Hornby announce TT:120

[Ravenser]

9 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

 

I did mention the J50 as most likely. Only because it was a recent model so they probably had the CADs ready to go. But a type that was pretty limited in it's use, mostly around London and Yorkshire.

 

 

Jason

 

Not quite so limited - they were the Group Standard shunting engine and trip loco.

 

The LNER Encyclopedia states:

 

Quote

By 1935, the J50s were allocated to Ardsley, Bradford, Copley Hill, Immingham, Frodingham, Stratford, Woodford, and Eastfield. The last two batches were spread thinly amongst Norwich, Cambridge, Stratford, Doncaster, Copley Hill, Sheffield, Hitchin, Hornsey, Annesley, and Colwick.

All of the J50s survived to Nationalisation (1948), when the allocations were to Ardsley, Bradford, Copley Hill, Doncaster, Colwich, Frodingham, Stratford, Woodford, Annesley, Sheffield, St. Margaret's, and Eastfield. Most were still allocated in the West Riding, with lesser numbers further afield.

In 1952, thirty J50s were allocated to Hornsey to work transfer trips to the Southern Region. 

 

They will certainly do for an inglenook or any kind of shunting /freight yard layout

 

I believe the LNER represented about 1/3rd of the network, although I'm finding it very difficult to find route mileage figures~*  . As the J50s were reasonably spread around the LNER they ought to have some potential

 

* (The Oxford Companion to British Railway history quotes peak route mileage for the network at 20,267 route miles in 1926. Somewhere in my head I recall seeing figures of approx 8000 route miles for the LMS, approx 6,500  route miles for the LNER , 3,500 for the GWR , and 2,000 for the Southern. Someone may be able to validate or correct those figures; but the point is that the LNER's route mileage was approximately as great as that of the GW and Southern combined if not greater, and given that it served a lot of heavily industrialised areas and major conurbations , its total traffic is unlikely to have been less than the combined total of the two southern companies)

 

[Railpassion]

How many Pannier tanks could they sell in the first year? 

At £120 each, could they sell 5000? 20,000 over 3 years? 

 

 

[gc4946]

5 hours ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

I suspect the only reason the J50 was preferred was because it would be very difficult to fit a Bluetooth decoder in a "Terrier".

 

 

Then Hornby would need to tool up a pair of matching Maunsell carriages in order that modellers could produce a "Hayling Island" scenario, the tooling costs would initially make that non-viable.

[J-Lewis]

2 minutes ago, Railpassion said:

How many Pannier tanks could they sell in the first year? 

At £120 each, could they sell 5000? 20,000 over 3 years? 

 

 

Who knows, but when the Pannier tanks arrives (rumoured to be next year) we will find out.  In the 18 months since launch Hornby have certainly shifted somewhere in the region of 10,000 between Blink Bonny’s and William Whitelaws et all, so a similar number of pannier tanks over 3 years seems reasonable.

[jonnyuk]

27 minutes ago, moawkwrd said:

What a ridiculous statement.

 

Are you seriously asserting that Hornby shouldn’t have bothered with a new scale UNLESS they could’ve released every item available in other scales from the get go? You realise how absurd that would be? How on earth would that have helped competition either? 

Heljan gave up on TT like a child who didn’t get its own way. The reality is they aren’t a manufacturer who can support a new scale like Hornby could. They could’ve released their models already and beaten H by a few years… like what happens in other scales all the time.

 

It isn’t even true of OO or N gauge - there are plenty of items in either scale out of production and hard to find second hand now.

 

Some people here have a strange TT/Hornby sized chip on their shoulders for reasons unknown.

I’ll tell you why, because it does not suit the narrative of the new boys doing a great job, fault free, 100% accurate, fully detailed, unsurpassed new features products, supporting the retailer by not giving great rewards schemes and discounts on multiple buys on direct selling 👍.

i should say those who push the narrative also have no problem buying direct rather than at the retailers they so dearly cherish, funny eh.

ill step away before I’m burnt to a crisp on sight as that seems to be the done thing if you do not subscribe to said narrative.

 

Edited April 2 by jonnyuk

[gc4946]

I hope Hornby caters for most variations 

1 minute ago, J-Lewis said:

Who knows, but when the Pannier tanks arrives (rumoured to be next year) we will find out.  In the 18 months since launch Hornby have certainly shifted somewhere in the region of 10,000 between Blink Bonny’s and William Whitelaws et all, so a similar number of pannier tanks over 3 years seems reasonable.

I hope Hornby caters for both 57XX and 8750 class variations, and simultaneously bring out a Toad brake van 

[Railpassion]

I should say I'm an enthusiast for TT and support Hornby. Alas, the launch strategy seems to have lost direction. 

 

 

[NBL]

5 hours ago, fezza said:

 

We are desperate for a J50 said noone ever.

 

Yet we still have no DMUs (either first or second generation), no Standard 5s, Standard tanks or 4Fs - you know stuff that would actually be useful to a wide range of people who want to run a railway realistic and appropriate stock.

 

There was an April Fools joke on the internet stating that Hornby had abandoned TT. Perhaps the bigger joke is that is continuing with an utterly random range of models. If I was a shareholder I would be very worried.

There you go, you've identified the gap in the market that Hornby have missed, so start your own company and deliver all these models.

[J-Lewis]

19 minutes ago, gc4946 said:

I hope Hornby caters for most variations 

I hope Hornby caters for both 57XX and 8750 class variations, and simultaneously bring out a Toad brake van 

Hornby seem to be doing a good job of planning for variations in these new models, the Class 50 and 66 have shown that already, and the CAD for the Class 37 also looked very good.  It seems likely their Pannier tank will also allow for variations?  Toad brake van would make sense as a companion to the Pannier and Castle, we shall see what the ‘GWR phase’ brings :)  I’m hopeful we also get a standard BR 20T brake van soon as well.

[fezza]

2 hours ago, moawkwrd said:

What a ridiculous statement.

 

Are you seriously asserting that Hornby shouldn’t have bothered with a new scale UNLESS they could’ve released every item available in other scales from the get go? You realise how absurd that would be? How on earth would that have helped competition either? 

 

 

No I didn't say that at all. Try reading carefully.

[andrewshimmin]

I think people who want to use TT120 to model a small branch line are frustrated,. because that's not viable yet.

It sounds like such folks aren't enthused by the J50 because it's not a branch line engine, while other small 0-6-0Ts could have been used for a branch line* as well as shunting and ECS...?

However Hornby obviously know this perfectly well. If you look at what they're offering, even from the very first announcement, it's clear they're going for a more mainline approach - taking advantage of the fact that in TT120 a pacific with four coaches can run around the sort of space found in modern houses without being too absurd. This is a clear point of distinction compared to OO. The branch line layout approach remains viable in OO so except for the novelty value TT120 doesn't have a unique selling point there.

This makes perfect sense to me. And it's clearly attractive to people, because Hornby keep selling out of things.

Those wanting a branch line type layout aren't the top priority, but will eventually be able to be catered for.

Indeed, those wanting to model a particular era and region in a prototypically correct way aren't the priority, I suspect. They are happy to have enough customers (including me) who just want fun stuff to run and are happy to buy an eclectic collection. I imagine their market research from being the biggest OO vendor for decades shows them that this is the significant majority of customers!

 

* Incidentally branch line people seem especially annoyed about not getting whatever small 0-6-0T they personally are keen on, but from photos it seems to me branch line trains were always old pre grouping carriages, not Mark 1s, so as well as a suitable engine you would also need suitable carriages.

 

[irishmail]

Why is there negativity toward TT:120? , espesially comments about the range not being compimentry or locos with nothing for them to haul.

Just look at the Heljan '00' loco's,  quite a range but no coaches for them, and some freight stock.

 

Considering it was only lauched around 18 months ago, it has obviously proved to be popular, just look how quicky the current train sets sell out. 

 

Though I mainly do British 00 and European H0 I am gradually aquiring TT:120 items for a future layout.

[GrumpyPenguin]

11 hours ago, Porfuera said:

But if you're launching a new UK outline scale, don't you want to start with the best sellers? Hornby are there to sell toy trains to the general public, not to please people on RMweb who want to build a layout set in a particular region and era.

Surely, that's the point that many on here are missing.

[moawkwrd]

8 hours ago, fezza said:

 

No I didn't say that at all. Try reading carefully.

 

12 hours ago, fezza said:

 

Maybe Hornby should have thought of that and got a properly thought out and logical range of good quality products ready before launch?

 

If the answer is they don't have sufficient capacity for a  viable TT range, why launch a TT range? The fact they have driven other potential TT suppliers out of the market without being able to offer products of their own is crazy and does nothing to encourage growth of the scale.

 

You might not have said it in so many words but you were clearly implying it.

 

Try and define what a viable TT range would've looked like at launch - go on, if you're clearly an expert on launching entirely new product ranges. You'll then get hundreds of replies from people telling you that you're wrong, that you missed this loco, that loco, this item of rolling stock etc. all day long.

 

Just be honest - nothing Hornby does will ever please you, for whatever reason.

Edited April 3 by moawkwrd

[J-Lewis]

16 hours ago, fezza said:

Yet we still have no DMUs (either first or second generation), no Standard 5s, Standard tanks or 4Fs - you know stuff that would actually be useful to a wide range of people who want to run a railway realistic and appropriate stock.

It might be worth bearing in mind that it’s only been 18 months since the launch of the range.  So Hornby have made pretty good progress despite having all the same supply chain headwinds as all the other manufacturers.  Unless I’m mistaken, the TT range has seen more brand new models released in that time than any other manufacturer in any scale?

 

We know 5’s are on the list of upcoming locos, along with 0-6-0 tanks etc. so it would seem reasonable to expect them to appear over the coming years.  Let’s see what the next 18 months bring?  At that point we should have a good spread of locos across a number of eras, and if there is still no DMU announced by that point then you can say ‘told you so’. ;)

[JohnR]

51 minutes ago, J-Lewis said:

It might be worth bearing in mind that it’s only been 18 months since the launch of the range.  So Hornby have made pretty good progress despite having all the same supply chain headwinds as all the other manufacturers.  Unless I’m mistaken, the TT range has seen more brand new models released in that time than any other manufacturer in any scale?

 

We know 5’s are on the list of upcoming locos, along with 0-6-0 tanks etc. so it would seem reasonable to expect them to appear over the coming years.  Let’s see what the next 18 months bring?  At that point we should have a good spread of locos across a number of eras, and if there is still no DMU announced by that point then you can say ‘told you so’. ;)

 

Also worth comparing with the roll out of TT3 by Triang in the 50s. It took a few years for that to get going as well - and it seemed to be killed off before it had reached a reasonable level. 

[JohnR]

A list of the locos launched by Triang:

 

1957

Jinty 0-6-0

GWR Castle 4-6-0

 

1959

Original Merchant Navy 4-6-2

Class 08 0-6-0

Class 31

 

1960

Britannia 4-6-2

 

1961

GWR Prairie 2-6-2

 

1963

Class 104 DMU

 

 

So 8 locos released over 5-6 years. 

[Johan DC]

So, Hornby is halfway there after 18 months. 

[HExpressD]

6 minutes ago, Johan DC said:

So, Hornby is halfway there after 18 months. 

Well, when the Princess, 50, 66 and J50 are released, all supposedly by the end of the year I think that'll be an equivalent size range in 1/3rd the time if I'm not mistaken

['CHARD]

2 hours ago, irishmail said:

 

Just look at the Heljan '00' loco's,  quite a range but no coaches for them, and some freight stock.

 

You've inadvertently destroyed your own position here. The whole point being that Heljan doesn't need to manufacture coaches, those are well served by the major manufacturers, not to mention tens of thousands swilling around the second-hand market. 

 

Hornby has gone out on a limb, a daring gamble for which I applaud it. But the reluctance of others to invest heavily in this scale before its longevity has been demonstrated is probably prudent.

[andrewshimmin]

I have never given the J50 the slightest thought before yesterday, but they look quite cute. They are available in every major scale, so presumably they are popular enough, and hence Hornby think they will sell in TT120.

[Roy L S]

2 hours ago, J-Lewis said:

It might be worth bearing in mind that it’s only been 18 months since the launch of the range.  So Hornby have made pretty good progress despite having all the same supply chain headwinds as all the other manufacturers.  Unless I’m mistaken, the TT range has seen more brand new models released in that time than any other manufacturer in any scale?

 

 

But then TT120 is the rarest of things, a brand new modelling scale in model railways and in terms of overall products there has been significant volume, but of necessity it included the mundane but essential items such as track and accessories which skews the position somewhat. In terms of locos and rolling stock  I don't think I would be bold enough to say "more brand new models than any other manufacturer in any scale" and I don't think that's correct, in fact the volume of releases thus far has been comparatively slow - to take just one comparable example, in British N I can recall during the late "noughties" when Bachmann were trying to get the Farish range re-established one particular year where if memory serves, there were seven locos alone released. 

 

TT120 was launched with a huge fanfare and with hugely optimistic "promises" by some then at Hornby in terms of what would be delivered and when, a classic case of over-promising and under-delivering which didn't help. In current economic conditions Hornby have the hardest of jobs and are doing their best within the inevitable financial and logistical constraints that exist but it hasn't been perfect and the TT120 "fundamentalists" would do well in my opinion to balance their sometimes overspun views with a little more pragmatism. 

 

Aside from Peco who have dipped a toe in the water with some track (which arguably has a global market), lineside models and buildings (and a single British wagon) nobody else has committed to producing anything for the British market, and from my conversations with some manufacturers they don't actually seem that interested. This makes Hornby's job in establishing the scale all the more difficult and it is going to take more time than was initially suggested.

 

Roy

[Hobby]

23 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

In terms of locos and rolling stock  I don't think I would be bold enough to say "more brand new models than any other manufacturer in any scale" and I don't think that's correct, in fact the volume of releases thus far has been comparatively slow

 

Aside from Peco who have dipped a toe in the water with some track (which arguably has a global market), lineside models and buildings (and a single British wagon) nobody else has committed to producing anything for the British market, and from my conversations with some manufacturers they don't actually seem that interested. This makes Hornby's job in establishing the scale all the more difficult and it is going to take more time than was initially suggested.

 

With regards the first paragraph, it's difficult to compare, but compared to the launch of TT3 and early British N gauge he's right, they have launched more variety in a much shorter space of time, and especially compared with some of the early British N gauge models, and of much better quality. It's a difficult one to judge as there isn't really anything to directly compare it to, though, as manufacturing was very different back in the 50s and 60s, and expectations from enthusiasts much lower than today.

 

With regards to the second paragraph, I ask you "Which Manufacturers are you referring to?". There's an awful lot of TT120 stuff out there produced by the cottage industry manufacturers. Granted some others are waiting to see if it's worthwhile but I'd expect some of them to start producing in the next 12 months. Contrary to your conversations the ones I've spoken to at shows are planning stuff and are positive, others are in the "wait and see" mode which is what I'd expect this early in the launch. However if you look at what's available now it's already quite easy to furnish a British layout in TT with suitable buildings and accessories, in fact the only building I don't have is a suitable signal box for a NW England based layout, the rest of the buildings I have.

Edited April 3 by Hobby

[andrewshimmin]

Out of interest, how many new locomotive models have been launched in the Autumn 2022 to Autumn 2023 period in OO? New locos as opposed to new variants of existing models.

Edited April 3 by andrewshimmin
correct

[irishmail]

1 hour ago, 'CHARD said:

 

You've inadvertently destroyed your own position here. The whole point being that Heljan doesn't need to manufacture coaches, those are well served by the major manufacturers, not to mention tens of thousands swilling around the second-hand market. 

 

Hornby has gone out on a limb, a daring gamble for which I applaud it. But the reluctance of others to invest heavily in this scale before its longevity has been demonstrated is probably prudent.

No, not really, the point being people are saying that Hornby are producing  items and nothing to go with them,  They have Locos, coaches and wagons, yes agree may not all mix era wise, but at least you have a train even if its not quite 100% authentic. 

Heljan have produced coaches for their 0 gauge range but nothing for 00/4mm.