still out of the bag…

 

 

tweets still standing, the cat might out of the bag even if it wasn't in 2022s range, despite saying it was going to be.

[Helmdon]

to be honest (and I pre-ordered from Rapido the day their Titfield stuff was announced) if Hornby want to make Lion then while it's a bit of daft duplication, on they go with it. It was the efforts to go head to head with someone on a niche that they inarguably had the rights to and Hornby didn't that was the nasty taste for me.

 

My assumption is that they were hoping Rapido would roll over before Studio Canal blinked (to mix metaphors). Assuming that that hasn't happened, it's frankly hard not to laugh.

[adb968008]

Of course if Hornby think they can sell Lion, in places Rapido might not reach, is there anything stopping them buying a supply from Rapido and Hornby branding it ?

 

Hornby brand and reach matched with Rapido quality and manufacturing.

 

That to me would be a win win... like Efe rail.

Edited February 4, 2022 by adb968008

[Vistisen]

At some point. Hornby are going to have to communicate about this. They have the choice of trying to pretend it never happened.  But it did, and not saying anything is probably not a viable option. They could try for the humorous approach, as they did with a ‘funny’ signal box video after the first showing of the rocket. That worked well for what was an internal problem. But if it was tried in this case, enough people would be happy to be allowed to ‘be angry’ about it, that it could backfire on them. It really is a bit of a PR nightmare.

What I would hope has happened. Is that there has been a private and sincere apology sent to Rapido. And that the privacy of this communication is kept by both parties.

[Din]

23 minutes ago, Vistisen said:

At some point. Hornby are going to have to communicate about this. They have the choice of trying to pretend it never happened.  But it did, and not saying anything is probably not a viable option. They could try for the humorous approach, as they did with a ‘funny’ signal box video after the first showing of the rocket. That worked well for what was an internal problem. But if it was tried in this case, enough people would be happy to be allowed to ‘be angry’ about it, that it could backfire on them. It really is a bit of a PR nightmare.

What I would hope has happened. Is that there has been a private and sincere apology sent to Rapido. And that the privacy of this communication is kept by both parties.

 

To be honest its just the latest in a string of faux pas and other right royal wazz ups that Hornby's done.

 

Heck, just last year they were selling a rainbow branded wagon to celebrate Gay Pride Month... and were not donating a portion of the proceeds to any such charity (as is standard corporate practise) didn't even have to be much money, but the principle wasnt there. Never mind the janky Rocket video and the bendy banana chassis Hush Hush's.

 

This is the latest of "What can we get away with?" only its likely annoyed people who were likely to give them more lucrative tie-ins.

[Chris116]

5 hours ago, confused said:

Titfield Thunderbolt on BBC2 today Fri 4 Feb. at 14.55.

I have seen the film many times but had to watch again.

 

One thing I had not noticed before was the unused coupling on the back of the Toad brake van. Why use a piece of rope when you have a spare coupling on the back of the train?

[Helmdon]

5 minutes ago, Chris116 said:

I have seen the film many times but had to watch again.

 

One thing I had not noticed before was the unused coupling on the back of the Toad brake van. Why use a piece of rope when you have a spare coupling on the back of the train?

wasn't the point (for the purposes of the plot even if not in reality) that modern couplings and Thunderbolt wouldn't connect - hence lashing the tender to the Loriot Y with rope. When the rope failed, clearly the coupling wouldn't work for whatever the same reason was it hadn't been an option before the rope made its appearance at Titfield station. Hence the borrowing of the drive chain from the roller - which presumably mirrored the flexibility of the rope. Ie they then used chain to lash them together instead of rope.

 

I could probably have shortened that to 'because plot'

[JohnR]

Simon Kohler has just released a statement. 

[Coppercap]

On 06/01/2022 at 14:10, AY Mod said:

They're still here though!

[Phatbob]

18 minutes ago, Coppercap said:

They're still here though!

The interweb is forever, not just for Christmas, as one might say.

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, scumcat said:

I takes a lot of imagination to describe Hornby as a greedy corporation. In the scheme of things they are actually quite a small non profit making company who financially are not on a good footing. This is why it always bothers me with all the talk of wanting them to fail. Imagine the hobby without them, they bring in a lot of new blood. As I have said before company’s like accurascale, rapido, cavalex, Hattons and others are not interested in making models for beginners or for the enthusiasts who cannot spend hundreds on a new loco. So to me I will be careful what I wish for

They are not a 'non profit company' in the usual meaning of that term which implies they don't intend to make a profit.  On the contrary it is their clearly avowed intention to make a profit - after an extended period of not being profitable.

 

I don't doubt that the hobby needs Hornby - in some form or other - in order to bring folk into our hobby and produce things for those of us who are already here.  But in the last few years they have managed to tarnish their own reputation by going bull at a gate at various newcomers who they see as either treading into their territory or who it might even be thought they wish to do down.  Add to that the fall out from 'rationing' and the introduction of the tier system and there may be further grounds to wonder if all is not right  in the northern arm of Westwood village?  The reputation of any company is the one it creates for itself far more by its actions than by its publicity and once a company, any company, has built itself a reputation for that sort of behaviour it is not an easy thing to shake off, especially if further examples come along.

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

The reputation of any company is the one it creates for itself far more by its actions than by its publicity and once a company, any company, has built itself a reputation for that sort of behaviour it is not an easy thing to shake off, especially if further examples come along.

 

Any reputational damage, whilst acute among the discerning commentators found here, is unlikely to reach the ears of the "mass market" - such as it is - for whom Hornby and model railways remain synonymous.

[Miss Prism]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

Any reputational damage, whilst acute among the discerning commentators found here, is unlikely to reach the ears of the "mass market" - such as it is - for whom Hornby and model railways remain synonymous.

 

Many Youtubers have been outspoken, e.g. chez Sam. Hornby has deleted many critical comments on its own YT videos. Some of the comments on Twitter are unprintable.

 

[DK123GWR]

On 02/02/2022 at 17:00, mdvle said:

 

Nope.

 

Regional restrictions on digital media - whether physical form like DVD/Blu-ray or online - are all to due with who owns the rights and their ability to protect their rights.

 

Easy to ignore if you only look at most big Hollywood releases, which tend to only have 1 rights holder, but for a lot of stuff there will be multiple different rights holders around the world.

 

For movies smaller productions will, to raise money, sell the rights to various companies around the world - Australia will have company A, North America company B, Asia company C, Europe company D, etc.  And they all want the ability to recoup their investment by forcing the part of the world they serve to buy their digital product and not one of the other digital products.

 

A classic example of this for a big Hollywood movie is James Cameron's Titanic.  He has a production deal with 20th Century Fox, and Fox bankrolled Titanic.  But Fox got concerned as the cost went up and wanted to limit their exposure (a bad decision for them in the end, but likely right at the time).  So they sold the North American rights for Titanic to Paramount.

 

So Paramount releases Region 1 products, and thus gets the revenue for their the region they paid the rights for.  Fox sells products to all other Regions, and gets their revenue - and to Fox's benefit most people in the Fox regions can't buy the Paramount product and vice/versa.

Regional restrictions could also be used for price discrimination. If (for example) demand for a film in Europe is judged to be less price-sensitive than in North America, regional restrictions allow the firm to maximise profits by selling the product at a higher price in Eurpope than in North America, without having to worry about North Amercians who have bought the product at a cheaper price selling it on to Europeans for some intermediate price, and undercutting the firm's price in Europe. Multi-packs often have 'not for individual resale' lables for the same reason.

[CUCKOO LINE]

These seem to have all disappeared from the Hornby website !

[Free At Last]

12 minutes ago, CUCKOO LINE said:

These seem to have all disappeared from the Hornby website !

Probably the cat has got back into the bag.

[AY Mod]

16 minutes ago, CUCKOO LINE said:

These seem to have all disappeared from the Hornby website !

 

Really? No-one has mentioned it. 

[wombatofludham]

46 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Any reputational damage, whilst acute among the discerning commentators found here, is unlikely to reach the ears of the "mass market" - such as it is - for whom Hornby and model railways remain synonymous.

Whilst I suspect you are probably right when it comes to Aunty Fanny and Uncle Dick buying their nephew a trainset out of the mail order catalogue, I suspect that the "enthusiast" market is likely the difference between profit and loss for Hornby.  If the majority of enthusiast buyers have heard of Titgate, and there is evidence on other social media outlets that they have, that reputational blowback could put their slender return to profit on the back of lockdown panic buying into reverse.  I doubt they could survive very long just on the Aunty Fanny and Uncle Dick train set market alone.

[CUCKOO LINE]

30 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Really? No-one has mentioned it. 

Only just noticed, even Lion is not there, all the other LM&R stuff is still there

[BlueLightning]

Well in my role as a retailer I phoned Hornby earlier on behalf of an interested customer to see what the removal of the stuff from the website meant, and I was told in these exact words "We were advised yesterday to tell everyone it is out of stock, that's all I can say" take from that what you will

 

Gary