60800

Here's hoping that the wide range of viewing options tomorrow morning will stop RMweb and the Hornby website from crashing or slowing to a snail's pace as they do every year. Cheers, 60800

If Hornby follows their track record with unusual steam locos into the modern era, I can see an 89 being very likely, especially with Rails sitting on theirs and having the spat with Hornby in the same year. I fully expect to see; Rebuilt MN BR MK4 stock Class 89 Anything else is a bonus, although I can see Big Bertha or the Turbomotive being done. I don't expect to see any more P2 variants until 2007 is running and that's when Hornby will put the money in to modify the tooling for 2007 and subsequently the Bugatti variants. Wildcard? Great Northern in rebuilt form. I'd sell a kidney for that thing in RTR.... In blue as 4470 obviously. Cheers, 60800

Not really sure where to go with this, as I don't see any entitlement from 'OO' modellers, even on here where the majority of us are massed. We expect that items are correct for the prices we pay and there is nothing wrong with that at all. Plenty of people on here, myself included, repaint locos and enjoy doing it. If I was that fussed I'd paint a pair of GBRF 50's myself but as it so happens I'm not bothered. Why paying for a repainted item though from somewhere such as rainbow railways is considered entitlement is beyond me - if you have the cash and want the model to be right or different to OOB / RTR finishes but cannot do the job yourself, what is wrong with paying for it? Cheers, 60800

I wouldn't mind a twin pack of a beat up 43002 and 43003 in Barbie livery complete with 253001 set number, with a Valenta TTS chip of course Midland Mainline 'Rio' sets are what are really missing though. Cheers, 60800

This had already been pointed out (besides, I already knew anyway), but the ride height of the Bachmann is more of an issue for me than slightly off paint, coupled with the price difference of course. The Hornby Mk2F in blue grey doesn't even match their own Mk2E in the same livery, so I'm stuck with exclusively using Hornby F's if I don't want to break the bank. Cheers, 60800

The worst example of this by far is the pair of GBRF 50's - the colours are horrible. They are bad enough that anyone could compare them to a photo and notice it. Yet, they have flown off the shelves. There's no other game in town and a good percentage of the people who want these 50's will not be able to repaint a 50 to the same standard of finish or will not shell out the extra to pay someone to do it. You have to go very high up the ladder to find those of us who will actually kick off, but because all the trainset buyers have wiped the shelves clean of them it will make no difference to Hornby and the next GBRF locos will be just as bad, so that they can match previous stock. The upshot is, if you want decent GBRF 50's you either have to be good enough at painting and decalling to do the job yourself, or have about £250 burning a hole in your pocket to pay someone else to do it. The flip side is the latest NR HST's - I suspect the price bracket on these meant less trainset buyers and a higher percentage of, without trying to gatekeep the term, modellers buying them and complaining - hence we get a re-run of bodies. Cheers, 60800

One suggestion which I haven't seen is a Mk2F RFB - Yes I know Bachmann do one, but it's expensive for a coach, sits too high and doesn't match the colour of the cheaper Hornby stock. Honestly the gap between bogie and body on the Bachmann RFB is ridiculous, and I suspect that thanks to the lighting connections it can't be lowered. I'll save my £60 and see if Hornby do one this year, fingers crossed. Cheers, 60800 Edit: To 66738's comment above - the Hornby livery may be a bit off, but when the coaches are half the price (and can be found at nearly a third of the price in places), I'll take the slightly dodgy blue. I'm building up a rake of the Burton based Mk.2 stock for BR blue hauled railtour duties from the Hornby F's and it's going to cost me a shade under £190 for a six car rake (if Hornby do the RFB) - the same in Bachmann stock would sit around £340 Another way of looking at how pricing has gone is I can pick up a six car rake for the same cost as the express loco to haul it, which.... Isn't too bad really. I remember the days of £20 Mk.1 coaches. Should have bought more

Hi John, Sorry I should have been clearer - the rehashing was referring to the Heljan 58, with regards to marketing, not physical changes. Bachmann have pushed it like it's something new and given it a price to match. As others have said, modifying the Hornby 58 to produce a railroad model would be pointless, unless of course people are happy for it to be of equal or slightly worse quality than the railroad 47's, which look to be selling well. Cheers, 60800

I'll pay full fat for a new tooling - I have for example pre-ordered a new Heljan 47 and my wallet is waiting for the hit of two Accurascale Deltics. What I will not pay full fat for is old tooling rehashed into a new brand. A quick look on eBay proved that if I want one, I can have a Heljan 58 for less than £100. Equally I will happily pay full price for a new Hornby Duchess, Princess Royal etc, but I will not pay the prices asked for light Pacifics and A4's - where every single one of those I have cost less than £110, bar Dominion of Canada which topped out at £135-ish Cheers, 60800

Since I fall under point 1 (just) and model 2000 and onwards I can agree that I see the 58 as being old enough not to bother with wanting one myself. If I did want one I wouldn't want railroad and I wouldn't fork out the silly EFE prices either. Regarding remembering them - I only ever saw one on the network, that being an EWS example at Edinburgh Waverly in 2003. I'm still yet to see 58023, but I'm sure I saw 58016 at Barrow Hill. So yeah, for the younger audience a 58 is a no really. I'm not into this lark of buying models of every mainline registered 37, 47, 50 etc and then altering them when they change hands for the umpteenth time in a decade, but I would certainly buy one of the current colas / GBRF / LSL / ROG / DRS classics before I would consider a 58. On the note of that though, a new Hornby 37 or 47 (at sub £155) would not go amiss. Why? Accurascale's 37 and Heljan's expensive 47 may be looking good but there is no chance of one company being able to produce all the current liveries in one go, certainly not with period examples at the same time. Bachmann seems to have little interest in modern liveries with their 47 and their 37 just isn't good enough. I've had two and sold them on because I just can't get past the awful Windowscreens. Cheers, 60800

I had to modify the original run of the current tooling version of the USA Scotsman set to achieve this. It is still presently the only way of doing it without repainting something

I hope they fix the nameplates on 18....

Erm, paint debate aside.... I'm happy with the state that 46207 is in now. I had to cut away more of the underside than I was comfortable with and had to split every glue joint forward of the first splashers. I would have split those too but it would have been impossible to do so without damaging the paint. 46232 has since turned up as a donor for 46233, so that's the West Shed pair sorted; Since I had 46229 out, I figured I may as well drag out 6220. I bought the initial New-Tool release of the Blue Streamliner and renumbered it. A bit of a redundant exercise now but oh well! Obviously the West Shed pair are still to be modified and detailed, but I'm excited to see these four together. Just to wait for Lizzie as preserved and finish my 46235 project now! All I will say regarding the paint debate is that the lining on my two red'uns is yellow. Cheers, 60800

Hi all, Regarding the issues that have been picked up, I recieved an email from Dennis late last night. How's that for customer service? To quote; Thank you for your email which has been passed on to me to respond to. There are a small number of issues to be addressed and we as a team are working alongside Bachmann to correct these at this stage. I am sure you will appreciate that this is why we have pre-production samples for checking and I am reassured by Bachmann that the issues that have been raised will be rectified before production commences. I trust that this information will be of interest. Cheers, 60800

Hopefully the slight ski jump is corrected before production. I hope they notice from the livery sample that 60800's LH cab side number is a little wonky too. Normally with something like this I'd have rose tinted specs on (which I do to some extent) but looking at the cost it really does have to be right. EDIT: I've raised the issues that can be seen with Locomotion via their email form. I'll update when I get a response.

I've resisted sadly.... by only ordering one version of Green Arrow. It had to be 60800 - had two railtours behind her in that condition when I was younger and it was Green Arrow which kick-started my love of railways.

I nearly ordered both versions of Green Arrow. I think if I did, I would have to go into hiding!

Well that's the fastest I've ever spent £230. Thanks to the Teams at Bachmann and Locmotion models for doing these. Can't wait for my 60800!

*Clears Throat* Yahoo!!! *Looks at wallet and cries regarding it's impending sacrifice*

The Large Boiler Atlantics have already been done (251 included). 990 on the other hand.....

If it's not Green Arrow, I'm going to cry. If it is Green Arrow I'm going to cry as it's going to be at least £220. If it's a full proto HST rake I will also cry as I will have to sell a kidney...

The last bit of work on 46207 tonight pulled it down to the same height as Mike's - the big remaining issue stopping it sitting the same as Hamilton is that there is a slight incline on the chassis at that point - no worries as I can file it down later. I will need to snap the glue joints for the smokebox to the running plate so that can be manipulated, but I'll have to be very careful by trying to score though the glue with a knife - I can't just pull the joints apart as I did with the fake front frames which came off almost too easily. Cheers, 60800

Hi @MikeParkin65 Thanks for the comparison photo - mine sits almost as low as yours does now - mine is perhaps a 1/4 of a mm higher than what you show, but I think I know what I can file to squeeze that last bit of height - I am yet to flatten the top of the hole for the screw for the front chassis lug. I have cleaned it of excess paint but it is not yet flat on top The rest of the fit looks similar to mine too - I still have some tweaking of the sir of the valve gear to do. Cheers, 60800

For me I find that with Stanier Pacifics it doesn't matter how good the rest of the loco is - if the 'face' is off the model is ruined. Both The Lizzies and Coronations have stocky front ends and the new Hornby models of these miss that stocky look on both counts. For the Lizzies it's obviously the ski jump that spoils them for me, but it is fixable. For Hamilton up until now I wasn't sure what was wrong, but I do have a set of Comet deflectors from a stalled 46235 build (upgrading the old tool as I don't need to spend £200 on a static model), so @Brocp I'll dig them out and offer them up to Hamilton and see how they look. Now that I'm happy-ish with the current state of 46207 it's being shuffled away for my birthday in Feb, so I'll fine tweak it and renumber it to 46203 when I properly have my hands on it. In the meantime I have a 46232 on the way to turn into Sutherland and I may have a look at the deflectors on this too, but will post that in the Coronation thread. Cheers, 60800.

Hi @37114 Thanks for the info - the Headlight is the killer for that idea then. I may go for D6700 as built or will wait and see if they do a model of her as preserved in future. Thanks, 60800