kristopher1805

Couple of things here, if you think about it the grouping railways had each a mixed traffic loco and a big freighter although here the SR had less requirement, so Hornby have already covered most of the bases, then also an express 4-6-0 LNER B1 and O1 & B17 GWR 28xx 2884 and Hall & Castle/County/Star LMS Black 5 and 8F, & Scot/Patriot Southern ? and perhaps Q1 as alternative to a 2-8-0 and N15 There are some gaps but Hornby have done well here, all popular locos and all popular choices, I agree model of the year could have gone to Hornby for the excellent O1 or even brilliant B1. Less obvious is the P2 but most will buy one out of interest, this is so especially when one takes to the tracks again so where are the gaps? Bachmann have gone with designs of late that have no valve gear if you consider what they have turned out recently 3F, soon 4F, J11, D11, Compound, most of the others on the stocks Other thing to note is that Southern modellers pay more, who can say they do not with the ridiculous M7 pricing so that leaves me thinking that the obvious contender for attention is the S15 and I would certainly buy one or two with a nice profit margin. The other market holes are now K1, S15, Q6, B16, J20, now with Bachmann taking on the Stanier mogul As to the O4/8 the Bachmann chassis and footplate is designed to take different boilers so they must have a head start, there were 99 of these in the end and had a big spread across the LNER system so this would do well, I doubt it would be worth the effort to go after that market for Hornby as Bachmann are obviously there already but who knows, the O1 does provide the same basis nearly anyway. If I were running Hornby it would be the S15 next If I were running Bachmann it would be O4/8 sadly I am running neither.