jjb1970

Bourton unfortunately is like most touristy small towns, congested on nice days and dominated by tourists however it is a very nice place and there are reasons it attracts visitors. Many of the towns in the Northern National Parks suffer from the same problem of being a bit too touristy. I would still recommend Bourton as a splendid day out and the model shop is very good.

Given that MG re-launched in the UK quite a while ago the rarity of their cars is quite telling and their dealer network seems to have gone backwards. At one point there were biblical discounts on the MG6 to try and move stock. In fairness reviews seemed to consider the chassis was pretty well set up with potential and it offered a lot of space if they could get a decent engine and give the cabin and touch point quality a makeover. Whether you'd want to sink your own money into such a car is doubtful.

Sounds familiar! I made an appointment by telephone to test drive an A3 with the 1.4 turbo petrol (we'd already decided that was the engine we wanted based on driving other cars with the engine) and duly turned up with licenses etc to take the car out. We were then asked to sit down and asked how much we wanted to spend on a car. You'll note the word wanted. I politely asked about the car we'd arranged to test drive and got a load of guff about how it is no use test driving a car unless we could afford it and therefore he would only talk about what I'd spend. Because, of course I am in the habit of wasting my time driving going around car dealers test driving cars I can't afford Since my wife was there who doesn't like making a scene I decided to just let him have his say them disappear, so told him how much I wanted to spend, which wasn't very much. He then proceeded to tell me I might be able to afford a poverty spec A3 with the base 1.2 petrol engine followed by almost ordering me to take out a finance deal there and then and telling me it was the only car I could afford. At that point I dropped politeness and pretty much told him not to call me and I wouldn't be calling them, it was an appalling experience. I will say the VW dealer (part of the same group, oddly) was completely different, no hard sell or pressure, gave us a car for a few hours and offered a great price on a pre-ordered car in their system which was close enough to the spec we wanted to be attractive.

This is the normal practice in Japan and to be honest whilst it is clearly a bit of a conjuring trick to fool the eye I believe it works better than most actual N gauge catenary. The problem is that unless you are skillful enough to engineer your own catenary the stuff you can buy looks way too heavy to my eye and ends up dominating a layout in a way which is completely unrealistic. This is a problem with a lot of HO catenary and it is much worse in N.

When we replaced the A1 we got my wife a VW Golf, initially we looked at the Audi A3 but the local Audi dealer subjected us to probably the most demeaning retail experience of my life and we walked out. Had a look at the Golf and bought a 1.4TSI with DSG box which is an incredibly accomplished car. The 1.4 turbo with cylinder de-activation and DSG is not that far behind the TDI and is quite warm in terms of performance, the DSG gear box is outstanding. Sorry for talking modern cars. On older cars I'd still love a Citroen DS, I'd also love a Lancia Monte Carlo which is probably far from being a sensible car to want but I always remember as a boy thinking what a glorious looking car it was. A quirky one I'd like is a Subaru SVX, the coupe they made a few years ago which was expensive in its day but a very interesting car.

These days most cars are platform cars (including some seriously expensive ones from Bentley and RR). If done well the concept works, but it is annoying when you get in a car and it's shared DNA with cars a lot cheaper is quite obvious. We had an Audi A1 which is essentially a VW Polo/Skoda Fabia/SeatLeon in an expensive suit and despite being fully aware of its platform underpinnings thought it was an excellent car. That said, there is no escaping the fact that you are basically paying a large premium for nicer cabin plastics.

I've always been well served by Hattons. Anything I've ordered has been delivered promptly and they do have some cracking bargains. Therefore I really have nothing negative to say about them. I think the courier issue is much wider than Hattons. I've recently had bad experiences with John Lewis, a store which is supposed to be at the high end of the retail market and which plays on a reputation for quality of service. M&S have had some high profile failures. I've started having bad experiences with Amazon despite having had nothing but positive experiences from them for over a decade. The problem then may be woth couriers but the retailers also have a big problem as notwithstanding the fact they are responsible for fulfilling their orders they are suffering real damage to their reputations as a result of failures in delivery. The problems may very well be with the delivery company but to the customer it doesn't matter, it is the retailer who is responsible for fulfilling their orders. Whether or not the issue is with City Link (now in administration), Yodel, Hermes or whoever does not alter the perception that ordering becomes higher risk. Certainly I have dropped using John Lewis on-line and am probably not going to order anything other than books and discs from Amazon going forward. So, whilst I do not blame Hattons for failures by Yodel, I do think they should monitor feedback on couriers and act, and certainly where a customer selects Royal Mail then Hattons should deliver via Royal Mail.

I'm in a bit of a quandry now as the ambulance train is one of the releases I have been really excited about. This is an ideal cross over for me as my principal hobby/interest in WW1 and the history of Europe in the decades leading to WW1 (much more than my interest in railways) and I love the GWR. So this ticks a lot of boxes for me, now however it seems to be a fantasy release. I really do not know anything about ambulance trains, a few weeks ago I didn't know it was a fantasy and was desperate for the model to be released. I'm almost certainly going to buy it as at the end of the day the set does look very nice and it still straddles some major interests of mine. The railway children set looks terrific, a fascinating subject to model and it is nice to see Bachmann model something a bit out of the ordinary like that. I am very tempted but will probably resist as it appears train packs crossing over between interests of mine (the Southern Dunkirk return train, Churchill funeral train and the GWR WW1 troop train all announced by Hornby) as well as the ambulance train are becoming quite a nice little stream of releases.

Yodel seems to be either very bad or very good according to your local deliverer. The low cost couriers are certainly cheap, and they're really winning market share, I've stopped buying from John Lewis on-line as I had a couple of dreadful delivery experiences, they're using Hermes and based on my experience they make Yodel look positively high end.

This is the stand out new model in the Hornby program for me and fantastic news. If this is as good as the King Arthur it'll redeem a lot of Hornby's issues over recent years for me.

I think the Hornby 4 VEP falls into that no mans land of models in that it is clearly not perfect and suffers from some significant failings yet at the same time it is a good enough representation to be an acceptable model and there are no other RTR 4 VEP models. So I think it falls between a great model and an out and out disaster, which is not unusual. Whilst I certainly see the faults with this model and think it should have been better I'll also say that I honestly do not regret buying my example at all and that when viewed from normal distances on a layout it looks fine to my admittedly inexpert eyes. Certainly I will be buying one in blue/grey, for sure compared to the wonderful Bachmann 4 CEP I am not expecting much but I do think it is a good enough model to enjoy as a decent representation of the real thing and be happy with.

Bourton on the Water is a terrific day out. We go there sometimes, the kiddies love the bird centre and model village, and the car museum is worth a look. While it may be a bit twee and touristy it is nevertheless a lovely little town. The model shop is well stocked and the staff are helpful, it is the sort of shop I suspect many of us once took for granted which is increasingly rare. A nice town, a beautiful area, loads for the family and a great model shop, what is not to like?!!

What a beauty, although not fitting in with any of my interests I cannot resist buying one.

The future of Hornby Railroad is interesting. Originally it seemed to be a way of offering low cost models to the trainset market and as basic offerings for those who enjoy conversion and detailing projects utilising old pre-China Hornby and Lima tooling. The newer Railroad models are now offering slightly de-spec models that are obviously pitched at the model market and are good enough for many enthusiasts. At the same time the main range seems to be like a rabbit in the headlights trying to decide whether to retain elements of design clever or return to all out detail (eg. the King). Maybe Railroad will become what design clever was meant to be? Or there will be a three tier range, economy Railroad pitched at the cost sensitive end of the market but nevertheless real scale models, the main range balancing detail and cost to try and hit a sweet spot and a halo range? PS. I hate to start talking about trainset toys,serious models etc as the gap between people following the track mat approach to a 6 x 4 layout based on a trainset and fine scale modellers is trivial compared to the huge gulf between both groups (and all in between) and the majority of the people out there who think all of us are a bit nuts.

If they have cancelled orders then that is inexcusable. If it is a system glitch then they should contact retailers and assure them that their orders will be honoured (communication goes a long way), if they really have just decided to cancel orders then there is no way I'd try and defend Hornby on that. On delivery dates, I now have an attitude that models arrive when they arrive and just accept it as delivery dates for all manufacturers are what might be politely termed "elastic". I have a similar issue in my job, some people get obsessed with long range oil and gas price projections and at the end of the day the price of oil and gas is what it is, if we don't know with reliability what they'll be in a months time how are we meant to take seriously forecasts for 2030.

I think Andy Y hit the nail on the head, this may be something much more significant than moves by retailers into commissioning or niche producers but the first step of a mass market competitor to Hornby and Bachmann. There is an interesting paradox in that whilst Oxfordrail see a market opportunity (and very clearly you don't make this sort of investment without first doing a lot of work to establish the market receptiveness and size) others (me included) think that there may be a shake out approaching. Interesting.

Sounds like the old Hornby 8F!

The yellow warning panel is one of those things which is low cost and is considered useful by many of those who it was intended to assist such as track workers therefore I really see no valid reason to remove it other than objections based on aesthetics. If track workers find it is still valuable then it should be retained, personally I think the yellow end add a splash of brightness and colour to trains and like it.

Hello all, I was linked to this page by Switcher 1 and am happy to see coarse scale on RMWeb! I find these models to be really very charming and at the risk of sounding childish I love playing with trains. I have a seven year old boy and I have thought about getting a little coarse O trainset type set up for us both to enjoy playing with. I have OO/HO and Japanese N but the robustness and play value of coarse O would be ideal for him I think. I know some dismiss these as "yoys" but to most of the population all model trains up to the most expensive fine scale master pieces are toys and there is nothing wrong whatsoever in enjoying playing trains in my book and the very robust nature and simplicity of the models is pretty much a big part of why I think it'd be a nice toy to play with as father and son.

The CX turbo was a proper Q car, very punchy performance.

The question is not whether people want or do not want accurate models, I may be making a big assumption here but I'll go out on a limb and say everybody on this board wants their models to be accurate. The question is sensitivity to inaccuracy and what constitutes an acceptable standard. That is a subjective, personal decision which varies greatly. At a certain level if people do not recognise inaccuracies (keeping in mind many people model subjects they never saw in service and that seeing the prototype in a museum is not the same) then such inaccuracies are probably irrelevant. Another position is to recognise the faults but make a reasoned judgement of cost and whether it looks good. There is a huge range of opinions and positions on this topic. I see very few modelsthat can not be criticised at some level if you really want to, including high end kit built models. I think we all want manufacturers to learn from experience and improve, however it is legitimate for some modellers to hold a position that whilst recognising faults it is still a nice model that looks like the real thing. Over the years I've bought plenty of models that have been at the recieving end of all sorts of criticism which has actually been fully justified criticism (recent examples include the Hornby OO big tanks and 4VEP) and yet when I look at them on a layout I think that when all is said and done they're nothing like as bad as the analysis might suggest and they give me a lot of pleasure. I have no issue with people deciding not to buy a model because it is not up to their minimum standard, I also have no issue with those who take a looser approach, and I suspect most of us are somewhere in the grey zone in wanting accuracy but accepting models not perfect and actually being happy with them. And as with anything, peoples expectations are linked to price. At a certain level you get what you pay for and most accept that a value for money RTR model will be different to a high end brass kit or brass RTR. I think the Hornby P2 is demonstrating that many modellers will accept a model built down to a cost with compromises is price is low and it looks right.

This may be a topic for another thread but something I am finding uite interesting is what is the future direction of Hornby with regards detail etc? In a recent blog SK seemed to say that their step back from some of the more esoteric and high end features was for the long term. After the debacle of design clever it does appear that Hornby were gaining a much better appreciation of where costs could be cut and where they needed to retain details. This King is returning to the features and mechanism of their previous high end models. Is this because it is being funded (even partially?) by Steam or is it a reversal or their reversal on such features? I'm sure some will say it is just a response to the DJ/Hattons model but that is not a realistic position given the relative timings of each announcement. The P2 has demonstrated that it is possible to make a model down to a budget and retain enough positives to retain the interest of modellers. The Crosti 9F is in the Railroad range but looking at the sample models it looks more than good enough to cut the mustard as a serious model. So Hornby seem to be developing a potentially very attractive range of models which are maybe taking Railroad out of the toy category into the budget model category and aimed at the enthusiast market (and yes, I know that to most these are all toys). Their Drummond 700 and D16/3 sample pictures appear to show mainstream models which whilst maybe not as good as Hornby could make them are nothing like the design clever attempts of the large tanks. In the real world I really believe that a three pole motor is as good as a five pole one to all intents and purposes and some of the esoteric features are nice to have but not noticeable on a layout. These really seemed to me to be finding quite a sweet spot in terms of a featuresl/price compromise. Now we have the King which is a return to full fat. Perhaps SK will elaborate on his blog, but is it possible we are seeing the emergence of a three tier range? Railroad - entry level no frills good models Main range - good models with good detail but down spec mechanism and losing some finer features Halo models - top end models to retain their image as a premium producer No idea, but it'll be interesting to see how this pans out in the months ahead.

Agree on this. I do not plan to pre-order and I'm willing to take the risk of missing out but I think that is a small enough risk I am not worried.

We have moved on slightly from last week in that it now appears (contrary to my expectations) that Hornby are making a "full fat" King with brass bearings, 5 pole motor, high end back head detail and the sort of detail they were doing five years ago however ultimately it is still a case of two manufacturers announcing a King at the same time. Whereas before the weekend I was expecting the Hornby to be a lower end (but hopefully still very good) model it now looks as if both models will be aiming for the same high end market with a product built to a spec rather than price. I've no idea which will be delivered first or which will be better (although it looks like the Hornby project is well advanced) and am very excited about being in a potentially happy position of having to decide between two excellent models.

Things just got very interesting....... Is Hornby returning to their glory days of 5 years ago? Is this a one off lap of honour bank rolled by Steam or testing the markets willingness to pay for the sort of quality of those halycon days? Are we seeing a split where Rairoad becomes a budget range of genuine models which will be good enough for serious modellers whilst trying to keep things affordable, a middle tier of well detailed models but with de-spec mechanisms for the main market and the occasional halo model? Whatever this means I think the CAD's are illustrative that this is not just a kneejerk to the DJ/Hattons model and that they've been working on it for some time.