Where are the Hornby models?

[Mike Storey]

Good!!

 

Agree.

So still lots of us around.

 

Thanks

 

Ray

 

Indeed, many of you form a still significant customer base, but there is an increasing number of us, now retired or not far off, who nurtured our interest in the sixties and seventies. Hence Hornby's aversion to BR Blue/Grey is growing increasingly irksome. To wit - 4VEP released in all-over Blue, in which it ran for but a few short years, but we still wait (2 years on and counting) for the B/G version in which it ran for most of its life (although it will be a better model, reportedly, once it does arrive...).  If there is one thing (beyond getting to make anything in the first place) I hope the new management at Margate grasp, it is the changing nature of their customer demographics.

[Paul Cram]

Indeed, many of you form a still significant customer base, but there is an increasing number of us, now retired or not far off, who nurtured our interest in the sixties and seventies. Hence Hornby's aversion to BR Blue/Grey is growing increasingly irksome. To wit - 4VEP released in all-over Blue, in which it ran for but a few short years, but we still wait (2 years on and counting) for the B/G version in which it ran for most of its life (although it will be a better model, reportedly, once it does arrive...).  If there is one thing (beyond getting to make anything in the first place) I hope the new management at Margate grasp, it is the changing nature of their customer demographics.

Interesting. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and have no interest in modelling that period much preferring pre war (both LNER and NER).

[andytrains]

Interesting. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and have no interest in modelling that period much preferring pre war (both LNER and NER).

Similar here.

I was born in 1955, but my very early memories are of steam locos.

I later went onto train spotting in the green/blue and to the blue era.

However I model the 1950's. Various regions.

I also think that the Hornby brand will survive even if things go wry for a few years as it has been a brand leader for several decades.

Hopefully the quality of their models will and they will not revert to being toys as they produced prior to about 15 years ago.

We may have had the best years for a while to come?

[robmcg]

Lovely post Andytrains, I myself was born in 1950 and grew up in a railway family with lots of 50s-60s things like Hornby and Meccano, as well as a very close relationship with the dirt and grime of real steam railways. I'll never get that out of my blood.

 

I suspect that there are many like me who get pleasure from re-creating things depicting those years, or the years before, in my case I have a feeling for immediately post-WW2 even though I wasn't born until a bit later, and still have my health and a bit of spare cash to indulge my hobby.

 

I too wonder if the best years of cheap good quality 00 models are behind us, but still enjoy shopping for interesting and attractive (to me) models from the huge range produced in the last 14 years.  Just bought a Merchant Navy 35010 'Blue Star' in pristine condition, to go with my recent pic of the same engine when it was 21C10, ... a photo-edited version in grimy post-war 'air-smoothed' condition.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

[The Stationmaster]

Indeed, many of you form a still significant customer base, but there is an increasing number of us, now retired or not far off, who nurtured our interest in the sixties and seventies. Hence Hornby's aversion to BR Blue/Grey is growing increasingly irksome. To wit - 4VEP released in all-over Blue, in which it ran for but a few short years, but we still wait (2 years on and counting) for the B/G version in which it ran for most of its life (although it will be a better model, reportedly, once it does arrive...).  If there is one thing (beyond getting to make anything in the first place) I hope the new management at Margate grasp, it is the changing nature of their customer demographics.

I think it is the case in many companies that they will continue to serve market areas (or eras in the modelling case) which are popular and which produce the right sales figures and they are sometimes either that bit too conservative or unadventurous with their products to move as the potential market might move.

 

In any case of course the '60s were only seeing the beginning of the blue and blue/grey period while steam in some respects reached its summit of excellence which then turned into a nasty and swift decline.  The other thing was that much of the 'old railway' vanished in those two decades and be that good or bad according to one's views the replacement of pretty little station buildings by 'bus shelters and goods yards turning into scrap metal dealers yards or road served coal merchants yards didn't endear the changes to many folk who want to recapture what had gone before.  So I can quite understand the continuing fascination with the earlier periods and the stronger markets they currently represent.

 

But having said all of that Hornby have made some seemingly odd, and non-commercial, livery/relivery choices in the past - just ask some of the retailers what they think!  One of the interesting things about the future is going to be the way in which the company will develop its marketing strategy and just how in touch it will be with 'the market' (whatever they happen to think that is).

[GordonC]

Indeed, many of you form a still significant customer base, but there is an increasing number of us, now retired or not far off, who nurtured our interest in the sixties and seventies. Hence Hornby's aversion to BR Blue/Grey is growing increasingly irksome. To wit - 4VEP released in all-over Blue, in which it ran for but a few short years, but we still wait (2 years on and counting) for the B/G version in which it ran for most of its life (although it will be a better model, reportedly, once it does arrive...).  If there is one thing (beyond getting to make anything in the first place) I hope the new management at Margate grasp, it is the changing nature of their customer demographics.

 

Having said that, with Hornby's track record of not doing a great job with initial releases, it may be a good thing in the long run that some of the more popular liveries are left to be later releases where corrections or improvements can be made

[Ian Hargrave]

And I grew up earlier than most of you.....inthe era of Rob's sunshine Merchant Navy,of teak,chocolate and cream  B sets ...and clockwork trains. ( My earliest Christmas memory...it shattered when my cousin dropped it on Christmas morning ). Recently,strangely enough,I too am drawn to the era before I was born....pre-war and pre-Nationalisation.I think the reason for me can be summed up in two words....colour and character. It was the zenith of railways which gave promise,romance and glamour in an age of economic depression for ordinary folk.

[Cooped]

I'm a BR blue (well, grey and blue really) baby and all my interest lies in pre-war steam, with the occasional exception in BR green.

[Ian Abel]

Lovely post Andytrains, I myself was born in 1950 and grew up in a railway family with lots of 50s-60s things like Hornby and Meccano, as well as a very close relationship with the dirt and grime of real steam railways. I'll never get that out of my blood.

 

I suspect that there are many like me who get pleasure from re-creating things depicting those years, or the years before, in my case I have a feeling for immediately post-WW2 even though I wasn't born until a bit later, and still have my health and a bit of spare cash to indulge my hobby.

 

I too wonder if the best years of cheap good quality 00 models are behind us, but still enjoy shopping for interesting and attractive (to me) models from the huge range produced in the last 14 years.  Just bought a Merchant Navy 35010 'Blue Star' in pristine condition, to go with my recent pic of the same engine when it was 21C10, ... a photo-edited version in grimy post-war 'air-smoothed' condition.

 

750649393_o_r800.jpg

21C10_SR_Bulleid_shed_3a_r1200_crop2.jpg

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

Dang! Where DID you get "Blue Star" Rob? I've been searching for one for a while now - must've missed it wherever it was!

I have two limited edition mounted prints from the '80s by Stuart Black, "City of Wells" and "Blue Star" in my train room, and want the locos to match.

I managed a NEW "City of Wells" from a Hornby dealer/shop in Eire (theModelShop.ie), but not expecting such luck/amazing find for "Blue Star". I'll keep looking, but am envious

[rembrow]

Ian

 

I've just done an Ebay 'completed' check and there was a Blue Star sold on Ebay UK yesterday (16th April) for £110. Don't know if this is the one Rob bought

[robmcg]

And I grew up earlier than most of you.....inthe era of Rob's sunshine Merchant Navy,of teak,chocolate and cream  B sets ...and clockwork trains. ( My earliest Christmas memory...it shattered when my cousin dropped it on Christmas morning ). Recently,strangely enough,I too am drawn to the era before I was born....pre-war and pre-Nationalisation.I think the reason for me can be summed up in two words....colour and character. It was the zenith of railways which gave promise,romance and glamour in an age of economic depression for ordinary folk.

 

You make a good point there Ian.  When I grew up my family and neighbours and people generally were affected by WW1., the Great Depression, and WW2 in particular, so many of the books as well as the games we boys played were top do with war, and later in teenage years there were still many steam trains about, mostly worn out and decrepit, but Waterloo-West of England was still heroically fast even in 1966...      so for me any of the 'great days' are nice to model, whether the choice be LMS streamliners, post-war austerity and rationing and brightly coloured engines/worn out engines, or 60s BR.

 

And yes, the 35010 'Blue Star' I bought was the Ebay sale you mention.   Who needs new Hornby production when their best stuff appears s/h often as good as new? <g>  (I shouldn't smile. It was rather pricey and no VAT off with Ebay)

[Ian Abel]

Damn! I mised that one somehow, I have purchased from tinplatelad before and he has some great locos often and quite "good" prices, considering some of the others you see.

Most of his are BuyItNow so you can score something great if you're vigilant, BUTalso  easily miss something, as apparently I did - well done Rob

Agree though, finding something on eBay one loses the advantage of having the VAT deducted for overseas, so places the cost more "up there" once you add the shipping as well.

I got a Hornby "Sir Kay" from him and the thing only cost me 70 quid and I'd SWEAR it was brand new it was so "unused"...

 

Must confess, had I seen it I'd have probably had to pass right now, having just got "Winston Churchill", "City of Wells" and a Bachmann 9F all within the past few weeks!

[Robin Brasher]

I think it is more difficult for Hornby to judge the market than it was when I had my first train set in the 1950s. Before that Hornby 0 gauge made the Princess and the Schools when they had just come out and Hornby Dublo did the same with Sir Nigel Gresley and the 2-6-4T and the Deltic diesel. Tri-ang, Hornby Dublo and Trix tended to model what people saw when they visited their local station if they lived north of the Thames. It was only after Tri-ang and Trix started making models in pre-nationalisation liveries that they had to cater for the nostalgic market as well. Now the present day Hornby caters for the pre-grouping, pre-nationalisation, cycling lion steam, transitional steam and contemporary models so I think it would be difficult to satisfy everybody.

[robmcg]

Damn! I mised that one somehow, I have purchased from tinplatelad before and he has some great locos often and quite "good" prices, considering some of the others you see.

Most of his are BuyItNow so you can score something great if you're vigilant, BUTalso  easily miss something, as apparently I did - well done Rob

Agree though, finding something on eBay one loses the advantage of having the VAT deducted for overseas, so places the cost more "up there" once you add the shipping as well.

I got a Hornby "Sir Kay" from him and the thing only cost me 70 quid and I'd SWEAR it was brand new it was so "unused"...

 

Must confess, had I seen it I'd have probably had to pass right now, having just got "Winston Churchill", "City of Wells" and a Bachmann 9F all within the past few weeks!

 

Indeed there are some reasonable buys from Ebay but also a fair number of awful and/or optimistic offerings.  I know what you mean about picking and choosing though, I am trying to keep enough of the 'readies' for the heavily-weathered Hattons/Dapol Garratts next month, which with VAT off are really very cheap for what you get. If they actually arrive <g>.

 

Rails of Sheffield also have a few offerings and at least they inspect theirs before sale and describe any obvious faults, and some other sellers are good too, with very nice presentation.  Clearly I have too much spare time!  Must go and photograph an as-new 'City of Wells' of all things....  ex-Hattons and cost about £100.

 

Tinplatelad has a number of rebuilt Bulleid Light Pacifics , well, Westward Ho, Ottery Saint Mary and one of the BoBs at the moment but my pockets are not that deep.

 

As to the range of eras covered by recent 00 RTR manufacturers, I do wonder if the s/h market will in the future be where much of the action is? You can't give away an LMS non-deflector rebuilt Scot at the moment. Nor a factory weathered rebuilt Scot or Patriot...  but desirable model in good nick seem to sell at over the ton quite commonly.

[robmcg]

A couple of recent purchases,   with beginnings of picture-editing. 34092 'City of Wells' (Hattons), and a s/h weathered A3 60073 'St Gatien'. I'm pleased with both of these.

 

So there are some nice second-hand models about, as well as the few new models Hornby are producing. 

 

 

[Mike Storey]

I think it is more difficult for Hornby to judge the market than it was when I had my first train set in the 1950s. Before that Hornby 0 gauge made the Princess and the Schools when they had just come out and Hornby Dublo did the same with Sir Nigel Gresley and the 2-6-4T and the Deltic diesel. Tri-ang, Hornby Dublo and Trix tended to model what people saw when they visited their local station if they lived north of the Thames. It was only after Tri-ang and Trix started making models in pre-nationalisation liveries that they had to cater for the nostalgic market as well. Now the present day Hornby caters for the pre-grouping, pre-nationalisation, cycling lion steam, transitional steam and contemporary models so I think it would be difficult to satisfy everybody.

 

Whilst acknowledging the tsunami of steam -era responses to my plea for a bit more attention to the 70's, and that you can never please everyone, the last part of your post sums up Hornby's approach neatly: - "contemporary" models in the minds of many, seem to span from 1968 to 2014 - nearly 50 years! This is longer than the grouping era or the BR steam era, yet you would never know it from Hornby's approach. My nostalgia, and that of a growing number of others (as witnessed by the increasing number of BR Blue layouts) is for the dirt, oil and decay of the period I mainly experienced. Steam was but a boyhood fleeting experience for me, but I was one of those who tried to keep an apparently dying network running in blue, grey and rust, on a shoestring for two decades or so, until suddenly people thought trains were very useful things once again. The huge differences between those days and the last two decades are easily as great as those between grouping and BR steam, possibly greater in many ways. So whilst entirely respecting the wishes of peeps who want to re-create something further back in time, oilers/sparkers like me would just like a little more understanding and a much less biased approach from Hornby. Otherwise, Bachmann, Heljan and Dapol, who do seem to understand and cater increasingly for my sorry needs, will get all my dosh.

[Downer]

As regards a possible relative shift of consumer/manufacturer  interest away from the 50s/60s and towards the 70s:

 

Evidence for: the lack of plain green diesels - we've only just had the first general release plain green 40 from Bachmann, and there's still no plain green 44 or upgraded 20 with lights.

 

Evidence against: it still looks as though the plain green models sell out before the yellow panel or blue versions - witness the recent Heljan railbuses and parcel cars.

[The Stationmaster]

 

Tinplatelad has a number of rebuilt Bulleid Light Pacifics , well, Westward Ho, Ottery Saint Mary and one of the BoBs at the moment but my pockets are not that deep.

 

Interesting to see that he is still around but alas I can't remember his other trading name (assuming he is still selling under two different Ebay identities, he definitely was a few years back).  His markup seems to still be between 305 and 50% with up to 100% on some items - always amusing to compare what some of these Ebay folk sell at with what one happens to know they are buying in at

[Ian Hargrave]

Interesting to see that he is still around but alas I can't remember his other trading name (assuming he is still selling under two different Ebay identities, he definitely was a few years back).  His markup seems to still be between 305 and 50% with up to 100% on some items - always amusing to compare what some of these Ebay folk sell at with what one happens to know they are buying in at

And this situation,Mike,is caused by a kind of market recycling...just like the baggage carousel at any airport...what goes round comes round.Traders have to reinvent the wheel to stay in business...just see what both prime box shifters are indulging in ATM. There are no new models.We ourselves are fuelling this state of affairs and I hold my hand up to indulging myself with Rails and Tinplate Lad with no complaints.Bet I'm not alone.

Hornby are going to have to pull a few rabbits out of the hat very soon if they are to compete with what I had my hands on a couple of hours ago and which will set new ( higher ) standards in r-t-r...in both OO and N gauge.

[Paul Cram]

Whilst acknowledging the tsunami of steam -era responses to my plea for a bit more attention to the 70's, and that you can never please everyone, the last part of your post sums up Hornby's approach neatly: - "contemporary" models in the minds of many, seem to span from 1968 to 2014 - nearly 50 years! This is longer than the grouping era or the BR steam era, yet you would never know it from Hornby's approach. My nostalgia, and that of a growing number of others (as witnessed by the increasing number of BR Blue layouts) is for the dirt, oil and decay of the period I mainly experienced. Steam was but a boyhood fleeting experience for me, but I was one of those who tried to keep an apparently dying network running in blue, grey and rust, on a shoestring for two decades or so, until suddenly people thought trains were very useful things once again. The huge differences between those days and the last two decades are easily as great as those between grouping and BR steam, possibly greater in many ways. So whilst entirely respecting the wishes of peeps who want to re-create something further back in time, oilers/sparkers like me would just like a little more understanding and a much less biased approach from Hornby. Otherwise, Bachmann, Heljan and Dapol, who do seem to understand and cater increasingly for my sorry needs, will get all my dosh.

There are far more ready to run blue/grey period RTR models than NER/LNER North Eastern models which is my area of interest but I am not complaining.

[The Stationmaster]

And this situation,Mike,is caused by a kind of market recycling...just like the baggage carousel at any airport...what goes round comes round.Traders have to reinvent the wheel to stay in business...just see what both prime box shifters are indulging in ATM. There are no new models.We ourselves are fuelling this state of affairs and I hold my hand up to indulging myself with Rails and Tinplate Lad with no complaints.Bet I'm not alone.

Hornby are going to have to pull a few rabbits out of the hat very soon if they are to compete with what I had my hands on a couple of hours ago and which will set new ( higher ) standards in r-t-r...in both OO and N gauge.

I think that this year possibly, and next year definitely, will begin to set out the stall of the way Hornby see their future.  The 'sell it cheap and make it cheaply' era of Frank Martin might perhaps have had its day or it will become one stream of a more clearly streamed business model for UK model railways alongside a higher fidelity/higher quality range resurrected from the goodies of the not too distant past but inevitably at a higher price point (and with little or no discounting) than was previously the case.

 

The new version of the 'Grange' from Refined suggests - subject to consistently high assembly standards - that a hifi/hi-quality range remains a feasible proposition for Hornby, but maybe in reduced numbers compared with their past mass market approach?  And range differentiation might not be such a bad idea as they try to re-establish brand credibility - something which is increasingly sorely needed.

 

As I have said previously this year's new locos will be the first test and what they achieve, or try to achieve might give them, and us, a pointer for their future.  But they undoubtedly have other possibilities among their market ideas for the future including greater concentration on probably more profitable overseas ranges which shift at higher prices or even adoption of a new scale following the market research they were carrying out last year.

 

But none of this will happen until the dust settles, some of it might depend on how they sort themselves with retailers, and a lot of it depends on where decision making lies and how much value they place on different markets and different areas of their business.  In the meanwhile 'pre-owned' prices will undoubtedly hold up well and whoever else can get new product to market will do so at Hornby's expense.

[Nimbus]

Hornby are going to have to pull a few rabbits out of the hat very soon if they are to compete with what I had my hands on a couple of hours ago and which will set new ( higher ) standards in r-t-r...in both OO and N gauge.

 

Ok, I'll nibble. When will the rest of us be able to get a look at what you've just seen?

 

The Nim.

[Ian Hargrave]

 

The essence of the matter is in your last sentence.Mike..I well remember my grandfather's homily..."Time and tide wait for no man".The competition is beginning to overtake....certainly in terms of quality.I know it sounds corny but I have seen the future and it is awesomely better than Hornby's latest offerings.

[Ian Hargrave]

Ok, I'll nibble. When will the rest of us be able to get a look at what you've just seen?

 

The Nim.

By the end of the year,I should think...and that's all I can say for now.

[Paul Cram]

The essence of the matter is in your last sentence.Mike..I well remember my grandfather's homily..."Time and tide wait for no man".The competition is beginning to overtake....certainly in terms of quality.I know it sounds corny but I have seen the future and it is awesomely better than Hornby's latest offerings.

Ah but at what price?