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All time favourite Hornby release


Coldgunner

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Favourite of the heart - The Freightmaster set (circa 1970) with D5538 in green - started it all...........thinking of getting one for nostalgic reasons.

 

Favourite of the head - 56062 in EWS, 60044 in Mainline blue or the Blue ex-SR BY parcels vans but the Brighton Belle is growing on me............

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Favourite of the heart - The Freightmaster set (circa 1970) with D5538 in green - started it all...........thinking of getting one for nostalgic reasons.

 

 

If I was asked for my favourite Hornby trainset, I'd have chosen The Freightmaster. Started me off in 1965 - probably exactly the same as the one you refer to 5 years later.

 

Good choice, Southernman!

 

Jeff

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My pride and joy as a lad was a prewar used Hornby (Dublo) Duchess of Athol in LMS red. It probably looks wanting today but it was 1000% better than anything Triang or new Hornby produced for many many years.

 

If it's anything like 'our' Athol which survived in very used condition, it would be qute hard to bring it back to new condition!

 

We had a green BR Montrose which fared somewhat better, although both spent time with a B12 2-rail chassis and for a short time various Kitmaster Walschaert's gear parts, before reverting to original condition.

 

Apologies, but it looks as if the real coal in the tender has survived!

 

post-7929-0-16151900-1332455693.jpg

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Hi All,

The original HST for me and it made a brilliant catalogue cover. I got mine soon after they came out from Harrow model shop. More recently the Q1.

Cheers for now, Ian

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That picture of 'Athol' brought back the memories Robmcg. It still has something about it even today and so you can imagine how it looked in the 1950s against Rovex and Triang banana shorties and Trix-Twin 0-4-0's etc... Hornby Dublo really was streets ahead of everyone else with its flush-sided metal coaches, and even today no one one has managed to make plastic coaches look truly flush sided.

 

My truly favourite Hornby engine will be the Fowler Austin Seven and Thompson inspired Peppercorn K1.... ;)

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Back in the mid-70s I wrote to Hornby to suggest they produce a Western class loco. This was around the height of their popularity with imminent withdrawal and all those railtours. Hornby replied, saying more or less that they noted my suggestion but were not convinced of their popular appeal to justify a model. I remember being surprised by the response, wondering how popular a class of locos had to be before being considered for production. Sadly Hornby's letter was binned many years ago.

 

I also remember being very disappointed when the model did arrive a few years later because the cab front view in particular was such a poor representation of the real thing.

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Back in the mid-70s I wrote to Hornby to suggest they produce a Western class loco. This was around the height of their popularity with imminent withdrawal and all those railtours. Hornby replied, saying more or less that they noted my suggestion but were not convinced of their popular appeal to justify a model. I remember being surprised by the response, wondering how popular a class of locos had to be before being considered for production. Sadly Hornby's letter was binned many years ago.

 

I also remember being very disappointed when the model did arrive a few years later because the cab front view in particular was such a poor representation of the real thing.

 

Whatever the response, they must have started work on it soon after - the time from go-ahead to release was about 2 years in those days and the Western appeared in 1979. As a child and teenager I wrote to Hornby occasionally - fortunately I still have the replies, one of which was dicated by HR Lines, of the Tri-ang family.

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After thinking about it: the original Silver Seal Black Five in BR black was probably my fave.

 

I sent mine back to Hornby a few years later because of some problems with the valve gear - and they sent me back a brand new pink LMS one. I wrote back asking for my original one and complained about the colour. A short while later I was sent a second new one this time in LMS Black - must have been one of the first of that livery. I still mourn my original one... My letters if they remained in the files at Hornby will have been an embarrassment of spelling mistakes and poor handwriting.

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For purely sentimental reasons, the Hymek in two tone green. A controller whacked all the way round, a ringfield motor 'whoooooo'-ing away, the lurch into 2nd radius curves, and two crimson & cream Stanier coaches towing along behind. Utterly unrealistic and yet utterly brilliant.

 

For more modern stuff, I'd say the Merchant Navy - a loco that re-wrote the rulebook on RTR detail levels.

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OK.

 

Tri-ang Railways. The GWR Dean Single Lord of the Isles, and neck and neck the Caley Single 123 (plus the matching coaches!). Also the T.C. Series "Canadian" Pacific. (Best with light and smoke, though the first ones had a better "Pilot" or cow catcher.)

 

Tri-ang Hornby. This would have to be the A1A AiA in "Experimental Blue" in the Freightmaster set.... (Also The Railway Children Set...)

 

Hornby Railways. The 2721 Open Cab GWR Pannier Tank.

 

Hornby. I would like an unrebuilt WC as "Blackmore Vale" (? spelling, as I want 21C 123 Southern as original. After all I was at Sheffield Park on the "re-launch" day in 1976.)

 

Hornby Railroad. The new (super detail compared to the first issues) 2721 Open Cab GWR Pannier Tank!

 

Hornby "0" Gauge. The Special Tank Locos, both 0-4-0 and 4-4-2 (plus the earlier 4-4-4).

 

Hornby Dublo. The 4Mt 2-6-4 tank (Early Crest preferred.) and the 8f (With the crest changed to the early one, I much prefer it!).

 

I may be being greedy, but how many calories in a loco anyway? :scratchhead:

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I have my original Caley Single kicking around in a box somewhere, but when Hornby re-released it a few years ago with a new motor and gave both the loco and coaches an up to date paint job a few years ago, I couldn't resist buying the pack!

Yes the mouldings are old and inaccurate, but the paint job is top notch and it rekindles many happy childhood memories of both model and loco!

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Have to say for sentemental reasons my 0-4-0 Caley-pug-a-like Desmond in red. Shoots round the track like a scolded cat (even after giving it the newer china built chassis) but still my very first.

 

Of the modern stuff, my Thompson L1, was gutted when I heard it'd taken a flying leap!

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Hornby. I would like an unrebuilt WC as "Blackmore Vale" (? spelling, as I want 21C 123 Southern as original. After all I was at Sheffield Park on the "re-launch" day in 1976.)

 

Since Hornby did the "other" spelling in its first batch http://www.ehattons.com/Trade/StockDetail.aspx?SID=7371, I suspect you may have to go for replacement nameplates to create a "Blackmore Vale" version.

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The Hornby "Pug" in the shape of the Smokey Joe style locomotive. Without the two that were gifted to me in the year 2000 at the lowly age of 7 I would not have got involved in model railways.... they are still about if totally borked. What they represented was a cheap and acceptable, to my 7 ear old self, representation of a steam loco. Watching them struggle round my various ovals has always amused me for hours upon end. Since I had two I found I could coyple them back to back and have my own attempt at a Fairlie as well!

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