Hornby 2023 - catalogue and couplings

[Hroth]

37 minutes ago, Bulleidboy100 said:

With regards the catalogue, if you get your Hornby Magazine by subscription, Key Publishing are/were offering a £4 discount on the catalogue price (so £6.99 inc. P&P). I received the catalogue almost by return, the magazine has yet to arrive - which is annoying when you can see it in the shops for sale.  I have had this happen with the magazine before, a quick call to Key Publishing and a copy was in the post.

 

As mentioned above, I ordered my subscriber discount copy of the catalogue on Friday... 

It should turn up sometime soon!

 

[CUCKOO LINE]

2 hours ago, Bulleidboy100 said:

With regards the catalogue, if you get your Hornby Magazine by subscription, Key Publishing are/were offering a £4 discount on the catalogue price (so £6.99 inc. P&P). I received the catalogue almost by return, the magazine has yet to arrive - which is annoying when you can see it in the shops for sale.  I have had this happen with the magazine before, a quick call to Key Publishing and a copy was in the post.

Seems to regularly late. At one stage we subscribed to Airfix World and Hornby Magazine. AIRFIX was nearly always on time or early whereas Hornby of late has often been late, I think the explanation I was given was that the Hornby magazine tended to be heavier so got in another priority for magazines from Royal Mail. Not the way to keep your delivery system in the good books if so.

[Flying Pig]

7 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Ferociously, and very succefully sold to the public. Name me another loco that would get so many non-enthusiasts off their backsides to a lineside.

 

 

And so many enthusiasts chewing the carpet.  Even if she weren't the only surviving A3 she'd be a national treasure.

[Standards_in_OO]

On 17/01/2023 at 15:00, Legend said:

 

I think its time for a revamp of the whole thing . Must have had the same format for 15-20 years now(except 2016). 

My favourite catalogues are the format from the 1990’s. I remember having some of these as a child and trying to recreate the layouts and scenes that were in them. After that the photo shopping of models onto existing photos didn’t really do it for me at the time. 

[andythenorth]

On 11/01/2023 at 16:40, frobisher said:

Ye cannae break the laws of physics...

No but you can apply them 😉

 

Magnets have two poles. A single cube magnet can be arranged so that a pair of them will always couple. 

 

Hunt have done it with the Elite coupling, I've bought hundreds of them. 🙃 There are some quality issues (reliability of the 3D print material), but generally very satisfied with them and the diversity of the range and the delivery speed when ordered direct.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by andythenorth

[Steven B]

On 17/01/2023 at 16:15, Hroth said:

However, it could be considered a matter for dispute that Hornby would flog more 2023 catalogues by having a picture of its nameplate on the catalogue cover, rather than their key new tooling steam loco!

 

If the B17/5 was on the cover the vast majority of purchasers would think it was Mallard.

 

Steven B.

[Ken.W]

On 17/01/2023 at 15:49, Hroth said:

 

Anything but the Flying Moneypit!

 

It would have been more appropriate to have an exciting illustration of a B17/5 at speed with The East Anglian!

 

 

Hmm, what's more appropriate than the most well known loco, with several records, so like it or not is iconic, which has been virtually continuously in the Hornby range...

And in its Centenary year?

 

Compared to a loco in an obscure form in which most modellers, never mind the general public, will never have heard of???

 

[melmerby]

 

Never seen coaches coupled solely by an air/vacuum pipe before.

It looks worse than almost any other coupler going.

[frobisher]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

Never seen coaches coupled solely by an air/vacuum pipe before.

It looks worse than almost any other coupler going.

 

Mind you, it's particularly wrong in the example photo, it would look better on buffered stock that was more closely coupled... and you'd then not notice the absence of the coupling at buffer level.

[Downer]

12 hours ago, melmerby said:

 

Never seen coaches coupled solely by an air/vacuum pipe before.

It looks worse than almost any other coupler going.

Probably a stupid question, but would they look slightly more realistic upside-down?

[frobisher]

7 hours ago, Downer said:

Probably a stupid question, but would they look slightly more realistic upside-down?

 

Probably less so as they should bow under gravity.  But any rigid coupling at NEM height isn't going to look right for all cases, if at all.  The NEM pockets are at bogie level, nowhere near headstocks.

 

That said, still looks better than tension locks for fixed rakes.

 

[Peter749]

The new Hornby Magnetic coupling seem similar to the Bachmann 36-060 and those did not have a representation of an actual coupling

 

Peter

[melmerby]

On the same piece of plastic you could also have a crude representation of a Buckeye at the correct level, even if it's not operational. At least it would cover the gap between headstocks (it might look totally naff however!☹️)

Dummy screw couplings might also be possible, in the same way.

Edited January 22, 2023 by melmerby

[frobisher]

4 hours ago, melmerby said:

On the same piece of plastic you could also have a crude representation of a Buckeye at the correct level, even if it's not operational. At least it would cover the gap between headstocks (it might look totally naff however!☹️)

Dummy screw couplings might also be possible, in the same way.

 

It's really not going to work though as the NEM pocket is so far below the headstock and isn't necessarily fixed relative to the headstock.  You'll end up with some really awful Z shaped device coming from the NEM socket, up in front of the headstock (and definately not attached to it) that might foul the buffers...

 

[Wheatley]

Lets face it, anything which uses the NEM socket is going to look less than ideal on UK outline stock, even a Kadee (2 feet too low  and  where are the vac and steam heat pipes ?). But the Bill Bedford/Pendon finescale type won't cope with 3rd radius curves. 

 

Regardless of appearance they work really well. More than strong enough to manage a 9 coach train on a gradient (not tested them with anything longer yet), much easier to set up and break down a long rake than the Bachmann version,  neater than the blunderbuss Roco coupling and none of the 'loose-coupled' effect of the equally obtrusive tension locks. They also aren't fussy about the height differences between Bachmann and Hornby NEM socket heights, there's enough vertical play to cope with it. I shall be picking up two more packets tomorrow  to complete conversion of my fixed rakes.   

[Rhydgaled]

On 17/01/2023 at 16:19, Phil Parker said:

Ferociously, and very succefully sold to the public. Name me another loco that would get so many non-enthusiasts off their backsides to a lineside.

I don't understand how the NRM have managed to keep the level of interest on the full-size lineside so high since surely the famed locomotive that so many non-enthusiasts know is in Alan Pegler style LNER Apple Green without those sideplate thingies that make it look a little bit like a rebuilt Bulleid pacific. Certainly I'm far less interested to go out and see it in BR green.

 

On 12/01/2023 at 11:54, Peter Eaton said:

I assume the future of magnetic couplers will soon be electro based on decoder chip operation ????????????

It will have to come.

 

Even without a decoder, I've wondered for ages whether an electro-magnet could be made to look like a scale BSI coupling with the polarity linked with the directional head/tail lights on stuff like the old Bachmann class 158s. So, when running a pair of units together in the same direction they would couple, but if you carefully parked a pair of units either side of a rail joint with isolating fishplates and set the power to run in opposite directions, they'd uncouple. Presumably with DCC you wouldn't need the isolating fishplates or the accurate 'parking'.

[Gordon A]

On 11/01/2023 at 09:14, BachelorBoy said:

 

Thanks for that ... but really, Hornby should have provided pictures with the announcement, and we shouldn't have needed to use Google

 

[Gordon A]

The pipe couplings ate no good for steam era stock.

1) Steam heat pipes are smooth, vacuum pipes are ribbed. This so the crews can tell the difference in the dark.

2) For steam era stock the pipes should cross each other, forming an X between coaches and between coaches and locos.

 

[AyJay]

I suspect that couplings are the next 'Holy Grail' in this hobby. They will have to look realistic, operate reliably, be rugged enough to survive normal use and be of an acceptable price; these requirements may well be mutually exclusive.

I think that the magnetic coupling concept offers interesting possibilities, but for steam-era stock, will be a sideways step rather than a step forward when compared to the traditional 'D' coupling.

When I look at a rake of my Mk1 carriages, perhaps the appearance could be improved if the 'D' couplings were replaced with these new fangled magnetic couplings, and the whole hidden underneath passenger carriage connectors (I don't know what their proper name is).

However, I would imagine that such an arrangement will have 'mechanical alignment issues' when taking a tight curve.

Also, I cannot image such an arrangement being priced at less than £5 per carriage coupling. With all the carriages I have, anything more than £2 per carriage coupling would be prohibitively expensive.

 

[BR60103]

Our local bookstore (chain) has about a half-dozen copies of the catalogue.  At $25 a pop, I don't expect them to sell too many.  I remember when they were either $0.10 or free. (price of a chocolate bar)

 

[cages_cage]

How do the R7398 Buckeye magnetic couplings fare between Bachmann Mk1s and Hornby stock? Do they compensate well for the incorrect height of the Bachmann CCMs? Also, is the gap between coaches too large/too small for reliable running?

[scouse889]

16 hours ago, cages_cage said:

How do the R7398 Buckeye magnetic couplings fare between Bachmann Mk1s and Hornby stock? Do they compensate well for the incorrect height of the Bachmann CCMs? Also, is the gap between coaches too large/too small for reliable running?

Can’t comment on the Hornby ones, but the solution I use for this is the Hunt Couplings stepped buckeye for Bachmann and the normal Buckeye for Hornby, which is reliable and solves the height problem. The larger face of the Buckeye stops them pulling apart so easily on the curves so increases the gap between the coaches on curves. A rake of 9/10 coaches no problem with this set up.

[robertcwp]

On 18/03/2023 at 21:28, cages_cage said:

How do the R7398 Buckeye magnetic couplings fare between Bachmann Mk1s and Hornby stock? Do they compensate well for the incorrect height of the Bachmann CCMs? Also, is the gap between coaches too large/too small for reliable running?

The Hornby buck-eye magnetic couplings are too short for Bachmann Mark 1s. I tested a long Hornby pipe coupling on one that was coupled to coach with the NEM box at the correct height and it worked on my layout. As well as being at the wrong height, the NEM boxes on Bachmann Mark 1s are a long way back and the shorter version of the Hornby pipe couplings and the buck-eye version are both too short.

[RFS]

35 minutes ago, robertcwp said:

The Hornby buck-eye magnetic couplings are too short for Bachmann Mark 1s. I tested a long Hornby pipe coupling on one that was coupled to coach with the NEM box at the correct height and it worked on my layout. As well as being at the wrong height, the NEM boxes on Bachmann Mark 1s are a long way back and the shorter version of the Hornby pipe couplings and the buck-eye version are both too short.

 

If you want magnetic coupling for Bachmann MK1s, then the Hunt Elite couplings work very well with my stock. The length you need is the "close" version, and if you use the stepped version it brings their height down to match other vehicles with Hunt couplings. See here.

[robertcwp]

42 minutes ago, RFS said:

 

If you want magnetic coupling for Bachmann MK1s, then the Hunt Elite couplings work very well with my stock. The length you need is the "close" version, and if you use the stepped version it brings their height down to match other vehicles with Hunt couplings. See here.

I know, I have used lots of Hunt ones on the Mark 1 stock on Retford.