Robin Brasher

Colletts Models is selling Hornby R30008 BR Terriers for £84.99 each.

DCC ready R30008 BR Terrier 32640 is £120.99 on the Hornby site whereas the Rails version is £110 on their site: still a bit more expensive. The Hornby DCC fitted version for £147.49 looks like good value for money.

Thank you.

With the Hornby price increases the Rails cycling lion terrier is considerably cheaper than the Hornby one: Rails £110, Hornby R30008X £147.49.

I think that Hornby should state on the box that the model is in a fictional livery. I thought that the Hornby R60032 BR conflat A. Tri-ang was a fictional livery until I saw a picture of the prototype with a BR 2-6-4T. A manufacturer of garden railways did make a model of a wine tank wagon with a tap on it that you could fill with wine. I was thinking of buying one until I saw that it cost around £90 so I suppose Hornby could make a similar Coca Cola tank wagon.

I think between 23cm and 30cm is ok for H0 gauge.

A purple rebuilt West Country will stand out from the crown and would be reminiscent of British Railways' experimental liveries in the late 1940s. I suggest that they call it 'Royal Sovereign.'

I have found Hattons the best one. They offered £5 per coach and arranged for free postage by arranging for me to print a wrapper. Rails offered me less. I have got nowhere trying to sell model railways at a three day exhibition in Dorset and a local trader offered me £4 per coach which he upgraded to £5 when I told him I could get £5 per coach from Hattons. I also got nowhere at a toy fair in Dorset. I think my table cost £30 and I sold £30 worth of model railways. One trader asked if I would accept £30 for a Eurostar set so I put it aside for him and then at the end of the day he said he was not interested in it. Another trader said he had lost count of the number of times that had happened to him. I have not tried Ebay but I should think it is very labour intensive and a minefield. It is probably better to hold onto what you have got because you would not have bought it in the first place if you did not want it.

If Hornby charges the full price but honours that price at the date of the order this may be cheaper than ordering from a shop with a 10% discount if the price rises by more than 10% before Hornby delivers the model. The picture shows a Lord of the Isles locomotive that Hornby is planning to resurrect in the RS48 Victorian set which is due in 2022.

Thank you for your comments about the Lord of the Isles. You may be interested to see my Lord of the Isles locomotive by the engine shed in my waterfall layout that I had in the early 1970s with Tri-ang Super 4 track on foam ballast. Lord of the Isles first appeared in June 1961. It was Tri-ang's first pre-grouping locomotive and may have been inspired by Matchbox Toys' Duke of Connaught. The first version had a matt paint finish and a smoke unit. It did not have Magnadhesion and could pull around four Tri-ang clerestory coaches on Tri-ang series 3 track with a minimum radius of around 13". It was available as a locomotive or as part of a huge train set with two points, two signals, a signal box and a level crossing. In 1962 it was fitted with Magnadhesion. Tri-ang also introduced Super 4 track which had the same geometry as the present track but was to coarse scale. During the 1960s Tri-ang fitted the clerestory coaches with pin point axles which were more free running than the old axles. So, with free running coaches and Magnadhesion the Lord of the Isles could pull over six clerestory coaches. It was the fastest engine in their range but like all Tri-ang models it was rather noisy. Over the year the set was reduced to a locomotive, two coaches and a small oval of track as the original set was too expensive. I bought my first Lord of the Isles from Hobbytime of West Wickham in the 1970s. By that time it had a gloss finish and possibly a crew. I don't think it had a smoke unit. I sold it and the clerestory coaches a few years later as my main interest was the Southern region. The clerestory coaches may have ventured onto the London and South Western Railway but the locomotive probably did not.

Could CR stand for Canadian Railways?

I thought Sam's Trains did an excellent review of Rails' Caledonian 812,

Does Rails inspect its products before sending them out? When I bought models from Hobbytime of West Wickham in the 1970s the manager always used to run locomotives on his test track before selling them to make sure there were no faults.

Meccano was proud that out of a production run of 100,000 Hornby Dublo 2-6-4Ts produced in 1955 only six came back under the guarantee with serious defects. In those days each one was tested with 12 goods wagons before it was sent to the retailer and had a tested note attached to the chimney. I wonder if Hornby can equal this achievement.

Sam's Trains latest video 'Hornby's PR Disaster' was excellent. I agree with his advice to buy from a retailer rather than Hornby. I found the information that the 9F would have a diecast body at a lower price than the Hornby Dublo series models very interesting. I was surprised to find that 54% of the viewers preferred the LNER to the other pre-nationalisation companies.

I have found Sam's Trains very interesting as it shows the faults on model locomotives. One example is the Bachmann N class which was given a glowing report in the model press. An N class is a must have locomotive for me and I bought four; one in each livery. I found that the locomotive derailed on points and curves so I wondered if there was something wrong with my track laying. When I saw his review of the N class is he had exactly the same problem and the model is clearly not fit for purpose. Without his video and just relying on the model press no-one would be any the wiser about the locomotive's fault. Bachmann is capable of making some excellent models and their Graham Farish N gauge N class is one of my best performing locomotives.

Hornby is still trying to sell its LSWR 'New Van' brake vans in LSWR bauxite on page 185. It is clear that someone in Hornby is having problems with his or her colour vision as the prototype vans were in dark chocolate brown livery. This may account for why they have not sold well. I am not sure if Hornby's tier system has been discussed here but my local model shop has just told me that it is in tier 2 and Hornby will not accept the shop's order until January 24th. If Hornby have sold out of some of the items I have ordered by that time it will solve the problem of the price increases draining my wallet.

I would welcome a Dean single and some panelled clerestory coaches tooled up to modern standards but I think the existing models are reasonable representations. The Railway Modeller reviewed them when they came out and pointed out the errors which were minor. In the 1970s the Isle of Purbeck Model Railway Group replaced the clerestory roofs of the coaches with conventional roofs, put some windows in at the end and repainted them malachite green. These represented ex LSWR pull push sets to accompany the M7s. Ace Trains made some generic GWR clerestory coaches complete with conventional roofs in many pre-grouping liveries and these were very popular. You can still get second hand Hornby clerestory coaches for around £3 so there is no risk of ruining an expensive model by cutting it down and repainting it.

While we are waiting for the for the Victorian train to appear there is an opportunity to look at how the model has progressed since Tri-ang introduced it in 1961 in a magnificent train set. We can also discuss whether Hornby could make a basic model like this in England at a reasonable price and whether there is a need for generic coaches based on the clerestory coaches.

Commercial rents are high in Swanage but I think the owner of the Swanage Railroading Centre has got the freehold as it was a derelict building that he is restoring. There is another model shop in Institute Road near the seafront that sells Airfix Kits, Oxford Diecast and a few Dinky Toys but not trains and there is another shop that sells antiques and sometimes sells Hornby vintage 0 gauge.

Swanage Model Railroading Centre, High Street, Swanage.

Thank you for the videos of the real and model Coronation Scots. If you have a look at the LMS Coronation Scot topic you will see that I am not the only person who has had haulage problems with a Coronation locomotive. It looks like the problem lies with either the wiper blades supplying electricity to the lights or with the brake shoes rubbing against the wheels on the coaches. It is a fact that the maximum load for my Coronation is six Coronation Scot coaches on the Wimborne Railway Society's test track which has Peco track and Gaugemaster controls.

I expect you will find that the improved blue version will not be capable of hauling your Coronation Scot if you have got a nine coach set. I wonder if the old tender drive Coronation has enough power to haul the train.

Continuing on the LMS theme I was interested to read on page 77 of the Hornby 2022 catalogue that the designer of 257 Squadron and Winston Churchill was Sir William Stanier.

Making people happy is what it is all about and I am pleased that they are going to bring out R3997 City of London and R3994 Golden Fleece in the normal Hornby range. Perhaps Hornby will bring them into the Hornby Dublo range later. I will be able to compare City of London with my Wrenn model. I never had a Hornby Dublo Golden Fleece as Jones Brothers of Chiswick converted my Mallard for 2-rail operation.