Hattons Model Railways to close

[G-BOAF]

very shocked to hear this news. A huge presence in the industry, both retail and innovating manufacture.

I hope the Hattons Originals tools and programms find new homes, as to the knowledgeable staff and innovative leadership.

[MatP]

Hi All,

 

I concur completely with all those sending their best wishes to Hattons employees and their families. I always found the customer service to be first-rate, for instance on a couple of occasions when I had placed an online order and then realised that I needed 'Widget X' as well - I would ring them and ask if they could amend the order so that I didn't have to pay a second postage charge, and they were always fine about it. I also liked their use of Amazon delivery in more recent years: I found it very reliable and predictable.

 

There is a link on the Hattons new stock page called "View products expected into stock soon". It was working normally right up until Christmas Eve. But after the Christmas break, clicking on it produced a 'page not found' error. I guess I now know why.

 

I often used Hattons for things which my local model shops didn't have (they are good and competitively-priced but have quite small ranges), and I was hopelessly addicted to checking the Hattons second-hand section. There were often far more interesting things on it than appear on eBay and even in this day of T-101 software monitoring all human commerce, occasional real bargains. You could often pick up a loco that was a non-runner due to a botched DCC installation (returning the loco to DC gave me a certain Ludditic pleasure), or a part-completed project. 

 

Last year, I bought a Hornby 14xx second-hand from them for £30-odd. The previous owner had removed the top feed and decals (expertly) and carried out a partial repaint (very decently) but stopped there. Because it wasn't mint, the Hattons system had knocked a lot off the price. The loco turned out to be a perfect runner and a tenner's worth of new decals and etched plates produced an excellent little model. I just hope Hattons made some money on the deal too - and I did buy this loco as part of a much larger order, honest!

 

Best Wishes,

Mat P. 

[Invicta]

That was a surprising and shocking piece of news- in fact, when first I saw an announcement from Hattons in my Facebook feed last night, I was half expecting news on the second round of Genesis coaches, or a new Hattons Exclusive, not the end of an era!

 

I think I placed my first order with Hattons in about 1984 as a teenager, although I pretty much stopped railway modelling a few years after that until the early 2000s, and probably didn't place another order with them until about 5/6 years ago. Over the last few years though, I've been a fairly regular customer though, and have always had prompt and excellent service from them.

 

Having been through a couple of redundancies myself, I really feel for the Hattons staff who must be going through so much uncertainty at the moment, and I hope that they're able to find new employment quickly and without too much stress.

 

The other thought that comes to mind is that I hope a deal can be done for someone else to take on the rights and tooling for the Hattons Exclusives- it would be a fitting legacy to the work done by the Hattons team, if such excellent products were to continue in some other guise.

[G-BOAF]

8 hours ago, adb968008 said:

I want to highlight this….

 

And the Product Database.

 

No other retailer has this level of detail, even sources like Hornbyguide and modelrailwaydatabase are not as good as this resource.

 

maybe a good opensource wiki project ?

 

Yes this in a big way.

it is a wonderful catalogue of past models, with photos of the actual thing not CGI or pre-production samples.

 

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, moawkwrd said:

 

Not to point out the obvious, but with their popularity around the world this can't have helped if they were doing it for all overseas orders...

What makes you think that it was the overseas customer that determined their decision? Fact is excellent customer service, brings in repeat business and plenty of posts from UK based customers.

[billy_anorak59]

Like everyone else, I’m shocked at the news. Hattons are/were one of those constants in my life – always there.

 

Also an indelible part of my teenage years, and I recall Saturday afternoons at the 180 Smithdown Road shop fondly in the mid to late 1970s.

Football in the morning, a quick bit of lunch, a bus to Birkenhead Woodside and the Mersey Ferry over to Liverpool Pier Head, then the No 86 bus to the shop. An hour or two spent browsing (and sometimes buying!) and then home again in time for Dr Who.

Got my 18th Birthday present from there (Dublo Co-Bo – brand new, sealed – still got it).

I also ‘nearly’ got a pre-war clockwork Sir Nigel Gresley for £5, until Norman spotted the transaction taking place from the gloom within the shop – never knew he could move so fast! Turned out it ‘wasn’t for sale’…

In recent years, Hattons was always my ‘go to’ shop, and never received anything but exemplary service from them.

 

Very best wishes to all the staff – I hope they can all move on quickly with their livelihoods and prosper.

Edited January 9 by billy_anorak59
Smelling

[Aidan-]

Can't really believe what i'm reading.  All i can say is i wish Hatton's staff all the best for what ever they do, always been a pleasure dealing with them.

[Phil Parker]

Digging through some old photos last night, I found this:

 

[BVMR21]

I have to say it is a real shame that Hattons are going, I echo the comments made by others in wishing all Hatton's staff the best going forward.

Whilst I haven't used Hattons that much, they have always been a very reliable retailer. Was not something I was expecting per sey, but as the saying goes all good things come to an end. I do wonder what will be happening to the Hattons Originals toolings, as things such as the Barclays and Genesis coaches are well worth buying, I do hope someone has acquired said toolings and will keep them available to the market.

Either way, it appears the sun is now setting on another chapter in the model railway world, and it is time to move on.

Again many thanks to everyone at Hattons for their many years of service to our hobby, and I do hope all goes well for you going forward.

[Markeg]

I read this morning (Australian Time -12 hours ago) the closing of Hattons.  I returned to Railway Modelling 23 years ago after finding my old Triang/Hornby models and discovering the much updated UK models.   I have bought many items from Hattons, being my main supplier and buying stock for others in my Model Railway club (Bendigo).  In 2011 I visited the shop, just as they were preparing to relocate. 

 

Thank you to all at Hattons for their innovation and service over the years and I wish all at Hattons the very best for the future.

I have 3 items on order which will now have to be reordered elsewhere.

 

Mark in Oz

[spamcan61]

14 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

What makes you think that it was the overseas customer that determined their decision? Fact is excellent customer service, brings in repeat business and plenty of posts from UK based customers.

I don't think anybody's claiming that, but brexit and VAT collection changes increased costs which obviously didn't help their financial situation.

Edited January 9 by spamcan61

[Jol Wilkinson]

A number of people have speculated on the reason for Hattons closure, including the impact of Brexit, COVID and inflation over a number of years.

 

I suggest they take a look at Hattons on Companies House. Their annual accounts show consistently strong profits - despite a reduction in turnover - up to 2022 when they made only a very small profit. So they had "weathered" various storms very well until then. We can only surmise what actions caused that significant fall (which is pointless) or what other circumstances have caused the directors to make the decision to close.

[didcot]

Managed to get one last order in for old times sake last night. 

I will miss the regular Tuesday email for OO items.

Even the Wife was shocked 😲 

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

I can find you a letter to the model railway press making those exact same arguments from 1946. OK they didn't have austerity in the same way as we do, but they were in the middle of rationing and there was the little matter of a recent war...

 

 

Indeed that is a recurring topic over many years. There was a long series in several issues, of whinging about how the discount places/collectors/manufacturers not keeping up with production etc, etc. was killing the hobby, in the Model Railway Constructor in 1982!

[Dunsignalling]

1 minute ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

A number of people have speculated on the reason for Hattons closure, including the impact of Brexit, COVID and inflation over a number of years.

 

I suggest they take a look at Hattons on Companies House. Their annual accounts show consistently strong profits - despite a reduction in turnover - up to 2022 when they made only a very small profit. So they had "weathered" various storms very well until then. We can only surmise what actions caused that significant fall (which is pointless) or what other circumstances have caused the directors to make the decision to close.

 

The most likely explanation may well be "all of the above and a couple more" in combination.

 

A temporary reduction in turnover may be manageable, but if there's no real prospect of a significant recovery over the longer term, it throws entire business models into doubt.

 

The complete loss of supply following the falling out with Bachmann, and the drastic reduction caused by Hornby's Tier system will inevitably have impacted turnover. There's been no sign of a rapprochement with the former and it's unlikely that Hornby's change of policy involves a return to the status quo ante.

 

John

 

[Tony Teague]

12 minutes ago, didcot said:

Even the Wife was shocked 😲 

 

Being a bit of a saddo, I have itemised computer records covering all of my income & expenditure going back about 30 years, so on seeing the sad news about Hattons I wondered how much I had spent with them in that period - and I too was shocked! 🤥

I suggest that anyone with a tender disposition should avoid undertaking this calculation! 😵

[Tigermoth]

Just found this. What terrible news and a real tragedy for the hobby, just can't believe it, a sign of the times....

[cmtrain]

Writing In a non official capacity (I manage Rails of Sheffield's Ecommerce), I just wanted to whish all the Hatton's team all the best for the future. I have been made redundant several times in my IT/Software carrier and it is always rubbish and highly stressful, I hope the team there can use the situation to springboard on to better things and prosperity in the future.

 

I must also commend Richard for winding down the company in a responsible way and not leaving with debts and causing problems at suppliers. When I started at Rails nearly 5 years ago now I remember chatting with John and he spoke of how progressive Richard was, how much he genuinely wanted to push the industry forward.

 

He and Hatton's will be missed :(

 

Regards Chris

[prtrainman]

9 minutes ago, Tony Teague said:

 

Being a bit of a saddo, I have itemised computer records covering all of my income & expenditure going back about 30 years, so on seeing the sad news about Hattons I wondered how much I had spent with them in that period - and I too was shocked! 🤥

I suggest that anyone with a tender disposition should avoid undertaking this calculation! 😵

It may also be a suggestion to keep this calculation away from the wife!

[sidmouth]

Always sad news when a shop closes down and my best wishes to all at Hattons, but I suspect the model railway world will continue to turn . Warwick model shop closed many years ago which was my local one but I found somewhere else . I confess to never having been a hattons regular customer , I did buy from them many years ago and no complaints about the service which was excellent but I do like to go into a model shop, browse , peruse and make my purchases even if I have to drive a distance. Liverpool though was just too far 

 

what does scare me about the model railway retail model , is how much even a relatively small shop has to in effect fund in stock . one model shop I know is sat on say around £250k worth of stock but carries borrowings or in excess of £100k to fund that stock . Manufacturer payment terms are fairly short for an item that may sit for 3m , 6m, a year before being sold . Now I'm sure you will tell me that this is just retail (in which why would anyone do it ?) 

 

Model railways are relatively niche business with a comparatively small market and certainly one major manufacturer who blows hot and cold about model shops does not help and I wonder whether hattons trading with both Bachmann and Hornby in recent times has been a factor in the decision. There has to be a better way for manufacturers and shops to work in a way that doesn't shift all the stock holding costs from manufacturer to retailer quite as quickly as currently happens 

Edited January 9 by sidmouth

[Hal Nail]

We've obviously reached that stage in every threads cycle where the early instructions, in this case a plea to not discuss the reasons due to sensitivity when it is still raw, get completely ignored.

[Phil Parker]

Just now, Hal Nail said:

We've obviously reached that stage in every threads cycle where the early instructions, in this case a plea to not discuss the reasons due to sensitivity when it is still raw, get completely ignored.

 

And grumpy mods, also looking after the Hornby announcements are less accomodating to those who choose to ignore the instructions.

[Tony Teague]

23 minutes ago, prtrainman said:

It may also be a suggestion to keep this calculation away from the wife!

 

Mine was pretty reasonable, especially if I included shoes and clothes in the conversation.......🙄

[Black 5 Bear]

6 hours ago, NZRedBaron said:

So, this might be a stupid question; but while I can see my pre-order of L&Y and GER Genesis coaches will be honoured, should I cancel my pre-order for the Andrew Barclay industrial tank?

According to the Hattons website, the exclusive range Barclays are now cancelled and won't be produced. 

[faulcon1]

This is a blow to us all and from the comments above and on previous pages we've all come to rely on Hattons as always going to be there. It's very sad but shows that even a huge retailer is not immune to the forces now at play. I sincerely hope everyone there at Hattons can find another job and I can only wish them all the best for all their futures.