Hornby 2023 - Steam locomotives

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, The Black Hat said:

As much as the Dublo range is nice, I do wonder how big the rose tinted glass sector of the market is and looking at it, most of these are standard range items, just in a different box. 

 

Some of the other range look to be overdue change, the 8F being an open goal for a competitor to be replacing it, especially given what Hornby is charging for this release. Other things see the deft hand of Simon swinging the range back south or big express engines and I also wonder how much of a hit that will take to the range. The main thing I take from this is that pressure on wanted, DCC ready or fitted items in the right livery will see their second hand values increase to match the price rise for new models. 

You are clearly looking at a part of "The South" with which I am unfamiliar!

 

From where I'm standing, SK's compass still seems to be firmly stuck on East.

 

Hoping for something appropriate from another part of Kent, and/or Ireland. Otherwise a chunk of my modelling moolah will be diverted into an extra holiday!

 

 

Edited January 10, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[tommyliam021]

I wonder if 4073 will have NRM (or whatever it’s called this week) packaging, considering it’s in service condition and not as preserved? I know the second release of 4003 also had NRM packaging despite being in lined Shirtbutton service condition. I picked up the first new tool release of 4073 as preserved for £145 last year so I’m quite happy with that.

 

[HonestTom]

I wonder if the heavy emphasis on SDJR locos is related to the upcoming release of their coaches in that livery?

[Dunsignalling]

7 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Seems to be a heavy s&d focus this year, but nothing that hasn't been done before.

And state-of-the-art for marking the 35th anniversary of two of the models....😁

[Sam*45110*SVR]

I could not believe my eyes when I read that Hornby are re-releasing the 8F for £249.99! The tooling for it dates back to 2002 and yet it's being sold for £40 more than the far more detailed new 2023 tool B17/5, 2010 castle or the 2017 streamlined merchant navy! You'd expect a new tool to go with the Black 5 for that kind of money.

[Pre Grouping fan]

25 minutes ago, Sam*45110*SVR said:

I could not believe my eyes when I read that Hornby are re-releasing the 8F for £249.99! The tooling for it dates back to 2002 and yet it's being sold for £40 more than the far more detailed new 2023 tool B17/5, 2010 castle or the 2017 streamlined merchant navy! You'd expect a new tool to go with the Black 5 for that kind of money.

 

Something I've heard in the past is older models use production/assembly techniques that take longer and therefore more costly. One of the reasons why the unrebuilt Bulleid light Pacific's are more expensive than the unrebuilt merchant navies.

[frobisher]

1 minute ago, Pre Grouping fan said:

Something I've heard in the past is older models use production/assembly techniques that take longer and therefore more costly. One of the reasons why the unrebuilt Bulleid light Pacific's are more expensive than the unrebuilt merchant navies.

 

There must be an element of that as of course the tooling hails from a time when the wages component of the production costs was a fraction of what they are today.  As those costs rise, the benefit of the tooling being "paid out" gets rapidly diminished.  If the cost of production of an old tooling is higher than the cost of production (including recovery cost for tooling) for new tooling then the end price of the former could likely be higher than that of the latter.

[Bon Accord]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Maroon and White. 

 

There are two at the SRPS which were originally at the Bluebell. Arrived with the CR Single on a railtour and stayed, then swapped for some Bulleid coaches a few years later.

 

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10027.htm

 

 

Jason

 

They both remained in use in Scotland until 1965, neither went South of the border with 123.

1375 was sold to the Bluebell in 1969, whilst 464 was sold by BR directly to the SRPS.

1375 then returned north in 1974 with a Bulleid TO as a part exchange.

 

[Dunsignalling]

33 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

There must be an element of that as of course the tooling hails from a time when the wages component of the production costs was a fraction of what they are today.  As those costs rise, the benefit of the tooling being "paid out" gets rapidly diminished.  If the cost of production of an old tooling is higher than the cost of production (including recovery cost for tooling) for new tooling then the end price of the former could likely be higher than that of the latter.

In the case of the air-smoothed Bulleids,  the body construction appears to be so similar between the two models that any production savings must have been made in the MN mechanism.

[Nova Scotian]

8 hours ago, TomScrut said:

 

I expect Eisenhower and Canada will be the ones to hang about.

 

Mallard is Mallard so will sell (I have ordered one), the other 3 UK based ones (I have ordered 2 but might decide on only one), two have been on the mainline in the last few years as per the models, SNG should look similar to the model when it's repainted and will be out on the mainline so I see running interest as sold for 3 of the 6.

Hope so. Would love to pick up a Dublo Dominion of Canada on the cheap. 320 quid will cause raised eyebrows at home, quite rightly. 220 or less (30%ish off) I reckon I can make the case. Its my top pick from the 2023 range, though I like the streamlined B17 too (a rename to a might have been streamlined 2870 Tottenham Hotspur for my own allegiances :))

[gc4946]

9 hours ago, gc4946 said:

The R30090 L&M Rocket train pack includes a newly-tooled 2nd class carriage exclusive to that pack, I hope it's made separately available for those who bought the R3809 and R3810 packs.

I emailed Hornby suggesting the 2nd class carriage be offered separately,

I already own a R3810 pack with three 1st class carriages with three R40102 3rd class carriages and arguably the 2nd class carriages should be more widely available to form prototypical trains.

[frobisher]

2 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

In the case of the air-smoothed Bulleids,  the body construction appears to be so similar between the two models that any production savings must have been made in the MN mechanism.

 

Maybe.  The chassis of a lot of the early "Super Detail"/Chinese models is not the same as the later ones, and DCC compatibility was a modification rather than as designed.  Tender connections changed as well over time.  It might all add up.  But there may be slightly less assembly steps in the body as well, just not as obvious.  Or not, Hornby may have other criteria such as which factory actually manufacturers each, and the various set up costs between them all.  

[spamcan61]

4 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Maybe.  The chassis of a lot of the early "Super Detail"/Chinese models is not the same as the later ones, and DCC compatibility was a modification rather than as designed.  Tender connections changed as well over time.  It might all add up.  But there may be slightly less assembly steps in the body as well, just not as obvious.  Or not, Hornby may have other criteria such as which factory actually manufacturers each, and the various set up costs between them all.  

I'm pretty sure SK is on record somewhere from a couple of years back stating that replacing the Sanda Kan era designs was a deliberate strategy, presumably for the reasons you've given.

[estarriol]

6 hours ago, BlackFivesMatter said:

Dark purple lake and white with a soupçon of ultramarine blue. Brown for the Cathcart circle. Now, about the blue… then again about the loco- have you a few hours to spare? Hey if it gets more people modelling Scottish locos it cannae be bad. 

Bigger question for me is, are the coaches otyherwise close to accurate as models?

[Dunsignalling]

55 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Maybe.  The chassis of a lot of the early "Super Detail"/Chinese models is not the same as the later ones, and DCC compatibility was a modification rather than as designed.  Tender connections changed as well over time.  It might all add up.  But there may be slightly less assembly steps in the body as well, just not as obvious.  Or not, Hornby may have other criteria such as which factory actually manufacturers each, and the various set up costs between them all.  

I've both versions of the Light Pacifics and the most significant change is a completely new tender with DCC connector, decoder socket and speaker space. The body mounts had to be re-located to make room for the latter so bodies are not interchangeable between old and new. Changes to the loco appear limited to the loss of the decoder socket, revised wiring and a new tender coupling that doesn't double as a connector for the tender pick-ups. I haven't had the lid off any of my very early ones lately but I have a vague recollection they had no DCC provision at all. If that is so, there must be three variants rather than two. In my experience, the oldest ones have generally been the least likely to give trouble, hence my not having recent memory of what they look like inside!

 

The chassis under the air-smoothed MNs looks somewhat better engineered, and although I haven't yet needed to take one apart, I suspect it contains barely half the number of components in the WC item. The latter I have dismantled and consider that generation of Hornby mechanisms to be way more complex than necessary and a total pain to reassemble.    

 

John

Edited January 10, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

11 minutes ago, estarriol said:

Bigger question for me is, are the coaches otyherwise close to accurate as models?

Not within a country mile. They are simply the old Tri-ang BR Mk.1s with different sides fitted.

 

Whatever similarity they might exhibit to any design of Caley coach beyond the panelling and livery will be purely coincidental. 

 

John

Edited January 10, 2023 by Dunsignalling

[estarriol]

Dang.

 

The one disadvantage of pre grouping stuff, is they all seem to have complicated colour and lining schemes!

[farren]

17 minutes ago, estarriol said:

Dang.

 

The one disadvantage of pre grouping stuff, is they all seem to have complicated colour and lining schemes!

Locomotion? And no pesky break gear to worry about either bonus. 

[Invicta]

1 hour ago, Dunsignalling said:

Not within a country mile. They are simply the old Tri-ang BR Mk.1s with different sides fitted.

 

Whatever similarity they might exhibit to any design of Caley coach beyond the panelling and livery will be purely coincidental. 

 

John

IIRC the panelled sides are based on CR 65' "Grampian" coaches, which ran on 6-wheel bogies, so as you say, not within a country mile of the BR Mk1 Tri-ang put them on

Edited January 10, 2023 by Invicta
spelling

[adb968008]

6 hours ago, Pre Grouping fan said:

 

Something I've heard in the past is older models use production/assembly techniques that take longer and therefore more costly. One of the reasons why the unrebuilt Bulleid light Pacific's are more expensive than the unrebuilt merchant navies.

Pushes the needle towards simplifying the existing tooling, or making a new one.

 

However the 8f hardly looks a complicated beast, indeed the 1980’s era tooling wasnt that far behind it either.

[TravisM]

Happy to see that Hornby have issued another ‘Great Gathering’ set, albeit a 10 year anniversary and in the Hornby Dublo range.  Promptly ordered a R30263 60009 ‘Union of South Africa’, a model I’ve been after for ages and not prepared to pay the eye watering amounts people have been asking.

Edited January 10, 2023 by jools1959
Spelling

[Ribird]

According to Hornby media team in a Instagram conversation (I’m happy to provide pictures if not believed), they will be updating the artwork of R3859 J36 in BR apple green. To what they will update? Who knows?
 

I know a few people have messaged them about the said paint and tooling issues. Hornby also claims the front smokebox door lamp iron doesn’t exist in tooling, yet on their BR ‘Haig’ model it does? So I’m uncertain if we see any changes before their release supposedly this summer.

[BWsTrains]

11 hours ago, Jon Harbour said:

Sad the opportunity to improve the 14xx wasn't taken. Missed an open goal there...

 

Jon,

 

That depends who's got the home pitch advantage.

 

From Hornby's POV, if you can churn out more or less the same stuff every 2-3 years, cycling thru the insignia / colour / number combinations, while progressively ramping up the price (+ 66% since the 2017)  it's clear who's scoring the goals here. 🙄

 

Colin

[Rhydgaled]

I'm in agreement with those who are questioning the rather large number of premium, special-edition, models. At least one other person has already pointed out that there are two blue Mallards. I suppose one is era 10 and one era 3, and one is die-cast and the other not, but surely it would make more sense to do one this year and save the other for next year? The same with the die-cast 'Great Gathering' and 'Flying Scotsman' collections - do the six 'Scotsmans' this year (for the 100th anniversary of the loco appearing) as the die-cast offering for steam this year and save the 'Dublo' A4s for future releases - perhaps one a year for the next six years instead of all at once.

 

13 hours ago, JSpencer said:

In any case, limited editions have long since ceased being limited...

I thought it was the other way round - apart perhaps from train sets and some steam-era items in the Railroad range - all 00 model rolling stock was produced as a limited production run. I would guess that the number of units produced for some products is closer to 10,000 than the 2,500-3,000 made in the case of a limited edition, but I probably could do with being educated on this topic.

 

Personally I might (big if) have been tempted by a model of Sir Nigel Gresley in BR dull blue as seen in preservation (and this image from Wikipedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011-04-24_SirNigelGresley.jpg) if it was issued as a normal release and not with a limited/special/die-cast edition premium price tag. Has Hornby ever done it as regular release or only as some kind of special edition?

 

Turning now to the hand we have been dealt, I think the steam product that interests me the most this year is the GWR 14xx; did Hornby ever make these into reliable runners?

 

Also, while I wouldn't be in the market for one anyway, what's with the wheels on the 1924 edition of Flying Scotsman (the one with something like a coat of arms on the cabside and both 'LNER' and '4472' on the non-corridor tender)? The leading bogie in particular looks somewhat toy-like compared to all the other versions in this release.

[Jon Harbour]

48 minutes ago, BWsTrains said:

 

Jon,

 

That depends who's got the home pitch advantage.

 

From Hornby's POV, if you can churn out more or less the same stuff every 2-3 years, cycling thru the insignia / colour / number combinations, while progressively ramping up the price (+ 66% since the 2017)  it's clear who's scoring the goals here. 🙄

 

Colin

 

If people buy it. I desperately want a decent 14xx - but the wait goes on...

 

It's about time somebody had the testicular fortitude to take Hornby on with this model.