Hornby GWR Hall

[papagolfjuliet]

As a replacement for the knackered Airfix 'Castle' in 'Harry Potter' train sets - which is what it's intended to be - it's a surprisingly good model. First impression though is that it isn't as nice as the 8P and P2 which supposedly share the same design philosophy, and I wouldn't want to see other locos built this odd halfway house standard, so I hope that it doesn't set a precedent.

[Adam]

That gulf in quality is worth more than £15 to me I'm afraid; the additional time/work to take the one to the standard of the other equates to a heck of a lot of time, never mind the additional bits. For a brand new RTR loco, that's something I cannot be doing with.

 

Adam

[Hilux5972]

I suppose it's just down to personal opinion again. Each to their own

[Dunsignalling]

So now I need some advice. I have never removed any factory applied transfers before and need to know what everyone recommends to do so. How do I do so without damaging the surface of the model.

T-Cut on a cotton bud. Shake the bottle very well before use to ensure consistent abrasiveness (if that's a real word!). I also find it helps to apply a spot and leave it alone for a few minutes before beginning to rub. The watchword is "Gently".

 

T-Cut leaves the surface glossy which is ideal for the application of new transfers but obviously means you need to apply satin or matt varnish afterwards to restore a uniform finish.

 

John

[gwrrob]

 I personally don't like bachmanns paint finish or running mechanism in their Hall, but I think their Mk1 coaches are superb, minus those dang roof ribs of course. Each to their own.

 

I don't mind the paint finish it's the lining that grates me most on the Bachmann Hall and has put me off buying another.Being available in other GWR liveries apart from 30s will tempt me to purchase another from either manufacturer.They can look nice with a train of cattle vans in tow. I'm one of those modellers who like to look at them in close up.

 

[Bulwell Hall]

I fear that the two comments before Mike (Stationmaster) kind of miss the point to some extent; I suspect that these models will be marketed at comparable prices to the Grange. They are palpably not of a comparable standard.

 

Generally, I reckon that Hornby produce a better paint finish, especially with regard to lining than Bachmann and - since I regard moulded cab handrails as unacceptable (I can live with unsprung buffers and moulded lubricator pipe runs very happily however) removing and replacing them would ruin that finish. The moulded steam pipes are perhaps a more difficult call but I remember noticing the seperation on the real thing as a kid - yes, I was a strange child, but it was probably because at that age I was used to looking up at things - and see them a characteristic of the real thing in the case of most GW 4-6-0s. 

 

The old Hornby 'Albert Hall' wasn't such a long way behind this model if the handrails are taken into account. Fundamentally it's roughly the right shape and ran alright and with a modern paint job and boiler handrails so what? If that's what you want, what's to worry about? Funnily enough, I like to run my trains as well and if that's all I wanted to do then I wouldn't see too much between them. With the Bachmann Hall available, and the significant rise in RTR standards over the last 10 years or so I wouldn't chose this as an alternative, assuming that I was in the market for a Hall. As I chose to model in EM my purchases of any RTR model is discretionary; I will go to the trouble of regauging the things so would rather be saved the effort of improving the base model. If there's too much of that it would be more fun - for me - to build and run a loco from a kit. Hornby are capable of catering to both these markets and that's what makes this model a dissappointment.

 

It's a personal thing, not bashing one manufacturer or another. This product doesn't do what I want, I will look somewhere else. It might be that I'd buy a Hornby Grange or Castle instead, maybe a Bachmann Modified Hall. Whichever I might chose (if any), it's no judgement of the manufactuer in general and I suspect that I'm not alone.

 

Adam

 

Well said Adam - I couldn't have put it better myself! 

 

I too am one of those who like to look at my models close up - sometimes even as closely as from two inches!  I already have a Bachmann Hall which has been regauged to EM and generally tarted up but it did require a fair amount of work.  Given Hornby's track record I was hoping/expecting that their new Hall would be to the standard of say the B17 which would have saved me work.  But the fact that it is to such a reduced spec means that I will not be spending my money with Hornby for this model and will take a different route when I do another Hall.  And it is even worse than I thought - I have just looked at the photos again and see that the brake ejector and associated pipework is all moulded on - there is just too much surgery required on this model to lift it to the standard of the Grange.

[Ozexpatriate]

Something I don't understand. Why have they tooled up a new 4000 gallon tender with a moulded coal load when they could have saved money by reusing the tender from the castle? That doesn't make sense to me.

I agree, but it is possible, and I stress I am speculating here, that some tooling belonging to Hornby might run only on bolsters owned by 'the Sanda Kan factory', and those bolsters are either inaccessible or their use is subject to current dispute or they've disappeared on a lorry going to somewhere else.

It all depends which Castle tender you mean. I think that for the Railroad model they need something cheaper to build than the newest Castle tooling (Tintagel) for the the tender - it has lots of parts that need to be added separately during manufacturing.(How do I know? Mine came busted off - there wasn't enough glue on some of them.)

 

Plus it feels like every time they release a new GWR 4-6-0, the drawbar power connection arrangement is different. If I recall, the newest Castle tooling has one of those tricky plugs with wires. The older Castles and Kings had a drawbar with integral copper-to-copper friction electrical connections.

[Ozexpatriate]

I don't mind the paint finish it's the lining that grates me most on the Bachmann Hall and has put me off buying another.

I quite agree, though I'm guessing Hornby's Railroad lining on the GWR Hall will be pretty comparable to Bachmann's lining. The high-end lining Hornby used to do was unmatched, though with changes in manufacturer, this will be a function of what equipment and skill.

 

I'd love to know how it is actually done in a manufacturing setting.

[Hilux5972]

The new hall tender has the same plug arrangement as the new castle tender. I'm just hoping that it comes factory connected.

[Neal Ball]

I think I will reserve judgement until closer to delivery.....

[The Stationmaster]

Actually they aren't. The railroad hall is around £65, the enhanced hall (with etched nameplates costing around £10 desperately) is around £90 and the grange is around £105. But again it's personal opinion. I personally don't like bachmanns paint finish or running mechanism in their Hall, but I think their Mk1 coaches are superb, minus those dang roof ribs of course. Each to their own.

Not so I'm afraid - the 'Grange' (weathered) is £128.75, the 'detailed' 'Hall' is £119.99, and the Railroad 'Hall' is £82.99 (data from Hornby's own price list.  So the margin between the detailed 'Hall' and the 'Grange' is a whisker under £9, c.8%, and the 'Grange' is weathered which often attracts a premium on any loco.  So the gulf is in fact far narrower than the bargain basement prices you quoted - and don't forget that most retailers like to make a living so they are unlikely to give anything greater than a 10% discount in any case and indeed Hornby's new trade terms effectively limit them to that in any case unless they are using the bank's money to pay for their stock before they sell it.

 

The other issue is of course the fact that the detailed 'Hall' has a premium of £37 compared with the basic Railroad version and it would still need work, and money spent, to bring it up to the same standard as the 'Grange' - starts to make it look like a poor bargain compared with what you get in the 'Grange' (hopefully assuming that hasn't been reduced in quality of course).

[Coach bogie]

Easier still, just buy the boxes and fit them with bogies. You won't even notice they're not coaches at sixty mph.......

 I would but the builder doesn't mark the boxes!

 

 

Mike Wiltshire

[coachmann]

What is the signature under Mike?

[Coach bogie]

What is the signature under Mike?

That one is under a GW five plank that was nearest to hand, but I have a couple of GW coaches I bought through Derek back in the 1990's when I worked in Macclesfield, and a BSL Mink F with a similar plate, left to me in a will. Recently I was running some LMS stock with your signature, that David Geen had bought.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[coachmann]

It was No.17 that intrigued me but now you have mentioned wagons, I may have painted a batch numbered 1 to whatever for one client. 

[Guest Belgian]

Just one comment. Judging from the colour of one of the two EP models these are more than likely the Railroad version. It's noticeable that the smokebox door is a separate moulding so is it possible, as has evidently happened with the old DoG, that Hornby has a different version of this for its mainstream 'enthusiast' model? Surely so much negative comment based on pre-production prototypes which no-one has actually any proof is the final version seems a little too critical to me.

 

Now, I don't disagree with making comment about some detailing or obviously wrong items (such as the ghastly chimney on the Beattie Well Tank which, despite a huge amount of comment got through to production) but recent form seems to be that Hornby are shooting themselves in the foot vis-a-vis Enthusiast Modellers (to separate them/us from Toy Train buyers) by not making it clear as to what their prototypes really are.

 

I think someone has hit the nail on the head by suggesting that Hornby may be tooling up a less-detailed Collet tender for the TT market whilst retaining the 'Castle/Grange' style ones for the EM range. However, if they are coming from different factories and different manufacturers in different countries it may be very difficult to do that type of differentiation.

 

JE

[OnTheBranchline]

Don't forget to comment on what you see at Warley.

[Ozexpatriate]

Amid all the fuss, Hornby have released illustrations for the two GWR Halls.

 

R3169 - N^o. 5972 Olton Hall is in a fetching, (Ron) Burgundy* (ex-Hogwarts, returned to general service) GREAT <arms> WESTERN livery. I'm guessing that this is not a movie tie-in and presume this is the current, preserved livery for this locomotive.  

 

* "Stay classy Hornby".

 

R3170 - N^o. 4901 Adderly Hall is in a more customary green GREAT <arms> WESTERN livery.

 

So two mysteries less now.  Both are listed as "NEW" and both have 10-spoked bogie wheels, but I can't make out the cabside hand rails in these images.

[Hilux5972]

The image they have also released for Rood Ashton Hall shows a 4000 gal tender, whereas she currently hauls a 3500 gal tender. Hopefully she is released with it.

[Coach bogie]

The image they have also released for Rood Ashton Hall shows a 4000 gal tender, whereas she currently hauls a 3500 gal tender. Hopefully she is released with it.

 

I am not aware it was ever intended to be in 'preserved' condition. It has been listed as a BR version for some time, when it ran with a 4,000 gallon type.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Paul.Uni]

R3169 - N^o. 5972 Olton Hall is in a fetching, (Ron) Burgundy* (ex-Hogwarts, returned to general service) GREAT <arms> WESTERN livery. I'm guessing that this is not a movie tie-in and presume this is the current, preserved livery for this locomotive.  

 

* "Stay classy Hornby".

The current livery on 5972 is Hogwarts Red with the Hogwarts crest on the tender, although for some events that it has appeared with the Hogwarts crest covered so that it doesn't break the Harry Potter licensing. I presume the Hogwarts Red with "GREAT <arms> WESTERN" on the tender is done for the same reason.

[Hilux5972]

Hornby have the licence for Harry Potter products for UK so I am surprised that it has GREAT crest WESTERN on the tender. Means I will have to find somebody to do one off transfers for me. Fox can do custom Hogwarts Castle nameplates and Hogwarts Express headboard for me, but it has to be minimum of 5 pairs of nameplates and 10 headboards, so if anyone wants a pair or a headboard let me know

[Hilux5972]

No photo's I'm afraid as the Hornby stand was in perhaps the darkest corner of the whole show but they looked the same as the earlier posted photos's. 2 tender styles - the low sided (2500 gallon?) and the more common high sided. All had molded rear tender handrails which really grated - reminded me of when the old Airfix Castle was first released. Didn't realise the steam pipes were molded in as well - oh dear - we really are going backwards now!

This post from earlier on states that two types of tenders were seen on pre-prod models, neither of which was a star.

[Hilux5972]

And here is a pic, uploaded by HornbyFan, showing the pre-prod with a 3500 gal tender.

[Unknown Warrior]

 

Olton Hall as Hogwarts Castle was at the NRM for the Great Gathering on 8.11.2013 tucked away in a corner and looking decidedly scruffy! Dark photo attached!

 

I also am disappointed that Rood Ashton Hall is not due to be released "as preserved" with 3,500 Gallon Tender. Might well have bought one. As far as I am concerned the molded hand rails are acceptable in this case as it was always billed as "Design Clever." The Star is a different matter. The expectation was that it would be a premium product, which it mostly is, let down by four molded handrails!