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Brighton Belle in N !


krause

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...and Warships

 

 

i thought they did but wasnt 100% sure. I know I have seen colour photos of Westerns in books on those trains though. Been searching the web for some shots but not found any yet.

 

A friend is building a 00 scale model based on the line between merstham and Cousldon South  set any time from 60's to present day and hopefully he will let us run some hydraulics on it so they will be seen passing the Hornby 5BEL.

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Now there's a challenge. Is there a photo out there of the BB alongside the Night Ferry stock in Victoria station?

 

 

No chance within the station itself - The Night Ferry would have been on the Eastern side - there was only a narrow concourse area in front of the Dover side platforms, whilst the 'Belle' would have been on the Central side of the station, with a wall separating the two sections. The barrier was quite a bit further south on the Central side, and also the 'Belle' was often (even normally?) right over near Buckingham Palace Road.

However, in the station throat and over Grosvenor Bridge, depending on the timetable, side by side would have been possible, both in the same or opposite directions!

 

All of the fore-going would also apply to the 'Belle' and the 'Arrow'!

 

Richard

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This doesnt sound like dipping your toe in the water. It sounds like jumping headfirst into water and hoping that it is more than an inch deep!

It might be the greatest model N has ever seen but I would have thought that a better item could be selected to see if there is a market for scaling down. It will not be the cheapest item so true modellers will have to think twice about it if it is outside their own geographical area or modelling era. It may well appeal to casual collectors but then in all likelihood, if Hornby decides this is successful, their second model which is likely to be more mundane may not.

I wish them every success but not entirely sure they have picked the right item - its certainly a brave choice.  

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I will be interested to see how Hornby approach the marketing with their leaflet etc - If it is a testing of the waters in N, using the Arnold name makes sense. Although Hornby is a very well-known brand, its not needed to sell the product in N (the Arnold name is fine), while using Hornby could a)confuse the train set market with products not in the same scale, and b)this is much subtler way of testing the market. If 'Hornby' moved into N and pulled out it would be big news...if Arnold try a UK model and do no more, well, not much to report there...

 

David

And maybe then morph into "Arnold by Hornby", in much the same way as Bachmann do with the Farish name.

 

Meanwhile, has anyone else noticed the file name of that pdf? "Brigton" sounds like the sort of place that would have a plucky non-league football team that would battle through to the third round of the FA cup and a home draw against Melchester Rovers.

 

Jim

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This doesnt sound like dipping your toe in the water. It sounds like jumping headfirst into water and hoping that it is more than an inch deep!

It might be the greatest model N has ever seen but I would have thought that a better item could be selected to see if there is a market for scaling down...

 

Such as Hornbys class 60 -  If Bach/Far hadnt got there first...though there is room for improvement. 

 

Jon 

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Hi Gang this looks to be a great leap of faith - But we need to think of a well known forum member who must now be crying into his beer with a great conversion in progress !  But it does prove that well known rule of finishing a hard or long run project for a RTR manufacturer to bring one out... I have class 22 etched kits, D600 part built etc...

so thanks to Hornby and I look forward to the chance to get one to run on the layout and yes it will be as the yet to be finished rebuild one so I can run on a today railway.

Robert   

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It might be the greatest model N has ever seen but I would have thought that a better item could be selected to see if there is a market for scaling down. It will not be the cheapest item so true modellers will have to think twice about it if it is outside their own geographical area or modelling era. It may well appeal to casual collectors but then in all likelihood, if Hornby decides this is successful, their second model which is likely to be more mundane may not. 

I think this is a carefully calculated choice. Most of the major classes of diesel loco are available in N gauge or have been announced for revamp recently. Steam locos are likely to be a lot more expensive as you cannot just use generic Bo-Bo drive unit of the appropriate wheelbase and add the correct body and bogies. Hornby have the R&D for the Belle and they have access to a range of standard mechanisms from the Arnold range. I suspect that the Belle may not cost them as much as it first appears because they will not be starting from scratch. The only costs they will need to cover are the body and bogie toolings.

 

Also, both Hornby and Arnold favour the iconic "premium trainset" concept. If the Belle is successful (and I certainly hope it will be), I suspect Hornby may leave the regular stuff to Dapol and BachFar while they concentrate on other named trains. I would put my money on similar stylish trains if the BB sells well.

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I think Karhedron is right in suggesting trains like the Pendolino or Javelin would be their likely course. And that it may strengthen Hornby in bidding for rights. It will put them on a more level playing field with the opposition.

I'm not a N-gauger but have a couple for accompanying a mate to shows so I will make the Belle a third.

All the best,

les

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This is very interesting news - would there be a market in Europe for a Brighton Belle in 1:160? As Arnold are an established N Gauge brand I can see the logic of using it to enter the British N Gauge market. Also there are some very nice VSOE coaches on the web site too although I assume these would be 1:160. Is Simon Kohler in charge of the model plans for Hornby's international brands too?

 

Paddy

Quite a clever toe in the British-outline water if it comes off (always supposing it's the right scale). They won't need to make anything (other than the other coaches) to go with it. Much less risky than committing immediately to a wider 'range' against two estabished players.

 

Marketing wise, it would make a better first impression as the full 5-car set in a reasonably snazzy presentation case.

 

John

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No chance within the station itself - The Night Ferry would have been on the Eastern side - there was only a narrow concourse area in front of the Dover side platforms, whilst the 'Belle' would have been on the Central side of the station, with a wall separating the two sections. The barrier was quite a bit further south on the Central side, and also the 'Belle' was often (even normally?) right over near Buckingham Palace Road.

However, in the station throat and over Grosvenor Bridge, depending on the timetable, side by side would have been possible, both in the same or opposite directions!

 

All of the fore-going would also apply to the 'Belle' and the 'Arrow'!

 

Richard

 

The 'Belle' used platform 17 (now 19) at Victoria, which is right over by Buck House Road.

 

At Brighton, platform 4 was used - at both ends, there was a decorative arch over the platform gate advertising that the train left from the platforms concerned.

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This should have been announced at the Nuremberg Toy Fair later this month but it seems as though Arnold were keen to get the information out there. Simon Kohler is currently creating a leaflet for the product but some of the product information available is as follows:

 

HN3000: LB&SCR, electric railcar “Brighton Belle”, original version of the luxury Pullman train set as it was in service between London Victoria and Brighton from 1934 on, 3-unit set

HN3500: LB&SCR, electric railcar “Brighton Belle”, original version from 1934, additional 2-unit set

HN3001: BR, electric railcar “Brighton Belle”, blue/grey livery, version from 1969-1972, 3-unit set

HN3501: BR, electric railcar “Brighton Belle”, blue/grey livery, version from 1969-1972, additional 2-unit set

 

Scale: 1:148

 

Availability: Late 2013

 

Price: TBC at Nuremberg

 

 

 

 

 

The key questions is will there be more British N Gauge coming from Arnold?  The answer is that Hornby will see how the Brighton Belle is received and then take it from there.

But how can one purchase this? It's not on the Hornby International website. Infact I don't think you can order anything from the website directly

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But how can one purchase this? It's not on the Hornby International website. Infact I don't think you can order anything from the website directly

I suspect that you will have to wait until it is officially announced by Hornby. At this point you'll be able to see which retailers will stock it. Alternatively you could try to contact one that is dealing in Arnold and see it they can put one on pre order for you. That does mean that you may not get the best price however.

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I think they will need to bring the N Gauge version in just under the Farish BP as well in order to be received as competatively priced.

 

I don't think that it needs to be particularly competatively priced; it's not exactly an either/or choice. Firstly, the Blue Pullman batches will have no doubt been mostly (or completely) sold by the time the BB is released and secondly I suspect that it will appeal to collectors who will want examples of both (BP and BB). Also it will depend on the price elasticity of demand and I'd guess that for collectors it's probably quite inelastic particularly as batch manufacture means supply is relatively fixed and it's important to buy to complete the set/collection. 

 

G.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just went into my local German model shop. The owner told me no price was forthcoming at Nuremburg and indeed he has been told the price will not be known until the models are ready for dispatch. If this is indeed the case, it hardly makes his job easy in knowing how many to order before 8th of March.

 

Bit of a rum do. Interested to hear if the UK dealers have heard any different.

 

Chris

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I suspect that you will have to wait until it is officially announced by Hornby. At this point you'll be able to see which retailers will stock it. Alternatively you could try to contact one that is dealing in Arnold and see it they can put one on pre order for you. That does mean that you may not get the best price however.

Tim at ARCADIA RAIL  Shaw Nr Oldham has informed me that  being a stockist  of  European Outline as well as UK outline Model Railways and an ARNOLD stockist that he  has  placed  an order  for  the  N Gauge  Brighton Belle.

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So the pricing policy for these models puts the onus purely on Arnold and their importers/retailers. I am convinced that price and demand are linked. In this case this will not educate Hornby International about the demand for British models at all, so anyone thinking that this is the precursor to a future Hornby British N range should not anticipate any sort of follow up based on the success or failure for models that need to be pre-ordered in just over 4 weeks time with zero knowledge of the price. Weird.

 

Mike

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Is this going to be a case of, if you need to ask the price, you can't afford it?

I hope Arnold realise the UK market is a bit more price sensitive than the German one.

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