Hornby announce TT:120

[frobisher]

3 hours ago, bradfordbuffer said:

Wow we gave gone from 10th October's Andy York announcement for Hornby tt120 to this post!

 

3 hours ago, bradfordbuffer said:

Edit note!...just for clarity this little rant not directed at any one post but the general direction thread drifting in...

 

Really?  That's certainly not what you actually wrote... 

[Steamport Southport]

54 minutes ago, Porfuera said:

 

Yes I just checked and L/H and R/H points and also DCC clips are now available. When did that happen? I set up stock alerts for all three but I haven't received anything. Not that I'd have anything to run on track yet... although I suppose I could always model a Beeching branch line until some stock arrives...

 

Ages ago. Mine are in my Hattons Trunk.

 

Must get them delivered at some point, but nothing to run on them so no hurry as the post was a bit mad just before Xmas.

 

 

Jason

[Hobby]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

In the March 1957 issue, RM announced "TT IS HERE!", covering the release of what we now call Triang TT3.  By the May 1957 issue, retailers were advertising TT sets, locomotives, carriages, wagons and track off the shelf. Other manufacturers were producing track* too.

 

Here we are, a similar distance in time between announcement and now, and all there is to show is an out of stock first release trainset and some scraps of track, all only available from Hornby.

 

Mmm... The stock was very crude by today's standards (inside framed 08s for example with nothing like the correct wheelbase), made in the UK, not China, and with people who would quite happily buy several locos that used the same chassis irrelevant of their prototype wheelbases... There's a fair bit out there for TT120 now, not just track (Peco, Tillig, etc.) but also many companies have rescaled their buildings and there's also people, and that's before you look at Continental stuff... But as Jeff said, we're in the instant gratification era now, sadly... 

[NCB]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

Ok.

Just to muddy the waters a bit...

 

In the March 1957 issue, RM announced "TT IS HERE!", covering the release of what we now call Triang TT3.  By the May 1957 issue, retailers were advertising TT sets, locomotives, carriages, wagons and track off the shelf. Other manufacturers were producing track* too.

 

Here we are, a similar distance in time between announcement and now, and all there is to show is an out of stock first release trainset and some scraps of track, all only available from Hornby.

 

TT120 is all very laudable, and I'd like it to succeed in gaining a market space, but it looks like Hornby are about to shoot themselves in the foot.

 

* Peco and Gem.  There may have been locos too, but the mag isn't to hand at this very moment...

 

Could only find the Jinty  explicitly mentioned in RM  5/57.

[NCB]

Playtime. Turnouts on their way.

[Porfuera]

40 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Ages ago. Mine are in my Hattons Trunk.

 

Must get them delivered at some point, but nothing to run on them so no hurry as the post was a bit mad just before Xmas.

 

 

Jason

 

I was actually referring to Hornby points and DCC Clips now being available. I shouldn't have included the previous post as it was misleading.

 

I was saying I had set up stock alerts to be notified when points were in stock but that I hadn't received any notification.

 

Surely if they want to sell this stuff then they should be letting people know when it is available if people have asked to be notified? Or are stock alerts not via email?

Edited January 6, 2023 by Porfuera

[Hobby]

14 minutes ago, NCB said:

Playtime. Turnouts on their way.

 

I've just been into my local shop, for some reason Peco have supplied him with flexitrack and LH points but no RH points... He knows i want them so is going to chase them up!

[bradfordbuffer]

1 hour ago, frobisher said:

 

 

Really?  That's certainly not what you actually wrote... 

Edit was about 5 mins after original post didn't want to seen to point finger at any on post....(as more than one member got suckered into the speculations worm hole) just at general speculation posts in general🤨

[irishmail]

1 hour ago, Porfuera said:

 

I was actually referring to Hornby points and DCC Clips now being available. I shouldn't have included the previous post as it was misleading.

 

I was saying I had set up stock alerts to be notified when points were in stock but that I hadn't received any notification.

 

Surely if they want to sell this stuff then they should be letting people know when it is available if people have asked to be notified? Or are stock alerts not via email?

What are DCC Clips??  Never heard that term before.

[Porfuera]

1 minute ago, irishmail said:

What are DCC Clips??  Never heard that term before.

Hornby points are isolating i.e. when you switch a Hornby point from one track to the other, the diverging track that is not in use does not receive any power. So if you have (for example) a passing loop then the side of the loop that is not in use is not powered. They make little spring clips that get around this and provide power to both tracks.

 

Obviously if you're wiring up a layout on a baseboard then you can get around this with wiring both diverging tracks, but if you're only setting up the track temporarily on a table or other surface then that's a little more difficult to do and the DDC clips get around this (whether you're using DCC or DC).

 

Short 1 minute video here: https://youtu.be/w0mEDvLGB9Y

 

[Jeff Smith]

I received my TT:120 Club membership several weeks ago, and just yesterday my magazine.

 

I fail to see any mention of lowly shunters, ie Jinty, Pannier, let alone larger tank locos or small tender locos.  A green class 20 might be useful too!  However this could make for an opening for further suppliers!

[Porfuera]

16 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

I received my TT:120 Club membership several weeks ago, and just yesterday my magazine.

 

I fail to see any mention of lowly shunters, ie Jinty, Pannier, let alone larger tank locos or small tender locos.  A green class 20 might be useful too!  However this could make for an opening for further suppliers!

 

There is this on Page 9 of the electronic catalogue that I have: "Plus, BR Britannia, LMS/BR Black 5, J94, GWR/BR Class 5700 Pannier and much more!" (that's a direct cut-and-paste from the pdf).

 

But presumably these are after Phase 4 so goodness only knows when that will be.

 

EDIT: Also these on Page 15: "Plus, BR Class 67, Hitachi Class 800, BR Class 73 and much more!"

 

EDIT2: I think Lincoln Locos are already doing loco bodies in TT:120 but no chassis yet AFAIAA

Edited January 6, 2023 by Porfuera

[Steamport Southport]

Watch the video that was shown just before Christmas.

 

As well as the Pannier and J94 which is mentioned in the catalogue there is also mention of Terriers and Jinties. So that's one from each of the Big Four.

 

 

Jason

[D3489gibson]

39 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Watch the video that was shown just before Christmas.

 

As well as the Pannier and J94 which is mentioned in the catalogue there is also mention of Terriers and Jinties. So that's one from each of the Big Four.

 

 

Jason

Terriers too? I was trying to avoid doing a third scale, but if that's the case, I may have to divulge in a bit of this TT120 shenanigans.. 

 

Nathan

[frobisher]

4 hours ago, bradfordbuffer said:

Edit was about 5 mins after original post didn't want to seen to point finger at any on post....(as more than one member got suckered into the speculations worm hole) just at general speculation posts in general🤨

 

Perhaps you should have edited the first line at the same time, just saying..?

[bradfordbuffer]

55 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Perhaps you should have edited the first line at the same time, just saying..?

Frobisher......delivers a decisive upper cut to bradfordbuffer....KO! ...

Are we still frinds ?

[rob D2]

12 hours ago, bradfordbuffer said:

Wow we gave gone from 10th October's Andy York announcement for Hornby tt120 to this post! Was much simpler in 80s you caught the bus to town walked to beatties...bought a Lima 31 with the money you saved from your paper round and was well chuffed even if it had faults...

No one speculated on what why and how!

Let's leave the business case, logistics and marketing to the experts....enjoy the models play trains and let's not pretend to be MDs of international companies! Unless you are! then please continue with in depth analysis and speculating. 

 

Edit note!...just for clarity this little rant not directed at any one post but the general direction thread drifting in...

To be fair , i'd have to try hard to make less profit than Hornby if i was " MD of an international company "

[Pacific231G]

23 hours ago, Hroth said:

Ok.

Just to muddy the waters a bit...

 

In the March 1957 issue, RM announced "TT IS HERE!", covering the release of what we now call Triang TT3.  By the May 1957 issue, retailers were advertising TT sets, locomotives, carriages, wagons and track off the shelf. Other manufacturers were producing track* too.

 

Here we are, a similar distance in time between announcement and now, and all there is to show is an out of stock first release trainset and some scraps of track, all only available from Hornby.

 

TT120 is all very laudable, and I'd like it to succeed in gaining a market space, but it looks like Hornby are about to shoot themselves in the foot.

 

* Peco and Gem.  There may have been locos too, but the mag isn't to hand at this very moment...

 

Don't forget that Peco's TT track is available and was even before Hornby announced TT:120.

 

I think you're painting a rather gloomy picture of now and a rather rosy one of what was actually available in the first nine months after Tri-ang's launch of TT-3

I'm looking at a bound volume of the RMs from 1957 (unusually including the covers and the ten pages of advertising outside the editorial pages). By May, several dealers were indeed advertising TT but what they were advertising was limited to: Tri-ang trainsets, locos, wagons, coaches and track; Peco and Gem track; S&B point levers, a few buildings and Bilteezi sheets (a simple reduction in the printing process from their 00 sheets).

The following month - June 1957- EAMES announced a GWR 94xx 0-6-0PT but built onto the Tri-ang chassis but, apart from a few buildings and PO wagon bodies on Tri-ang wagon chassis, that seems to have been all. 

In August Taylor & McKenna announced a Fowler LMS 0-6-0 but again using the Tri-ang 0-6-0 Chassis and couplings and Welkut offered TT flexible track.

By September Taylor &McKenna had exhibited an extensive working TT layout with handbuilt track at the Model Railway Hobby Show in Central Hall*. Far less impressive was that month's Railway of the Month. Windsor & Eton was a very small BLT (with a decidedly odd trackplan) using Gem track  running off an oval of Tri-ang track (mercifully unphotographed) Frankly, its only claim to Railway of the Month status was being TT.

  In October Wrenn announced their range of TT trackwork and Tri-ang's own mainline coaches appeared while Nucro were advertising TT-3 wheelsets followed the next month by Peco's spoked nylon wheelsets for TT-3 .

By December W&H were offering a decent range of TT-3 components for scratchbuilders from turned brass buffers and driving wheels to smokebox doors and axle guards , while Esanel advertised new complete diecast wagon kits. 

 

What all this added up to in TT-3's first ten months was most of the dealers and model shops trumpeting TT in their advertising (and even offering to part exchange 00 items for it) but, apart from track,  offering very few actual operating products beyond those based on Tri-ang's original release at the Toyfair in February 1957 of a single loco, two coaches, a small range of wagons using the same chassis and a goods brake.  What isn't clear is how available those products from Tri-ang actually were in the first few months.

 

It's also interesting how little attention MRC paid to TT-3 until the following year- 1958- when they ran an excellent  series of articles by Mike Bryant on building a fairly sophisticated TT-3 layout in 4ft x 2ft (Large Quart in a small Pint Pot)  and published a separate book, Modelling in TT3 (Model Railway Constructor Handbook No.1)  I think it's not insignificant that Bryant's book was very much a general introduction to railway modelling (and a very good one)  as well as to modelling in the smaller scale and there was definitely an expectation of TT attracting a lot of new people "who before had thought that they had no room for a model railway (and) are now reconsidering their opinion and starting in the hobby for the first time" .

 

*Built by R. Dudley Dimmock this was a fairly large MLT with a folded return loop and was Railway of the Month in January 1958. It was though rather odd on such a layout to see trains of mainline stock all being hauled by 0-6-0 Ts. That layout and a few trade announcements excepted there seems to have been very little TT activity in the pages of RM in 1958.  

Edited January 7, 2023 by Pacific231G

[britishcolumbian]

9 hours ago, Porfuera said:

EDIT2: I think Lincoln Locos are already doing loco bodies in TT:120 but no chassis yet AFAIAA

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/174879-powering-lincoln-locos-bodies

 

There's a thread on that subject.

[andrewshimmin]

One of the forthcoming models from Hornby is the LMS Stanier full brake carriage. I like the look of them, but when I look through various photos of LMS express trains in books I have, I can't see any full brakes in them. Where would they have been used and where would they be marshalled in a train, in LMS days?

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, andrewshimmin said:

One of the forthcoming models from Hornby is the LMS Stanier full brake carriage. I like the look of them, but when I look through various photos of LMS express trains in books I have, I can't see any full brakes in them. Where would they have been used and where would they be marshalled in a train, in LMS days?

 

Andrew,

 

Mostly used in parcels / NPCCS trains. A train of milk tankers would very often have one as accommodation for the guard.

 

Also added to passenger rakes when additional mail accommodation was needed.

 

John Isherwood.

[Porfuera]

22 hours ago, Porfuera said:

I just checked and L/H and R/H points and also DCC clips are now available. When did that happen? I set up stock alerts for all three but I haven't received anything.

 

I'm happy to say that late yesterday evening I received 'in stock' email notifications from Hornby for L/H and R/H points, so these notifications do work. Huzzah!

 

Fingers crossed for more notifications arriving in the near future for various items that I've flagged and that TT:120 will pick up momentum soon.

[Steamport Southport]

4 hours ago, andrewshimmin said:

One of the forthcoming models from Hornby is the LMS Stanier full brake carriage. I like the look of them, but when I look through various photos of LMS express trains in books I have, I can't see any full brakes in them. Where would they have been used and where would they be marshalled in a train, in LMS days?

 

If they did get added to a train they would normally end up at the rear, so often out of camera shot.

 

A good guide to coach formations is in the Comet kit instructions for the relevant vehicle. Click on the bit that says "Download instruction sheet"

 

https://www.wizardmodels.ltd/shop/carriage/m56ak/

 

Sample formations

 

Inverness-Kyle 1949 POS/BG/BG/TK/CK/CK/TK/BG

The Irish Mail 1949 BG/SLT/SLT/TK/TK/TO/TO/TO/FO/FK/BG/BG/BG

St Pancras-Glasgow 1955 BG/BG/BTK/TK/TK/SLT/SLF/SLF/CK/BG

 

You'll notice they are sleeper and postal trains.

 

 

Jason

[Mr chapman]

In one of the TT talk videos Simon confirmed a terrier was on the to-do list

[andrewshimmin]

4 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

Andrew,

 

Mostly used in parcels / NPCCS trains. A train of milk tankers would very often have one as accommodation for the guard.

 

Also added to passenger rakes when additional mail accommodation was needed.

 

John Isherwood.

 

Thanks John!