steve1023 Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 There doesn't appear to be much sadness or disappointment on these pages about the delay to the blue/grey 4VEP Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robmcg Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 B17 should be going out to retailers today--by Noah's Ark if it doesn't stop flooding. The Thompson brakes are like gold dust. Just managed to order the last one in stock at Walton's of Altrincham I will off you a tidy sum for that brake 3rd.... you need not fear, I wouldn't do you wrong. Just pop it in the mail priority airmail and I'll send a hansome cheque by return. Honest Bob Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
flapland Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I wonder if someone could ask Hornby if there is a further shipment of Thompson coaches on their way before I end up paying over the odds on Ebay or elsewhere. Crossing fingers it could be a similar story to the B17 and O1's with only a partial shipment. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I got my Thompsons from T4U when they 1st came out, though the brakes had all gone. However I was informed that another delivery was due on the 19th Nov, and a brake would be reserved for me. (Please don't inundate the shop with enquiries!). I haven't been in yet to see if any came, but that follows the normal pattern of deliveries these days it seems. Not too worried as I have one reserved; even if this batch doesn't arrive I am confident hopeful that some more will eventually turn up. Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Removed a/c Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I'd like to know what happened to the 2nd class MK2s in B/G Intercity, surely the production run wasn't that short? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceptic Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 There doesn't appear to be much sadness or disappointment on these pages about the delay to the blue/grey 4VEP My sadness arose from the initial production. At present, I'm living in hope that Hornby have taken a second look and have held back, until all the VEP's deficiencies are put right. Yours, hopefully, Ceptic, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonathan452 Posted November 28, 2012 Share Posted November 28, 2012 I'd like to know what happened to the 2nd class MK2s in B/G Intercity, surely the production run wasn't that short? Still apparently in stock at The Signal Box (Rochester). http://www.thesignal...pen-second.html I ended up buying six of these despite the lack of the tinted glazing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Interesting to hear of Humbrol's return to the UK. I wonder if this is tied in to the press release and a sign of more manufacturing moving closer to home.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Is this annus horriblus for Hornby ? Olympics fiasco then empty shelves for Xmas - Management changes afoot ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 29, 2012 Well at least we should be able to get supplies of British-made Humbrol even if we can't get the rolling stock to re-spray with it Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium brushman47544 Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 29, 2012 I'd like to know what happened to the 2nd class MK2s in B/G Intercity, surely the production run wasn't that short? Still apparently in stock at The Signal Box (Rochester). http://www.thesignal...pen-second.html I ended up buying six of these despite the lack of the tinted glazing. It's also available from Hornby.com - at the full price of course. Perhaps retailers have sold out their initial orders and are wary of buying in more in case they don't sell. But it does suggest your local model shop might be able to order some for you if you ask. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 29, 2012 Is this annus horriblus for Hornby ? Olympics fiasco then empty shelves for Xmas - Management changes afoot ? Hardly 'empty shelves for Christmas' I would have thought as some very desirable locos will be arriving during December although the shelves might well empty as they fly off them of course. Hornby Group have undoubtedly had a bad year and reaped the harvest of some very poor marketing decisions but they do appear to be doing something about some of their other problems (I think we shall hear a lot more on that front shortly) and they are getting some model railway product to market at the right time - but admittedly it is only 'some'. For the sake of their overall business (not the model railway side) I do hope there will be some management changes because senior management have clearly failed the company and its shareholders and, probably, some of its customers. But equally some managers should be staying where they are but perhaps taking a lot more notice of retailers and end purchasers in order to deliver more saleable product. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 29, 2012 Perhaps Hornby will allow the product designers - who seem to be pretty much at the top of their game - to be involved in deciding how many of each item should be produced. Then we would not have the nonsense of brake vehicles being in perpetually short-supply, while FKs and the like sit on shelves unloved. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 29, 2012 That one cuts both ways Ian as Bachmann Mk2 brakes are over-supplied many-fold but try getting the matching non-brakes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Ian Hargrave Posted November 29, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 29, 2012 I will off you a tidy sum for that brake 3rd.... you need not fear, I wouldn't do you wrong. Just pop it in the mail priority airmail and I'll send a hansome cheque by return. Honest Bob Wouldn't be a reincarnation of the infamous 'Captain Bob' would it? Just ran mine for the first time. Used Kadee19's ,until I find any thing better. Look amazing behind my Ivatt 'Mucky Duck'--a suitably mucked duck at that. Will keep my eyes open for any more coming onto the market for you. Will PM if I do get wind of any Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Funny 'ol market innit when some folk say plastic RTR is getting too expensive, but when items are in very short supply other folk will pay over the odds to get one... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Sorry SM , must have read the mail yesterday for the headline " empty shelves shocker " Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
owentherail Posted November 29, 2012 Share Posted November 29, 2012 Oh!! I was saving for Blue/grey HST......... ill buy another Dapol western instead. not waiting till May Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium brushman47544 Posted November 30, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 30, 2012 Hardly 'empty shelves for Christmas' I would have thought as some very desirable locos will be arriving during December although the shelves might well empty as they fly off them of course. Maybe, but how many parents actually wait until mid-December or later to buy Christmas presents these days. Not me for one. Unless I had a cast iron gurantee that I would have a model in my hands in time, I simply wouldn't risk it. Shops now seem to carry less stock to avoid have too much left over unsold, so you risk the "alternatives" being sold out close to Christmas when you find the wanted model isn't after all going to be on sale in time. For young kids I would simply not want to risk going there with the disappointment that would cause. For me Christmas presents have to be in the shops by the beginning of December. There may be a "crisis" here in Portugal but when the big shops and supermarkets fill their shelves with toys and presents in mid November, parents still go round filling their shopping trolleys with stuff. The really "must have" toys are already in very short supply. If you haven't got your products on those shelves, you've already missed out on a large chunk of the Christmas market. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted November 30, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 30, 2012 Some of the "problem" if problem there really is would be the steady shift to virtual shopping. It's one thing to order online from your local retailer (very handy in my case as they're 12500 miles away) but how big a step is it now to simply order direct from a manufacturer's source factory? That way aside from a relatively small number of items produced for the sadly diminishing number of traditional shop shelves there could be a "produced to order" scenario in the same way that already happens with some books. "Dead" stock is largely avoided, middle men are cut out and in theory we get the best possible price. The down-side to that is the loss of personal service, one-to-one interaction in the shop, an ability to browse and see the actual product before committing to buy and of course the loss of jobs many of which are within our extended modelling community. I have never relied upon an anticipated delivery date hoping that something will be on the shelves at the right time. But I also don't have to consider family gifts in railway modelling terms. Just like the real train it arrives when it gets here. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adams442T Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Some of the "problem" if problem there really is would be the steady shift to virtual shopping. It's one thing to order online from your local retailer (very handy in my case as they're 12500 miles away) but how big a step is it now to simply order direct from a manufacturer's source factory? That way aside from a relatively small number of items produced for the sadly diminishing number of traditional shop shelves there could be a "produced to order" scenario in the same way that already happens with some books. "Dead" stock is largely avoided, middle men are cut out and in theory we get the best possible price. Problem there from my direct experience is, I think, that China's factory production runs are set up in very tight time slots with very little flexibilty. Oh, and the fact that setting up a direct mailing business from China would be a nightmare! And can you imagine the problems involved trying to return a loco with a note saying what's wrong.......... Though if a company like Hornby tried to set up a serious direct sales operation ( the one they have at present is geared to avoid conflict with retailers) they would pretty immediately lose all their retail outlets and their volume sales. Britains, who I worked for for some years, tried to do something similar with discounting through their Collector's Club in the late 90s and suffered a huge backlash from retailers, which crippled them and led to them being sold on to another U.S. company a few years later. Hmmmmmmn.... Perhaps Dapol might buy them and put us all out of our misery.......................... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted November 30, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 30, 2012 Even Dapol are not immune from product delays at the hands of the Chinese. Hornby are just a better-known brand with a much larger catalogue. I'm having a private bet with myself whether the Hornby push-pull sets or the Dapol D600s will arrive first. Both would have been here about now had their originally announced arrivals been met. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 ...how big a step is it now to simply order direct from a manufacturer's source factory? Manufacturing and sales/distribution are very separate functions with very different sets of competencies. ...setting up a direct mailing business from China would be a nightmare! And can you imagine the problems involved trying to return a loco with a note saying what's wrong.......... Though if a company like Hornby tried to set up a serious direct sales operation ( the one they have at present is geared to avoid conflict with retailers) they would pretty immediately lose all their retail outlets and their volume sales. Hornby (and others) have a layered sales strategy with multiple channels 1. Company sales reps sell to: Hobby shops, spanning the range of large online sellers to high street shops. These resellers have the option for modest discounts. Large department stores Discount stores (with catalog and online sales, like Argos) 2. Direct online sales Hornby have invested a lot here. The website redesign was specifically intended to create one-stop shopping for all their product lines Hornby, Scalextric, Airfix, etc. Their focus here is to sell at list / RRP to not compete with their other channels so the strategy is confusing to customers. To replace a sales infrastructure is an enormously risky enterprise. It is the easiest way to kill sales in one fell swoop. There is additional built-in inertia inside the company not to change a sales organization. This comes from the sales organization themselves who don't want their jobs to change or go away. There is a move to 'outsourced' distribution. This approach is used by the online business of discount stores. Orders are funneled from multiple company's websites to a centralized warehouse. Amazon is an example of centralized warehousing, but there are others who do a similar thing transparently to the customer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butler Henderson Posted November 30, 2012 Share Posted November 30, 2012 Even Dapol are not immune from product delays at the hands of the Chinese. Hornby are just a better-known brand with a much larger catalogue. Dapols delays really started to appear after they started advertising themselves as "delivering on our promises", this year started out with Hornby saying all the catlaogued items would appear in 2012. Theres a lesson for them all in there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasslands Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 And looking at the list, I see that Hornby list the Class 31 R3144 as a skinhead. Interesting... in the catalogue it is shown as D5657 in two-tone green with SYP but as someone (Brush Veteran?) pointed out, the roof tooling Hornby is known to have is wrong for D5657. Has the number been changed, but to a skinhead as well? I too noticed the reference to the 'skinhead' version. I was involved in some interesting discussion on MREMag, about this time last year, regarding a lack of class 31s with headcode boxes, and I thought it was indicated that this was going to be a headcode version. I have sent an email to Hornby. I have plans to repaint x3 of these into experimental liveries and such, so my fingers are crossed that R3144 is headcode-worthy. Tom Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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