Hornby announce TT:120

[Hobby]

How is it "paid for"? They've never taken anything from my account until it's ready to dispatch. 

[J-Lewis]

16 hours ago, teletougos said:

I do wish Hornby would send me my paid-for 66 so I can put the block in place and never get another email from them again :) 

If you are active on this forum I’m sure the Class 66 will be mentioned when it is released.  You’re safe to block Hornby emails now :)

 

 

[teletougos]

54 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

If you are active on this forum I’m sure the Class 66 will be mentioned when it is released.  You’re safe to block Hornby emails now :)

 

 

 

Oh well, guess I should just stay here, and then note on my account when the promised payment is hoovered up by Hornby. 

 

Hornby's emails have a peculiarly bumptious tone, like a guy spruiking outside a Harry Ramsden's.

 

I would really rather not see another ever again.  Now that their TT stuff is in shops, on the off-chance that they make something else of interest, I am sure I will notice.  

Edited November 12, 2023 by teletougos

[Porfuera]

17 hours ago, teletougos said:

I do wish Hornby would send me my paid-for 66 so I can put the block in place and never get another email from them again :) 

 

I'd have thought that even if you block (or de-select) Hornby emails for marketing purposes, I guess that they will still send order confirmation emails to your registered email address as an indication that you are about to be charged some money. And failing that, there will be emails from the courier AFAIR.

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by Porfuera

[teletougos]

4 minutes ago, Porfuera said:

 

I'd have thought that even if you block (or de-select) Hornby emails for marketing purposes, I would think that they will still send order confirmation emails to your registered email address as an indication that you are about to be charged some money.

I wonder. May just demote them to Spam for now. That gets deleted after 30 days and it'll be entertaining to see Hornby there beside 'Naughty Isla shaves her _____.' and so on. 

[The Stationmaster]

On 10/11/2023 at 22:23, Les1952 said:

 

 

What we DON'T know because Hornby are not about to give out commercial information that might help possible competitors is how many additional production slots are being shifted to TT:120 rather than potentially less profitable OO or other items- we DO know that TT:120 is generating a healthy profit despite the nay-sayers.

 

We just need to wait for announcements - and learn that virtue which huge numbers of RMWebbers lack - patience.

 

Les

 

As we don't know any detail about Hornby's finances by brand or, more particularly by individual ranges within a brand, we don't know how profitable it is.  We can reasonably assume from the level of sales (due to items selling out) that the range is selling very well. Logically we can extend that, via Hornby's commitment to it, to a reaonable assumption that it is, ,making a surplust at production and sales cost level - they wouldn't be continuing their ciommitment to it if it wasn't.

 

But what we don't know - and will probably never find out - is the extent to which it is so far covering its total costs including development (it will obviously take time to recoup the reportedly 7 figure sum involved because iy is known to have run into the low millions) or the extent to which it is making a contribution to overheads.   'Profit' means many different things and we simply do not know where it stands in that respect.

 

In the end what matters is that Horby have repeated their commitment to the range and I can see no reason whatsoever to doubt their word on that.

[ixionmodels]

On 08/11/2023 at 05:28, J-Lewis said:

“So far it looks like TT:120 could be Hornbys equivalent of Dapol’s O Gauge?  A ‘new’ scale that creates a new market and allows them to at least partly own the scale. I think ten years ago few people would have predicted O gauge would be seeing such a jump in popularity and so many new RTR models?”

With due respect to Dapol for their efforts since, my answer to the question above is:  We did. In 2013 Ixion Model Railways released the first mass-produced injection moulded finescale steam locomotive: the Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST. When I phoned from Australia and sounded out a major O gauge retailer in - let’s call the town ‘Darkpond’ - he asked how many we were planning to make. I said ‘1,500’. He actually laughed out loud, and said ‘OK, it’s your money. But there’s no market for them’. We made and sold 2,000, plus 1,000 Fowlers before moving to Australian engines. 
 

Lots of companies are, I imagine, watching TT:120 quite closely. With so few obvious models left in OO, new releases are some pretty esoteric prototypes. RTR OO9 is now a reality. Smaller manufacturers will wait until there’s a proven ‘critical mass’ of customers, and then they’ll jump. Some might dip the toe with a wagon first, others will do all the groundwork on a popular loco and then announce it along with the CAD images and/or 3D printed pilot model. That’s the way we’d do it. 
 

If buyers stay loyal and Hornby keep even some of their ambitious promises, in a year or two the models available will expand dramatically. Model railway manufacturers are businesses, and will follow the money and the market. History and O gauge prove it. Hurrah for capitalism! 🤓

Regards from 🇦🇺

Lindsay O’Reilly, Director, Ixion Model Railways Australia Pty Ltd.

 

Edited November 12, 2023 by ixionmodels

[J-Lewis]

1 hour ago, ixionmodels said:

With due respect to Dapol for their efforts since, my answer to the question above is:  We did. In 2013 Ixion Model Railways released the first mass-produced injection moulded finescale steam locomotive: the Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0ST.

 

Well hopefully you will fill the gap for a TT scale Hudswell?  O Gauge is too big for my layout room :)

[teletougos]

One thing I don't understand with this discussion is the occasional assertion that Hornby's 4mm range is missing out because of the introduction of TT.  

 

Is there any hard evidence that this is true ? Concrete examples and so forth ?  

 

 

[Jeff Smith]

No - it's all speculation!.......  I'm sure Hornby is reading this thread with amusement.....

[J-Lewis]

24 minutes ago, teletougos said:

One thing I don't understand with this discussion is the occasional assertion that Hornby's 4mm range is missing out because of the introduction of TT.  

 

Is there any hard evidence that this is true ? Concrete examples and so forth ?  

 

 

No doesn’t seem to be any truth to it.  If anything the TT range is missing out on sales due to a lack of manufacturing capacity.  Many of the  TT locos and sets have sold out several times over, and the later phase models are running approx six months late.

 

I’m not aware of any evidence the OO range has suffered because of TT.  Seems to just be a case of some OO centric folks resenting the new scale.  Not clear why they don’t appear to hate on O gauge or N gauge in the same way.  It’s weird.

[frobisher]

2 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

 Seems to just be a case of some OO centric folks resenting the new scale.  Not clear why they don’t appear to hate on O gauge or N gauge in the same way.  It’s weird.

 

Redbox syndrome I suspect.  Those two don't come so attired...

[Ravenser]

25 minutes ago, teletougos said:

One thing I don't understand with this discussion is the occasional assertion that Hornby's 4mm range is missing out because of the introduction of TT.  

 

Is there any hard evidence that this is true ? Concrete examples and so forth ?  

 

 

 

The argument has been that Hornby have been struggling to hit their delivery dates and get OO product into the shops. Ergo they don't have enough production slots . If production slots are being allocated to another product range (TT:120) it must therefore be at the expense of 4mm products. Delays in releasing the 2MT would be cited.

 

Similarly Hornby's annual budget for new tooling is assumed to be a fixed sum, X . If Y is being spent on tooling up TT:120 models then the available budget for OO new tooling is reduced by Y...  (There is certainly a hint that OO9's place in the sun at Bachmann has been at the expense of Farish production)

 

Against this, ixionmodels makes the very obvious point that the supply of new subjects for OO is visibly running out, and manufacturers are being driven to tool up some very esoteric stuff like Turbomotive, Big Bertha, 4DD units, Boosters, 89s,  APTs and the like. We only see what's been announced - if you remember that some of the "untouched subjects" must already be in the development pipelines of various manufacturers the supply of novel subjects in 4mm really  must be running  out. We are already seeing duplication of relatively esoteric subjects like Newton Chambers car carriers

 

There have been hints that the new regime at Hornby have been unimpressed by some of the product selection in the recent past : in other words they think that some of the stuff that's been tooled shouldn't have been . Hornby patently do not want to go chasing the high-end high-spec low-run/high price business model  ("the definitive X" "museum quality models") represented by things like the Sutton Locomotive Works 24s and the Marklin Flying Scotsman. Hornby are signalling they want to stay affordable by a mass market, not go chasing "aspirational" stuff for the high end hifi enthusiast. Others take a different view - Bachmann's investment in retooling of the 37 and 47 is a bet in precisely that direction. Unfortunately both models have been duplicated by others.... And the view has been expressed on here that it is pointless Hornby trying to develop any new steam age wagons because others will always beat them to market

 

So there are reasons to think the new regime at Hornby might be looking to scale back investment in new OO tooling anyway, and rely more on reruns of their very large bank of existing 4mm tooling. It may be much more a case of looking for a sensible use for the tooling budget when sensible 4mm candidates are running out, rather than "TT:120 stole my lunch!" The move away from an annual announcement to dribbling out news through the year could - amongst other things - be a good way to disguise the absence of a substantial programme of new tooling

 

All the same , if the flow of new OO toolings from Hornby does dwindle , you can bet that lots of people will howl that TT:120 has deprived then of that "Definitive" LMS Compound or  Class 52 they were entitled to...

 

 

[osbornsmodels]

question for Ixion Lindsay. Wasn't the original Ixion Manor body nearer to TT120 than N before the remake? If they were TT120 are the original body tools no longer useable?

regards

M

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, J-Lewis said:

Not clear why they don’t appear to hate on O gauge or N gauge in the same way.

Because (in the case of Hornby specifically) they aren’t made by the same manufacturer?

[J-Lewis]

33 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Because (in the case of Hornby specifically) they aren’t made by the same manufacturer?

Yes but what difference does that make?  It seems to be a dislike of the scale rather than the manufacturer?  I reckon @Ravenser may have the right idea with the reply earlier in the thread.

[Ravenser]

7 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Because (in the case of Hornby specifically) they aren’t made by the same manufacturer?

N gauge is made by Bachmann and Dapol - but doesnt attract the same concern . Nor, interestingly, has Bachmann's OO9 venture - even though Bachmann Europe is well known to be constrained in terms of manufacturing capacity and every production slot given to OO9 is not available for OO or N production

 

There are occasional murmurs that Dapol have lost interest in N and are more O gauge focussed these days , and someone may note that Heljan seem more focussed on O than OO in recent years. But nothing like the heat that TT:120 generates

 

In the case of Gauge O , there are historical reasons for a lack of concern. 4mm ate Gauge O alive in the late 40s and early 50s . The resurgance of 7mm finescale over the last 30 years has been a slow burn affair and it is very much a niche scale for those with disposable income and space available - as indicated by ixionmodels' comment about a run of 1500 RTR models being dismissed as more than the market could absorb.

 

In contrast Hornby must have sold at least 10,000 TT:120 Gresley pacifics so far (I think the count was up around 4000 sets each of A3 and A4 when people stopped counting?) For comparison, the peak year of sales for TT3 (1960) seems to have managed about 8000 sets.

 

N gauge has been around for more than half a century and it plainly does not constitute a serious challenge to 4mms huge market share. Indeed there is some concern from some in N gauge circles that N gauge does not get enough product and support from the trade as it is, and any move to TT:120 by the trade might further reduce the support for N.  A further spin on this can be glimpsed in the sidebar - a belief that if Hornby are going to do a small scale then British N gaugers are entitled to their investment and TT:120 cheats N gauge modellers of that support...  (For what it's worth I can't see either Dapol or Bachmann going anywhere near 1:120 scale. Their small scale product is N . Hornby have launched TT:120 because they didn't have a small scale product in the British market, Arnold seems to be their strongest range on the Continent, and Margate plainly didn't see much mileage in being a minor bit player in N filling in a few gaps in the Farish /Dapol catalogues. Accurascale made their feelings plain at the time of TT:120's launch, and subsequently by seeking expressions of interest for possible N gauge models )

 

Perhaps the real nub of it is precisely that N is not felt to constitute any serious challenge to 4mm - but TT:120 as a new venture just might... 4mm's market share is extraordinarily high compared with HO's position on the Continent and North America, and especially given a densely populated country with a housing shortage . Yet - unlike Japan , N gauge is a minor player. You could read that as - a slice of the 4mm market is there for the taking. But not by N gauge.

 

However I suspect Frobisher is right - a lot of the angst directed at TT:120 is simply "redbox syndrome"

 

Nevertheless - a slice of the hobby was quite hostile to the whole TT:120 project before they knew Hornby were involved

[ixionmodels]

59 minutes ago, osbornsmodels said:

question for Ixion Lindsay. Wasn't the original Ixion Manor body nearer to TT120 than N before the remake? If they were TT120 are the original body tools no longer useable?

regards, M.

Hi Maurice, the moulds were destroyed, being to a useless scale. They were oversized, but not to the extent of being to 2.5mm scale. Cheers, Lindsay. 

[Ravenser]

9 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

Yes but what difference does that make?  It seems to be a dislike of the scale rather than the manufacturer?  I reckon @Ravenser may have the right idea with the reply earlier in the thread.

 

There was hostility to the emergence of the scale before Hornby were known to be involved - the initial "Peco announce TT:120" thread testifies to that

 

That said, dislike of Hornby turbo-charged that. Much comment could be filed under "Hornby get it all wrong- again!" and "is this what will finally sink Hornby?"

 

12 months on, much of the dust has settled. It is clear that the new range has not been a commercial failure - indeed it has sold well, and although we can't know if those sales will be sustained over time or if a limited market will be exhausted, the fact that a lot of the sales have been to new entrants bodes well. There was frank disbelief at the proposition that TT:120 could be sold to people outside the hobby when it was launched.

 

Equally it's  become clear that this is a niche scale, Hornby have not bet the shop on TT:120 and it is not a case of "30% market share or bust!" The scenario where TT:120 sinks Hornby is off the table - though the scenario where Hornby's failure in the medium term torpedos a developing scale has perhaps been ignored

[teletougos]

1 hour ago, osbornsmodels said:

question for Ixion Lindsay. Wasn't the original Ixion Manor body nearer to TT120 than N before the remake? If they were TT120 are the original body tools no longer useable?

regards

M

[Sorry, I'm not Ixion.]   Even in the bad old days of N, it was very rare for an N model to be as big as 1:120.

 

I think the Lima Plymouth was one of the few.  Possum Valley (a long gone TT manufacturer) did a kit for a 12mm gauge chassis for it.

 

Lima British 4 wheel underframes were very high to allow for the pizza cutter wheels. They could even look okay with Ian Osborn 8mm finescale wheels but they aren't anywhere near as long as a TT chassis, and took a bit of lengthening to be used in TTn3.5. 

 

Even then it was for very tiny wagons - ancient Queensland Railways ballast trucks and so on.  

Edited November 12, 2023 by teletougos

[teletougos]

4 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

No - it's all speculation!.......  I'm sure Hornby is reading this thread with amusement.....

Thanks. I suspected it probably was. 

 

As others noted, Ravenser sets out a path of reasoning why a person may sanely speculate that way.

 

I acknowledge that and take it on board.   

 

But given my lack of tolerance for Hornby's quantum of communication, and that their tone doesn't make me want to click and read their bumpf, I thought I might have missed some kind of an actual smoking gun. 

[009 micro modeller]

20 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

There was hostility to the emergence of the scale before Hornby were known to be involved - the initial "Peco announce TT:120" thread testifies to that

 

That said, dislike of Hornby turbo-charged that. Much comment could be filed under "Hornby get it all wrong- again!" and "is this what will finally sink Hornby?"

Yes, that’s sort of what I was getting at - I wasn’t suggesting there was necessarily a consistent approach being taken by those levelling such criticisms (so take the point that they aren’t bothered about Bachmann N, for instance).

[009 micro modeller]

17 minutes ago, teletougos said:

Even in the bad old days of N, it was very rare for an N model to be as big as 1:120.

 

I think the Lima Plymouth was one of the few.

They have been used to make 009 locos by adding a big cab, and seem to look quite convincing compared to some other N gauge locos similarly adapted, which would be explained by the larger original scale. Actually that’s given me a slightly off-piste idea. Were there any prototype Plymouths built to 3’ 6” or metre gauge? I accept that 3’ gauge is probably more likely for an American loco but that only really works in 3mm scale.

[natterjack]

1 hour ago, osbornsmodels said:

question for Ixion Lindsay. Wasn't the original Ixion Manor body nearer to TT120 than N before the remake? If they were TT120 are the original body tools no longer useable?

regards

M

The question has already been asked (by me) some months ago. The answers were no to the scale and the moulds no longer available.

[teletougos]

9 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

 I accept that 3’ gauge is probably more likely for an American loco but that only really works in 3mm scale.

 Adding a larger cab to 3mm-ise the Plymouth may actually be more prototypical as the Lima hood is too fat anyway.