stevex52

I have been attending swapmeets for many years and have seen many changes. First up was Hornby clockwork O Gauge, prices shot upward as demand from the then 65 years and upward sought to buy items they could once not afford. Then came Hornby Dublo 3 rail, again as certain ages buy back their youth. Then it was closely followed by Hornby Dublo 2 rail. After a while the O Gauge stuff started to dip in price. Then came Tri ang, my own era and i collected many items which i still have. Wrenn made a massive price increase, at which point i sold my Wrenn items for a massive amount compared to what i paid....that was just good luck. All the time current items are also sold and many choose to make the main layout from those items. There are many items that are currently worth very little because certain age groups have now left the hobby, and younger modellers have no interest in them at all. So do we buy trains for a profit ? Many of us do not, but at times we are just lucky and make a profit....its all about timing and luck. What ever you collect.....just enjoy it and forget about its resale value.

Yes i fully agree, i only had 1 loco with a problem it was the Crab. I purchased it new and had it for some time, well over a year before i ran it. The powered tender worked fine but the loco drivers turned very slowly. It was returned to my showcase for many years. I decided to sell it along with others to a dealer, i owned up that it had problems but was told if you can get it to run then i will buy it. I took it home and later studied the problem. The chassis was a plastic shell with a tight fitting weight in it. I prized the metal block out and could see it was bulging. I tidied the casting up on both sides using a coarse file and made it a loose fit in the plastic case. Test run and found it to work perfect, i kept it for at least 5 years and no further problems arose. I still sold it, but by this time it was a sought after model and got twice the original price. i never had a problem with the 09, 20,26,27,31,33,37,40,42,50,52,55,60,or 73 and i had several of each. I don`t know if anyone remembers Greenyard Models at i think South Clifton near Newark. They must of sold thousands of Lima items and had big adds in the Railway Modeller. I used to spend all my wages then...all £45...wow i hear you. But i usually came out with 2 locos and some change or other weeks i bought coaches or wagons. 8 Mk 1 coaches cost around £63. Fair enough the quality was no where near Bachmann standards, but good for the time. Happy Days

Over many years we have had many good models all improvements on each other from different companies. Tri-ang and Tri-ang Hornby produced a very good for the time a Class 31. I think next was Airfix to produce the 31. Next probably Lima, who excelled in producing so many variations of livery. All of the above had a plastic type chassis with added weight, some used a mazak type material others just plate steel or a block of steel or iron. The added weight fitted into a compartment, usually the fuel tank between bogies. Most allowed room all around so it was not a tight fit. Some modellers wanting more weight applied extra, it was not difficult to do. Even if the weight was made of mazak room was allowed for expansion. I personally sold all my Lima loco`s in the hopes of purchasing some of the new models then emerging. It was only the other day i was thinking that although i had most Loco classes i realised i did not have a Class 31. My own era of collecting is Green with half or full Yellow ends and Blue with pre tops numbers. I should have chosen my words better by saying that Hornby have no locos i wish to buy in the current range. I have checked the Hornby website to see what is available for now. It was interesting to see a recent post where the gentleman has had so many returns of Hornby 31`s he is now probably going back to the Lima models. I personally had around 7 of those and all performed well, i can see the original motor would not perform well with DCC but i don`t use DCC anyway. I can not remember the cost of a Class 31 by Hornby...£80...£90 ?, but a Lima loco would only cost £25 to £35 and so far i don`t know of any that had a mazak problem. Now i do hope this does not happen to any of you but a while back my friend bought a load of Lima loco`s which had been in a fire in a modeller`s loft. The Heat had distorted all the Lima Diesel Loco body`s but all chassis were unaffected by the heat, my friend has nearly sold all of them to modeller`s who still kit build or for spare`s. So plastic chassis are not so Laughable. The offering by Hornby of a cash voucher is a very good gesture, but i assume it can only be used to buy Hornby items. The cost to Hornby has probably been written off as companies do to tax. Also they maybe had some refund given to them by the company who provided the Mazak or Mazak casting. Anyway lets agree you buy what you want and i will buy what i want. I do hope a good Class 31 is produced soon. I do have a Heljan Clayton, yes it is a show piece only as it has the motor problem, but it was nearly new and only cost £25 boxed.

I always wanted one of the Class 31s, but unfortunately could not find one at the time. Reading all your replies about this model i am pleased i missed it. As the problem has been going on so long i would have thought Hornby would have made a replacement chassis to the same dimensions in a plastic type material, extra weight could have easily been added. I don`t find Hornby`s way of dealing with your complaints and problems acceptable. From now on i will avoid any Hornby loco. Good luck to all of you who have any of these loco`s as they are not fit for purpose or even display only.

I dont think anyone has mentioned Lincoln. We had 3 shops i can remember. Nobbs, Ashleys and Bycrofts. Nobbs seemed to be a large shop dealing in all hobby things, like fishing, stuffed animals, model railways to name but a few. This was the first shop when getting of a bus in the city centre. It was also the reason i could not spell TRAINS as a small boy...i always spelled it TRIANS. The reason being i was actually copying TRIANG, i knew Trains did not have a G on so it always came out TRIAN.....This came about by my mother always buying me a Triang Catalogue from the shop. At one time they also had a second shop on Sincil Street still selling O Gauge clockwork amongst other items. Ashleys also had a large showroom with all toys you can think of on display. Bycrofts was near my homeward bound bus stop, so i always spent time there looking at Hornby Dublo. Secondhand shops also were well stocked at times with model railway, we probably had 4 or 5 of them. Not to mention most small shops sold Matchbox , Dinky, Airfix and Playcraft. Of course we all tend to collect things we could not afford back then. Now i have a large collection of Triang, Playcraft and Some Airfix and Matchbox items. Happy Days The mention earlier of Bob Dennys at Long Eaton reminded me of going to Toton around 1973. We visited his shop and although small had a good variety. Later i returned to by some Triang TT he had. Sadly we will not see shops like this again...full of atmosphere

I used to look at the website everyday. Sadly some improvement has been made and i cant work the site at all. It became very slow to change from one search to another. Now i have deleted it from my favourites and no longer bother with it. I do have some items on pre order, so i hope they e.mail me. Also i find Rails website is slow on updates, they used to add more items at one time. Again i seldom look at that now. And while i am moaning also the BBC news website had improvements, now they add about 1 story every week to our area, whereas before improvements up to 10 news items a day would be added. Thats Life