Hornby 2022 Black 5 new tooling

[ColinB]

The Hornby Forum are going to go ballistic over that review by Sam, how dare he criticise Hornby. His tender obviously has the fault identified on this forum, even Jenny Kirk mentioned it on a review. That occurred with the P2 and A4s, you would have thought they would have sorted it by now. To me that new connector has loads of issues. A PCB edge connector which I remember years  ago used to give me loads of issues with the copper scraping off each time you slide it into the edge connector. These were generally only rated for about 10 to 20 inserts. Trouble is Hornby have had quality issues for years and probably figure most people will buy it as it is a Hornby. I must admit I very rarely notice the glue but if it runs badly that is a big concern.

[Brocp]

Come on Accurascale, annouce a proper gimmickless Black 5.

[toby_tl10]

Has anyone done a side by side comparison of the old Black 5 and the new one? I'm interested to know if the "upgrades" are worth it. I've scrolled from page 27 to here, and there doesn't seem to be one.

 

Having watched a few reviews on youtube (including Class47Peter and Sam'strains), I think it's fair to say everybody agrees you can't change the headlamps without completely ripping it apart. This sounds like a bit of a joke to me. Not to mention the tail lamp on the tender. Personally, I'd prefer having no head/tail lamp just like all my other steam locos over having a largely imperfect solution.

 

----

A bit off topic here. Accurascale people I know you're watching. If people don't like the giant Hornby lamps, they probably won't appreciate yours on the yellow Class 31.

[GenericRMWebUsername]

5 hours ago, ColinB said:

The Hornby Forum are going to go ballistic over that review by Sam, how dare he criticise Hornby. His tender obviously has the fault identified on this forum, even Jenny Kirk mentioned it on a review. That occurred with the P2 and A4s, you would have thought they would have sorted it by now. To me that new connector has loads of issues. A PCB edge connector which I remember years  ago used to give me loads of issues with the copper scraping off each time you slide it into the edge connector. These were generally only rated for about 10 to 20 inserts. Trouble is Hornby have had quality issues for years and probably figure most people will buy it as it is a Hornby. I must admit I very rarely notice the glue but if it runs badly that is a big concern.

To be fair, he entitled the video:

Hornby's Horribly Faulty New Black 5

 

This suggests that the product is somehow inherently faulty. Others have had the product, and have not found any issues. That title is misleading and damaging. It's making a claim that is untrue. If he had labeled it "The Faults with my Hornby Black 5," it would have been accurate. But instead, he suggests the entire product is "horribly faulty." Who is going to buy a "horribly faulty" locomotive? 

 

Criticism of Hornby is totally fine, but I think it's unfair to label an entire product "horribly faulty" when you have a single data point. 

Edited April 21 by GenericRMWebUsername

[toby_tl10]

36 minutes ago, GenericRMWebUsername said:

To be fair, he entitled the video:

Hornby's Horribly Faulty New Black 5

 

This suggests that the product is somehow inherently faulty. Others have had the product, and have not found any issues. That title is misleading and damaging. It's making a claim that is untrue. If he had labeled it "The Faults with my Hornby Black 5," it would have been accurate. But instead, he suggests the entire product is "horribly faulty." Who is going to buy a "horribly faulty" locomotive? 

 

Criticism of Hornby is totally fine, but I think it's unfair to label an entire product "horribly faulty" when you have a single data point. 

If you logic stands, would it be equally unfair for somebody to label it as "Hornby's best/finest/ultimate Black 5"? This suggests the product is somehow inherently faultless, while others have had the product and found issues with it. Following your logic, would this claim be misleading and untrue?

 

When everybody has no more than a single data point, what do you realistically expect them to do? The amount of right to compliment a product using a single data point should be balanced by an equal amount of right to criticise the product using a single data point.

 

From the audience's perspective, the solution to overcome the "single data point" problem is simply to watch multiple reviews. If a person relies on a single source for reviews, whilst perfectly aware other sources are available, that person only have him/herself to blame.

[zr2498]

8 hours ago, Brocp said:

Come on Accurascale, annouce a proper gimmickless Black 5.

Or Ellis Clark Trains with a OO, to follow the very fine O gauge.

[E100]

Having seen the review I think it’s fair to say if the model didn’t have the faults his had then it’d be a reasonable model.

 

I think his reasoning to not recommend the model is sound in that there were many issues that were unconnected to another to mean he’ll go for a refund rather than a replacement. I do agree with his main criticism that having a diecast boiler for this model would go some way to justify a higher price point but I presume the issue there is all the variations.

 

For me personally, I’ve just got the steam and sound version on order for £225 from Hornby direct before the price rise. I still expect it to be faultless and anything less and it’ll be replaced until it is or if not a refund. That being said, at this stage I will not be ordering anymore and will keep a hold of my existing black 5’s. I do think this opens a pathway for another company to step in and if there was ever a steam loco to justify some competition then this is surely it.

Edited April 21 by E100

[franciswilliamwebb]

16 minutes ago, E100 said:

I do think this opens a pathway for another company to step in and if there was ever a steam loco to justify some competition then this is surely it.

My thoughts exactly.  The Black 5 and the 8F are very low hanging fruit on the steam side of the fence.👍🏻

[PeterStiles]

29 minutes ago, E100 said:

do think this opens a pathway for another company to step in

Or, and this may be a radical suggestion, maybe Hornby will improve it for the next batch, as they did for the 97 and the APT.

 

I'd suggest you were a very brave (*) manufacturer to aim to get one out before Hornby's second batch...

 

(*) Minister

[Dunsignalling]

Having witnessed, and participated on expectational grounds from early-on in this discussion, I concluded about a month ago to re-examine my older Hornby 5MTs.

 

The conclusion? That, for me, the older ones are perfectly adequate "layout locos" that have been trouble free for twenty years or thereabouts. Any real improvements to the new ones are unlikely to be evident once they are working, but the dodgy "upgrades" may well be.

 

My pre-order for the Caprotti one will stand, despite me anticipating the need for removal of the lighting and modification or replacement of the tender coupling and connections.

 

Doing that to more than the desired variant not represented in my current fleet will not be acceptable so, if I need any more "ordinary" ones, I'll be buying second hand.

 

John

 

 

[ColinB]

11 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Having witnessed, and participated on expectational grounds from early-on in this discussion, I concluded about a month ago to re-examine my older Hornby 5MTs.

 

The conclusion? That, for me, the older ones are perfectly adequate "layout locos" that have been trouble free for twenty years or thereabouts. Any real improvements to the new ones are unlikely to be evident once they are working, but the dodgy "upgrades" may well be.

 

My pre-order for the Caprotti one will stand, despite me anticipating the need for removal of the lighting and modification or replacement of the tender coupling and connections.

 

Doing that to more than the desired variant not represented in my current fleet will not be acceptable so, if I need any more "ordinary" ones, I'll be buying second hand.

 

John

 

 

Entirely agree, the only thing I have noticed with modern locos is the motors. I think Hornby must have gone through a phase of duff motors or their motors degrade with time. Replace the motor with a current one and yes the old ones work well. It gets even worse when you buy the latest release as in the rebuilt Merchant Navy, to find it is exactly the same as you old ones except for the addition of the decoder in the tender. I must admit I look at the value for money products from Accurascale, Cavalex and Dapol and the high prices Hornby charges puts me off. I too have a Black 5 on order the one with steam and sound, but I preordered it at a ridiculously low price off Hornby so I am not going to cancel it.

[E100]

1 hour ago, PeterStiles said:

Or, and this may be a radical suggestion, maybe Hornby will improve it for the next batch, as they did for the 97 and the APT.

 

I'd suggest you were a very brave (*) manufacturer to aim to get one out before Hornby's second batch...

 

(*) Minister

 

It's a fair point, though I would maintain that like the class 37/47 if there's one steam loco that can justify this it's a black 5, more so than an A4 IMO.

[spamcan61]

4 hours ago, toby_tl10 said:

 

When everybody has no more than a single data point, what do you realistically expect them to do? The amount of right to compliment a product using a single data point should be balanced by an equal amount of right to criticise the product using a single data point.

 

use a less dramatic / clickbaity headline.

[jjb1970]

I like Sam's trains and like metal models, but even as someone who enjoys his videos I find his conception of what constitutes value for money and his readiness to use the term rip off annoying and unnecessary.  Ditto quality, he seems to use weight as a proxy for quality, which is silly as it's easy to make something heavy but takes good design and manufacture to deliver durability and reliability which are much better indicators of quality than weight. That said, car manufacturers clocked that making doors heavy is seen as a sign of quality by many. 

[Legend]

5 hours ago, GenericRMWebUsername said:

To be fair, he entitled the video:

Hornby's Horribly Faulty New Black 5

 

This suggests that the product is somehow inherently faulty. Others have had the product, and have not found any issues. That title is misleading and damaging. It's making a claim that is untrue. If he had labeled it "The Faults with my Hornby Black 5," it would have been accurate. But instead, he suggests the entire product is "horribly faulty." Who is going to buy a "horribly faulty" locomotive? 

 

Criticism of Hornby is totally fine, but I think it's unfair to label an entire product "horribly faulty" when you have a single data point. 

But it was true of his which didn’t work !  I’m fed up with people apologising for manufacturers . If you spend £200 + on something you expect it to work . Good on Sam for calling Hornby out . Only by doing so might they consider upping their QC .   We have all been there . Testing a new loco that doesn’t work or runs like a croc . It happens more times than it should 

[jjb1970]

On the Black 5, the old Hornby model is still a good model. Personally I am not interested in things like working lamps, smoke and sound and much prefer a well done vanilla model so the older version is probably much more up my street.

 

On duplication, the UK RTR market is no different to North America and the rest of Europe in that duplication is not only inevitable given the major types have been done, not only done but more than once and done well in many cases. In the 00's I was happy to replace models that still worked perfectly well because there was a paradigm shift in mechanisms and fidelity to prototype.  Now however I see new tooling of models already made and really don't see much reason to upgrade. The new Bachmann 47 and Bachmann & Accurascale 37's are superb but the older Bachmann versions are still excellent. And in some cases it's debatable whether the newer model has moved anything on. The Heljan 45 was excellent in parts but overall I really don't think it any better than the  older Bachmann model (if anything Bachmann got the body profile better). This Black 5 is in that category, I am really struggling to see a reason why this is better than the old model and a couple of reasons to see it as a step backwards. 

 

Years ago I used to laugh at how European HO enthusiasts would inflate minor differences between models of the same types to epic proportions and hype trains around new tooling of types already extremely well done (several times in many cases) but British OO is in the same place. A good side is these things often result in a lot of perfectly good models appearing on the s/h market as some rush out to buy the latest thing and dump yesterday's thing.

[MoonM]

Would like to see Hornby move to an operating model lore like accurascale and Bachmann. With both these companies all models are available in different spec levels (dcc ready or dcc sound fitted, plus Bachmann have their deluxe line). The silly lamps can be in the deluxe range and people can avoid and buy a cheaper 'vanilla' version if preferred. I am interested in the Hornby black 5 similar to the smoke fitted version (a generic unnumbered late crest version) but I don't want to pay for the smoke generator that I will never use. As a result I'm not ordering and making do with my previous generation version

[jjb1970]

29 minutes ago, Legend said:

But it was true of his which didn’t work !  I’m fed up with people apologising for manufacturers . If you spend £200 + on something you expect it to work . Good on Sam for calling Hornby out . Only by doing so might they consider upping their QC .   We have all been there . Testing a new loco that doesn’t work or runs like a croc . It happens more times than it should 

 

Indeed a model may be accurate or inaccurate, basic or beautifully detailed but it should work out of the box.

[Adi]

6 hours ago, toby_tl10 said:

Has anyone done a side by side comparison of the old Black 5 and the new one? I'm interested to know if the "upgrades" are worth it. I've scrolled from page 27 to here, and there doesn't seem to be one.

 

Having watched a few reviews on youtube (including Class47Peter and Sam'strains), I think it's fair to say everybody agrees you can't change the headlamps without completely ripping it apart. This sounds like a bit of a joke to me. Not to mention the tail lamp on the tender. Personally, I'd prefer having no head/tail lamp just like all my other steam locos over having a largely imperfect solution.

 

----

A bit off topic here. Accurascale people I know you're watching. If people don't like the giant Hornby lamps, they probably won't appreciate yours on the yellow Class 31.

Sam look glue on if  am honest 

[Covkid]

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

use a less dramatic / clickbaity headline.

 

That is Sam. It is his USP.  He has a large following.  You either mildly like his output, or you "marmite it".  Sam does seem to have a thing about metal bodywork construction being better than plastic.  Not sure I totally agree about that, but hey. 

 

To be honest, I am not sure whether it has harmed Hornby's product reputation more by running the black five with an LNER tender rather than simply terminating the review and sending it back to Hornby. 

 

One think for sure the lamp issue is clearly highlighted by him, but is symptomatic of what manufacturers think of their potential customers in terms of built in tech.  It seems to me that many car manufacturers are putting a tablet like screen on the dashboard between the front seat occupants. My eyesight is good enough to drive, but not good enough to obliquely view an electronic display to my left, particularly in the full range of lighting conditions a motorist experiences.  I want my driving requirements to be in front of me, because I am the driver of the vehicle, and 97% of the time I don't have anyone else in the car with me. 

 

I will reiterate the situation.  Steam locos were fitted with lamp irons which stood away from where they were bolted, welded or rivetted.  The lamps were generally less than 12 inches square or round so are less than 3mm in OO scale. The lamps had a paraffin wick and a glass lense to enhance the feeblow glow, and fitted onto the lamp brackets - themselves less than a scale millimetre wide.  Hornby development team are trying to recreate olde worlde equipment using blinding new state of the art technology which in my view does not work, especially when you consider the role of the lamps.  They were used to signal; to ops staff what they were. Technically the fireman would go off shed with the lamps set for the movement, then at each station or yard the lamps would change. I am not from that era so I don't know whether the fireman would hang a tail lamp on the front or back of the loco for movements within the station, but the whole point is that Hornby's moveable lamp offering is not practical and needs nipping in the bud.

 

I was half contemplating replacing one of my black fives with the new version, but have decided I really won't be forking out north of two hundred quid for a model which Hornby are charging extra for impractical gimmicks.  If Accurascale, Dapol or Rapido were to bring a black five to the market, without such gimmicks I would be interested.        

Edited April 21 by Covkid

[ColinB]

1 hour ago, spamcan61 said:

use a less dramatic / clickbaity headline.

To be honest his headline is no worse than some I read in the media where they blow some small comment out of context. I just read the headline and thought "what have Hornby done wrong now?". The big issue for Hornby is a lot of people are like me, if the loco runs ok, looks ok, then you probably don't notice the faults. I very rarely put a steel rule against a loco running plate but I probably will now he has highlighted it, similarly I don't notice the glue only if something is on a bit wonky. Again now it is highlighted, people will start looking. So who knows, perhaps many of those perfect models are not perfect anymore. 

[Covkid]

53 minutes ago, MoonM said:

Would like to see Hornby move to an operating model lore like accurascale and Bachmann. With both these companies all models are available in different spec levels (dcc ready or dcc sound fitted, plus Bachmann have their deluxe line). The silly lamps can be in the deluxe range and people can avoid and buy a cheaper 'vanilla' version if preferred. I am interested in the Hornby black 5 similar to the smoke fitted version (a generic unnumbered late crest version) but I don't want to pay for the smoke generator that I will never use. As a result I'm not ordering and making do with my previous generation version

 

I think that is the point.  The new Hornby black five as cost a lot of budget to develop and I am guessing Hornby will expect it to be paid back. Bachmann's models have become pricey in the last few years - relative to other manufactrurers, and it is noticeable the class 31s from Bachmann are more or less pegged at a similar price to Accurascale. 

[ColinB]

3 minutes ago, Covkid said:

 

That is Sam. It is his USP.  He has a large following.  You either mildly like his output, or you "marmite it".  Sam does seem to have a thing about metal bodywork construction being better than plastic.  Not sire I totally agree about that, but hey. 

 

To be honest, I am not sure whether it has harmed Hornby's product reputation more by running the black five with an LNER tender rather than simply terminating the review and sending it back to Hornby. 

 

One think for sure the lamp issue is clearly highlighted by him, but is symptomatic of what manufacturers think of their potential customers in terms of built in tech.  It seems to me that many car manufacturers are putting a tablet like screen on the dashboard between the front seat occupants. My eyesight is good enough to drive, but not good enough to obliquely view an electronic display to my left, particularly in the full range of lighting conditions a motorist experiences.  I want my driving requirements to be in front of me, because I am the driver of the vehicle, and 97% of the time I don't have anyone else in the car with me. 

 

I will reiterate the situation.  Steam locos were fitted with lamp irons which stood away from where they were bolted, welded or rivetted.  The lamps were generally less than 12 inches square or round so are less than 3mm in OO scale. The lamps had a paraffin wick and a glass lense to enhance the feeblow glow, and fitted onto the lamp brackets - themselves less than a scale millimetre wide.  Hornby development team are trying to recreate olde worlde equipment using blinding new state of the art technology which in my view does not work, especially when you consider the role of the lamps.  They were used to signal; to ops staff what they were. Technically the fireman would go off shed with the lamps set for the movement, then at each station or yard the lamps would change. I am not from that era so I don't know whether the fireman would hang a tail lamp on the front or back of the loco for movements within the station, but the whole point is that Hornby's moveable lamp offering is not practical and needs nipping in the bud.

 

I was half contemplating replacing one of my black fives with the new version, but have decided I really won't be forking out north of two hundred quid for a model which Hornby are charging extra for impractical gimmicks.  If Accurascale, Dapol or Rapido were to bring a black five to the market, without such gimmicks I would be interested.        

When I first started fitting DCC to my locos I added the odd lamp just because I am into electronic control and found it cool to switch them on and off via DCC. This last week I was upgrading one of those original locos to a better DCC decoder and replacing the hardwired option and adding tender pickups. The light on the front on the buffer beam just looked silly even though it was a lot smaller than the Hornby offering, plus all that extra wiring made it a pain to take the loco apart. So I just removed it. The only feature I do like is firebox flicker, on a Hornby it tells you the loco is receiving power even if the DCC is not working and on the DCC controlled ones, it meets my criteria of a controlled system which again helps with diagnosing DCC issues. 

[ColinB]

5 minutes ago, Covkid said:

 

I think that is the point.  The new Hornby black five as cost a lot of budget to develop and I am guessing Hornby will expect it to be paid back. Bachmann's models have become pricey in the last few years - relative to other manufactrurers, and it is noticeable the class 31s from Bachmann are more or less pegged at a similar price to Accurascale. 

Bachmann are having to. Since Accurascale produced the class 37, I imagine Bachmann sales of class 37s have flatlined. The only thing in Bachmann's favor, is Accurascale generally sells all its stock on preorder, so there is only Bachmann left.

[Wheatley]

15 hours ago, zr2498 said:

Sam maybe has a point, that it is no good adding gimmicks or supposed upgrades if it comes at the expense of the fundamentals.

Whilst I disagree with most of his Horribly Faulty reviewing (sic) techniques, he's right on that one. 

 

12 hours ago, Brocp said:

Come on Accurascale, annouce a proper gimmickless Black 5.

 

Yes. Yes please. 

 

I'll wait to see it in the flesh, I can use as many Black 5s as I can get my hands on but it's going to have to be good to justify the expense compared to the old model + aftermarket.