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Are Hornby and the Bluebell Railway sharing a stand ? I see Hornby at A18, and Bluebell at A018a ? Bluebell packing something huge with them ?

Agreed..I think we already know the answer to the question as well. The 87 should be benchmarked against Hornby’s other investments.. the Duchess and the SECR H, both of which are sold out before delivery. The 87 is available to pre-order everywhere, including Hornby’s website. It is not obvious to see it sold out any where. Unless Hornby are making more 87’s than Duchesses, one would have to assume Duchesses are outselling 87’s, long before reaching the shelves. From an accountants perspective that’s a black and white obvious decision, if the Peckett wasn’t obvious enough. As side of an 81, 86 or a brave man to risk an 89 there not much left in AC electrics. But if they don’t sell it’s infinitely more risky to do an AC EMU or class 91, which is 3 or 4 times greater risk and cost due to the extra carriages unique to that ensemble. That Bachmanns 350’s are in the bargain bin, preceded not once but twice by differing Class 85 releases doesn’t help the cause either. It would seem AC is a bit line neutral really.

I could understand that approach for niche items like all the diesel prototypes they made... DP2, Falcon, kestrel etcBut this would not sound like common sense for high sales expectation items like the 47, 86 etc.. ? Are you saying Heljan made many duplicate tools for the 47 for each batch ? .. there must be tens of thousands of 47’s out there ?, if that were the case then why not modify the tooling to improve it ? I can see that they retired the 47 tooling as it wore out..so if the 47 tool wearing out is a benchmark.. then the 86 tooling I would have been thinking would be equally as good for the same or similar number of injections ? That it was retired at all suggest they used it to the max... which on balance looks a lot more than the 86, though less than Bachmann and Hornby on several other prototypes. I can understand that different elements of a tooling can wear at different rates, and slides can affect the life of other parts. I can see they made a new tool from the 33, but that was at special commission. Similarly the Facebook page suggests that the specially commissioned 14 and 28 tools are being reused.. so they too must be using original tools, otherwise why need permission ? I’m not convinced Heljan have made several duplicated toolings of a class 17 or 35 to cover several identical but different releases, that too me would seem expensive and excessively risky on a model who’s sales potential is probably uncharted, but seems to keep meeting the slow burn targets. I would be interested to see more info on this to back this theory up, and that it applies to every Heljan tooling, every re release... Some niches ones yes, but routine bulk volume sales locomotives.. ? Here’s what I read between hard and soft... soft is few hundred max, hard is 000k’s injections. https://www.tth.com/whats-difference-soft-hard-tooling/ To make 4000 kestrels would require 40 duplicate sets of toolings.. sounds uneconomic to me. It maybe they use a softer metal, but then if it’s good for 000’s of 47’s it would probably be good for 000’s of 86’s too ? Aluminium toolings are 20-30% cheaper than steel, but provide between 2k -10k parts, steel does up to 100k, so the savings in Aluminium don’t appear to be there for highly sellable models, if every batch needs a whole new tool, but much more so for one offs (like the diesel prototypes) it’s makes a lot of sense. I doubt there’s many locomotives selling over 10k models these days. I think they just didn’t sell well, so they didn’t make any more, and focussed their spending and production resources on something with a better ROI. Which could mean they could chose to bring it back, that they haven’t made a deal on rereleasing the 76/77 (which hasn’t sold out either) also backs my theory up.. electrics just aren’t as desirable,sellable, repeatable as more lucrative models like 17/26/35 etc etc

Is there anywhere to read up on Heljan moulds ? They’ve been turning out 17’s, 26’s, 35’s and 47’s for years and consistently sell, so the mould can’t be too soft. The Danish Mx/My has been around for 20 years too. The 14 and 28 also look good for a second round. I read the 47 mould wore out, but they must have managed to squeeze thousands out of it, given the variants available, many more than the 86. It may just be that o/h electrics are slow to sell, so they concentrate on something else.

I’ve got a Mainline stanier rivetted tender(from a Royal Scot) if your thinking to do a repaint. You will need to remove the buffer beam off either the Hornby tender chassis, or the Mainline body.

Ive found 404.. http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/54987/32-641Z-Bachmann-Class-491-4-TC-Unit-number-404-BR-Blue-and-Grey :-)

Sounds like a steam pipe burst, or a cylinder popped did you drop the fire to avoid damaging the fire box ? :-)

Yes.

Try as I might, it doesn’t seem to matter how many wheels I buy, I never have enough, let alone leftovers.

Without sugar is fine. If you said without milk i’d be concerned :-)

If Dave ever needs an Agony aunt he knows where to find 20 of them right here. Who’s Dave anyway ? I thought that was a TV channel. :-) It seems everyone knows this bloke Dave personally, i’ll best make him a cuppa and wait for him to come round my place as it’ll eventually be my turn for a natter with him. Reading the threads it’s all so pally informal one could be forgiven in thinking he can’t get models made for having a handshake walkabout royal family style. If he took all the advice on here I doubt any models would ever be made, poor bloke would end up walking like a chicken and end up being committed. ( off topic but I do wonder how did that blokes UK holiday go that was designed a by a committee of members on here over 6mth and 20 pages ???) Until then can we get back to DJModels and give it’s owner (I know he’s called Dave) the respect he’s due for running his business his own way, successfully. Anyway, as it’s ask Dave, what’s this rumour i’m hearing about some wagon or other ?

D1000/10/13/15/23/41/48/58/62 for me.. Hedges my bets quite well, so I can flip between 60’s they preservation in 90’s with ease. So to avoid confusion these were bought as, and renumbered too.. These were: D1000 steam ltd Ed. - sand D1002 Dapol became D1048 - green D1010 Dapol (the only GA one I’ve not renumbered). -blue D1015 CMC ltd Ed. -orange D1018 LTM edition x2 Blue (became D1023 and D1013) D1018 LTM edition maroon (became D1062) D1023 Dapol Maroon (became D1041) D1056 Dapol (became D1058) FYE Maroon I recently saw a silver one in Foster Yeoman livery on ebay, sadly missed it, as i’d Loved to have had that one ! A near run close thing that stood a real chance of happening

And a four pack will give you five coaches for the price of four :-)

I’m going to ask for a swap. I’m sure they will be fine changing it. Just a bit fed up to get excited on my last free Sunday for a few weeks was over before I put turned the power on. Sadly my DJ 71 just arrived from Merseyside and that’s got scratches all over it too. Not a good day for modelling.

Mines arrived... Arrived from Sheffield, the outer brown packaging is fine, so it left Yorkshire that way. Looks like a grumpy Sunday for me.

The std Mk1 bogie has a small round plastic plate underneath, push fit (but quite tight)onto 4 pins protruding from under the bogie. Between the plate and the bogie sits the copper pickups. These run to the wheels, and have a wire soldered that runs with the bogie pin into the coach. Only 1 end of the Mk1 has the light unit fitting, only needs 1 end as the light unit has a capacitor and a bridge rectifier, so it holds the lights on for a few seconds and works bidirectionallly. If the wheels are sticking it’s probably a pickup catching or snagging the wheel. The exact same light fitting unit, plates, wires etc is used in the mk2 and mk3, however the new mk1’s with commonwealth bogies do not feature this, so unless some new light unit is being used it looks unlikely Hornby are planning Mk1 with commonwealths and lights. The Railroad mk1’s don’t have the pickups, wiring or plates, but the bogie is the same. As I have gaps in new Hornby mk1’s with lights, to maintain continuity in lighting, I have been buying Hornby mk2e BSOs from hattons, £19, removing the light unit and fitting these to my mk1’s as the unit, plates etc are the same, I plan to move the mk2 bso’s on, it’s worth noting mk1’s with lights fetch £35+ on ebay, so even if you binned the mk2 bso after taking out the lights and wheels, your doubling the value of a Railroad Mk1, which can be had for £16 new.

Wow that’s an infestation. They seem to have bred since your August post, and I’m guessing more will come over winter...May I offer some advice.. https://www.rentokil.co.uk/rats/how-to-get-rid-of-rats/ :-) It’s a lovely collection, though I don’t think I ever saw so many in one place at the same time, not even at Christmas or at VicBerrys.

There’s quite a lot of differences, indeed apart from the fact they have similar nose ends, there isn’t much that is the same. I read often suggestions that, each time the real D9016 comes into ownership issues that a suggestion is to convert it into a DP2, when I think converting a class 50 into a DP2 maybe much cheaper and simpler. But really why, would be my thought..DP2 is just a different shape of class 50, other than shape that it adds no value historically, as it was a successful proof of concept. The others that weren’t are far more historically interesting as they represent something lost. Back to DP2, the Heljan DP2 is a fine model, however Bachmann offer both the prototype Deltic (via the NRM), and the production class 55’s at a similar price to DP2 so it’s easier (and much more abundant) to buy one of them and save yourself the work of conversion, unless you just feel like the challenge.

I have two of these, since release, no issues at all. (Though neither are carrying the number D1023). I’ve 9 Westerns, has 2 niggles.., I discovered a while back that the different chassis are not always interchangeable as the screw fittings are different, and 1 Western runs slowly on DC, no idea why. It works fine just slower than the rest in both directions.

Quite,My interpretation was, another year, another CEO. Feels like the first thing every CEO does at Hornby is find an excuse to blame for poor sales figures and missing targets in the current year, is to blame a policy of the predecessor, so he is covered at next years EOY accounts and buys him more time. I’d more forgiving if a new CEO arrived and said “Here is a turnaround plan in line with a new strategy and needs x amount of time to implement it”... but I have never seen that, which makes me think there’s a bit of a struggle with grappling the problem by each new CEO. Excuses since 2013: The Olympics, Sanda kan, the ERP system, European and Direct sales and now 2017 the holding back of discounts. Similarly we’ve had Martin, Ames, Cooke, Johnson.. thats a lot of CEO turnover in a short period. My opinion, Hornby is too big to support its business. It can increase prices but it’s got to face up to its costs, as growth just isn’t there at the levels needed. It’s of note that Oxford Rails prices are substantially lower than Hornby’s.. Oxfords Radial is £105 vs Hornby’s £140..yet Oxford seems to be doing ok at a lower price point across the entire range, my assumption is Oxford can do Hornby’s job at much lower costs.

A W or a Z would probably be more up Kernows street to produce. And I think they would do well with it. A P2 was only successful because of the euphoria over the launch of 2007 being constructed, and is probably a good long term bet. Interestingly the service sheet shows a streamlined front end moulding to the weight.. so a future variant there has obviously been considered. If they had announced a P2 instead of a rebuilt MN back in 2000.. there would have been much head scratching by modellers, marketing and accountants.

One thing no one has mentioned yet.., There is nothing stopping Hornby making a working pan in 2018... Never say never. If the plastic pan causes the model to fail to sell, then they know the solution. Thing is..l I bet it will sell so they won’t have to, and can kick that can down the road for another day. Design clever may have a future, in times of crisis, make something you can sell, at a cost that works at a price the market can afford, you can always upgrade in the future. Who knows one day 71000 may have fully working valve gear, and the thousands they sold before will end up binned..Hornby gets two bites at the cherry. This could be partially why some many times “release 2”..of a model fails to sell... there is no upgrade so everyone keeps version 1. If it’s perfect first time, you don’t get a second time... business is business, the hobby is their business, but we forget as their business is a hobby to us.

Dapol seems to be very successful with that approach with the Western. They are all unnumbered, shipped with self attach nameplates, looking on ebay there aren’t many nameplate glue disasters out there either.

Nail on the head... if they are the left over bits on the spruce, they cost nothing.Therefore it doesn’t matter if the user never adds them, but it’s a value add to those who do. So if it costs nowt to add them, why take them away ?

Or sell them separately ?