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In price sensitive times suburban passengers tanks must be a good choice, as there aren’t many of them and there are many prototypes to pick from. A 41/51/61xx must be good (I did see a suggestion someone might be thinking of one elsewhere but think it’s more likely a red herring), but equally LMS Stanier and Fowler 2-6-2t’s, Tilbury tank, variations of the Fowler 2-6-4t and an 84xxx are all deserving and as yet never been modelled... the N7 is decades overdue but at last recognised and is coming, even if the most desirable livery has so far been held back.

What were the D600’s used along side for, and at what point did their role start to fade ? (I’m thinking 1963-67, after most Hymeks, Warships and Westerns were delivered). We’re they rostered alongside Warships or Hymeks, I can’t imagine putting them on a Western duty resulted in much fun ?, even a Warship duty looks a little challenged ? Or were they used on steam replacement diagrams ? As a class of 5 I can’t imagine they were replaced by anything, i’d Assume they were redundant from an early stage ?

There’s a couple of things that so far have put me off these.. 1. Lights.. they really made Hornby’s mk1’s more interesting, no lights not as interesting. 2. Bachmann mk1’s are more detailed, and more established, I have at least 60. 3. Livery matching blue/grey was fairly standard, maroon was pretty good too..l but a mix of blue shades between Hornby and Bachmann puts me off 4. Shape, Hornby’s is a different shape to Bachmanns, not only would liveries not match but height/width profiles are different, whilst some say livery differences were common, the shape of a Mk1 was not. 5. The only way it worked for me was to buy a whole rake, but there’s no buffet... which means skipping in an odd shaped noncolour matching Bachmann or Replica one.. no lights either. Against that lot, when the Hornby one was cheaper, then I started actively selling a green Bachmann rake, and one maroon rake, and bought a Hornby rake to suit.. as overall these coaches are nice. However without lights, a buffet and a higher price than Bachmanns, rake doesn’t make sense, and a BSO / FO on their own isn’t a proposition, so instead of me buying 14 coaches (b/g and maroon rakes), instead I’ve still not decided whether to stick or twist on all of them.

agreed.. I think theres several models out there now, of all manufacturers and GA and special editions, that were influenced by heart based decisions rather than the head with a perception that the public will pay whatever price is asked of them. Not sure what will happen to them in the longer term, but I'd imagine there putting holes in pockets and constraints on plans, should the downturn come it may not be pleasant as when consumers are impacted that only lowers their spending power and discounting to clear has to be much more brutal, voluntary or by administration. In short, every model has it's value, the savvy business gets the mix right at the start, the others find out to their cost later. Of course the lower risk way is to get customers to pay in advance, though even that has risks.. for example the Cl 74 was priced 2 years ago, I don't know if the maths still stack up today. Returning to the higher level view, Remember Hornby's Customer is the retailer...given Model Railway sales (£22mn) is 2/3rds via two channels (38%, via independent retailers, and 29% in Europe), this is quite vulnerable to Brexit and Economic winds, 19% would be assumed to be very profitable business, as this represents the direct sales channel to consumer from Hornby direct. By comparison Scalectrix (£12mn) however is much more stable with 39% via more reliable National retail chains, and an even split (of approx 10%) across each of Europe, UK Independents, US etc. Just to repeat... If independent retailers cut back or defer (reduce their apetite for stocking models on shelves) lets say 30%* of orders due to the new 2year warranty policy, high prices, economic uncertainty etc (and as they are more likely to be financially sensitive businesses anyway) this poses a big risk to the business, We may find in 2018 the inventory figure increases once again... * 30% may sound harsh, but if they only order 3 of each model, reducing it to 2... is 30%... if they only ordered 2 and cut to 1.. thats 50%.

Sure, 50007, with GW150 unweathered with black backed nameplates, and 50010 in Large Logo Blue, with blue roof, are in the background of these images... neither of them are the Lima ones, and Hornby hasn’t done either, Kernows is known for seeding it’s background images ahead of the surprise... they had 47701 and 47076 plus a GW150 class 47 hiding in the background of the 4TC a few weeks ago,47701 was since announced. https://www.facebook.com/KernowModelRailCentre/photos/pcb.1775752442466295/1775752212466318/?type=3&theater

It looks like they will do 250 but only as an add-on to an existing run..thus far. We’ve had 250 extra 33001 Q1’s on the back of the latest Q1’s Now 250 45000 Black fives’s off the back of 45116 which is the TTS release. (I wouldn’t confuse it to 45274 as this is both different body, tender and not TTS). There’s two suspiciously limited edition looking class 50’s (007 In 1985 condition (unlike previous 90’s versions, and 010) appeared on another retailers Facebook page, sure time will reveal. But if 250 is the magic number as an extension to a production run, I think this is to be applauded and supported, 2018 is a big year for an anniversary, and i’m Sure a few shops would be happy to do 250 of various different end of steam black fives, 8fs,4mt and 9f’s.. and Hornbys got the tooling for all of them. I doubt there will be as big an opportunity / market to do this in 2028. But in general I think there is a lot of oppourtunity for an extra 250 for retailer specifics on the back of a general release run, so hope it’s not limited to just NRM models.

Hmm.. That just drive a coach and horses through my plan or a plain black end of steam black five... http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/126781-r-3453-stanier-back-5/?p=2876631

Agreed, It’s interesting to compare Hornby to its piers (large and small), there is a definite prevalence in recent times that new toolings are “feast and famine” production. in the last two years we’ve seen several liveries released at once of models like : USAs (Bachmann/mr) cobo/14/14xx (hattons), J94’s (DJ), Class 05’s (Heljan) followed by famine... no follow up for a period, whilst they are soaked up. In Heljans case this is almost a modus operandi, with successful models like the 17, 35 subject also to repeat “several variant” batches, followed by a pause, but it should be noted there are several instances where the result was a swamp.. 47’s were in bargain bins in the past, as were 23’s, dpu’s and more recently green 26’s. So feast or famine isn’t necessarily a panacea to “a few for forever” production runs either. I fall back to my original point, it’s not “how many you make how often”, but “what you make for what price”, if you’ve misread the customers apetite it doesn’t matter, what you make or when. We’ve been here before, Lima made everything every month, but as soon as prices rose, they reduced production and spent heavily on new tools instead in an arms race against the others..the 156, 59, 60,66,92 all didn’t leap off the shelves when prices were high, the 67 was the straw to break the camels back, but it was the cl 92 years early that started the downfall..the demand just wasn’t there at the price point it was placed, duplication by Hornby didn’t help either.., £50 for a 92 sounds like a bargain today, but a Jubilee was £45, and a 3 car cl 110 was £40 at the time. Interesting you couldn’t give away 26’s for £12 then ..no one wanted them then either. No matter what the price. Certainly more feast and famine is production efficient, but not necessarily cheaper when it’s a contract job. But unless the tooling is scrapped after use, you have to assume it needs maintaining, storage fees, insuring, archiving etc.. the cost of which increases with every tool, Hornby’s range of toolings must take a considerable amount of space, way more than anyone else...which eats $$$ and earns nothing and several times in the past has been rumoured to have seen some lost or damaged, but it would be easy to understand. Whilst purely speculating, imagine what the cost and value would be if a Hornby was still hanging on to tools for a Triang, Airfix, Lima and new Hornby Class 31 set of tools for decades ?, but that some real oldies have come back in the past anything is possible.

I agree with many of your points. The lack of rarity value certainly doesn’t help, In an industry that’s promoted to collectors. The market is such now, than any operation with access to £150k can go to a website and ask a factory in China to make them a tooling, considering an average home is £225k this makes the pool of potential risk takers slightly larger than 20 years ago and as people are more willing to crowd fund, that risk further declines. Should the £ increase in strength, then this gene pool will only grow. Maybe in an uncertain economy, they should size their business in a way that they are profitable without making locomotives at all, then produce in limited quantities a few releases a year ? The problem with this (apart from the mass loss of jobs), is Hornby has a fortune invested in locomotive toolings.. without writing them off the only way to make a return from them is to keep using them... catch 22, especially when some are over priced relative to the markets interest to pay and one which is often becoming saturated..but one solution is to sell the toolings themselves.

The only analogy I could think that could link Hornby with Monarch is relevance. Both have been around for decades. Both were associated to their respective markets. In both cases the market changed. In both cases they haven’t successfully adapted to that change. Both became less relevant to their market, both have increased costs and influences Hornby is still here for now, but it will need to find its relevance or reshape itself considerably Inorder to thrive. Feel sorry for monarch, unfortunately their pilots can’t just turn to use Ryanair either, one uses Airbus, the other Boeing..

Manufacturers can recalibrate their prices, but consumers recalibrate their spending too, which is a more difficult balance.It might be better to recalibrate their product ranges and focus on offering products that can be afforded by the consumer, as adapting to change is the only way they will survive, ritually putting up the price is like putting your head in the sand and ignoring the problem. I’m not saying cut back or sell cheap, i’m Saying if your consumer can only afford £100, then make something you can sell for £100. There’s no point making something for £150, and finding it’s getting more expensive, selling less so increase it to £175... if you need justification look at the ebay madness thread it’s full of such examples. Similarly if things aren’t selling at such lofty levels, the bargains thread also proves the point... 2 years on a B1/K1/B17 still is available discounted for £80, yet Hornby still make more at £140.. sorry it’s gone up to £160now. http://www.hattons.co.uk/35823/Hornby_R3003_Class_B17_4_6_0_61669_Barnsley_in_BR_Green_with_late_crest/StockDetail.aspx https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/br-4-6-0-leicester-city-61665-b17-class-early-br.html But if you want an example of something that sells for £100.. think j94, peckett, 14xx, P, Barclay... no complaints, no discounts and sales look good. Right now there’s a craving for industrials... leave the 4-6-x’s for a better economic climate. There is a market and spenders want to spend, but not more than they have in their pocket, unfortunately whilst costs are up, the consumer wallet hasn’t, so the product size needs to come down... think Toblerone... same quality, same price, same package, just less of it. http://fortune.com/2016/11/08/mondelez-cuts-the-size-of-toblerone-u-k-panics/ I’ve got a full house of B1/K1/B17’s as suspect after 2 years discounting most other people do, if they can’t get rid at £80, why bother making more, and increasing the price, let alone decide to duplicate the B17 tooling by introducing a railroad competitor to itself..isn’t that just injecting more shareholders money into the same moulding machine that injected the last Cash injection ?

In stock at Kernow’s,,. http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/55160/3523-Heljan-Class-35-Hymek-Diesel-Locomotive-number-D7054 Olivia’s, if your feeling flush,.. http://www.oliviastrains.com/trains/mt/Heljan/Heljan-class-35-hymeks/Heljan-3518-class-35-d7062-in-br-green-livery-with-small-yellow-panels-white-window-surrounds/

A Liliput BR01.10 with working middle cylinder Next how about some inside smokebox door action...

Barrier and Juncker don’t care, they don’t need to. Just like our trains come from China, they can quite easily arrive at the Hornby Rivarossi, Joeuf or Electrotren locations (oh didn’t they close the Madrid office ?). Whilst Boris can talk about German cars and effect on sales... Merc’s and BMWs are made in South Africa and imported to the UK directly.. so Brexit doesn’t affect the EU here either. I suppose French wine might be an issue, but whilst we can source from elsewhere, Ozzie’s are already prepping up, I’m sure there’s enough drunks in the EU govt alone to soak it up. Brexit doesn’t affect much other than EU prestige being hurt and the inevitable kick backs of anti-Britishness many have felt for years anyway. If that mean Brits widen their horizons beyond the costas that’s not a bad thing, we still have a few sunny islands in remote shores (i’d love to go to St Helena and Ascension) and if some money was thrown at them instead of Spain that could benefit us all.

And longer than a class 47 too. The more I read of these the more intruging they are.. 2X 1000hp Engines delivering less power than a pair of Class 20’s, but designed to rival a Class 40, yet being less powerful than the 40, and the Warships too. They just seem massively inefficient. The Hymeks looks a much better proposition by comparison.

Very nice. Will the buffer beams be lined out too, note the buffers themselves are different shades of red/maroon to the buffer-beam. In addition to the redlining on the outer edges of the tanks/cab etc, their is redlining on the wheel rims. Trivial but The whistle looks different to the prototype also. But.. very nice, very nice. Anyone notice 323 has a single row of rivets at the rear of the smokebox, where as 178 has front and rear.. exactly as prototype. :-)

I've sent you an olive branch via pm.

It would be kind of ironic for Bachmann to do an Avonside, Peckett and Avonside we’re rivals for years, so it goes without saying it’s a good match for Hornby.

Yep ! :-)

Noticed that ! Hope it comes with 4 buffers though :-) D600 looks good, didn’t realise it was that long in length though

As someone having had to recently handle a late estate sale, it is often the case the seller does not know the value, or even know how to operate the layout, nor even where an engines name is in these circumstances.Going down the high street and asking your model shop to take a look also no longer works as there’s no high street or shop or dozens of miles. Ebay becomes the only choice. (I recently even asked on the wanted site on this forum for help moving stuff that drew a blank.. if no one on a model railway forum can help.. what chance has a guy who knows nothing about it got ?)

Am I looking at a model railway in the kitchen ? (Looks like the kitchen sink in the top corner), Good man ! - anyone got one in the bathroom ?

Everyone who collects has their own reasons. Some collect Bulleids, some collect Hornby, some collect Southern, each to their own. At the end of the day it’s not relevant. Shareholders money is sunk into a company, who’s value is diminishing. Thing is, nothing is finite. Hornbys own range is a mish mash of various manufacturers acquired over the years. This in part may be part of its problem. Every tree eventually tops itself in a storm, it’s life. Yes Hornby has shareholders, but right now it’s largest shareholder is the one that has taken action, it’s not Hornby, it’s direct shareholder intervention into the companies management. In other words in this particular storm it’s not the tree shedding branches, but the guy who owns the tree is the one about to do the shaking. They don’t do that just to scare modellers, collectors, RmWebber’s, preserve Hornbys history or just make the range look nice, there is a plan.. it’ll be related to return of investment for shareholders, by however and whatever means that needs to take.... and unless it’s our money invested then there’s nothing we can do... we’d be a minority anyway, so ordinary shareholders have a choice, join the ride or sell, but the offer to buy just expired. As an aside back in the mid90’s I spent time on one particular model railway company’s factory floor, It was making feeding bowls for pets at the time, that were supplied wholesale to supermarkets... that company made money using its model railway tools for non model railway purposes... business is business... If Hornby decided to drop railways altogether and make bird trays.. then if it makes money good luck to them, as a return for shareholders is what the business is about... FYI I doubt collectors of that company bought feeding bowls to make their ranges complete either !!!

I was going to respond to an earlier post but It’s pretty much been definitely answered. I think there is a few clear facts here... Hornby isn’t a railway modellers charity, it’s a business, it serves multiple markets, and modellers here tend to forget about the High st and overseas brands. 1. Hornby is the only high street name most people in the UK could give for a train, and with that implies track, scenery etc etc. 2. Detailed modellers don’t care who’s name is on the box, as long as the model is the most accurate it can possibly be... if Oxfords box was used for a Hornby West Country, I doubt collectors would care... certainly when Mainline Class 56’s came in Dapol boxes no one batted an eye lid, neither did they later when they came in Hornby's, and who knows if they would care if that original tooling ends up in Railroad. 3. Hornby, like it or not, is shrinking, losing money and sucking up additional shareholder funds now for multiple years, regardless which division is making money.. the company is heading downwards. 4. Shareholders don’t care who’s name is on the box, or what product goes in the box, who made the product, or where and how it’s sold.. so long as it costs less to make, than it does to sell, and that what is made is sold, and brings a return on the shareholders investment. (Ethical, legal, moral duties obviously). It’s fair to say the last 5 years our Hornby super detailed models have been subsidised by the shareholders, there hasn’t been stacks of new investment in other ranges, so this must be where the cash went to. Hornby can dance around Sanda Kan, then Bachmans line, the new ERP system, the website, Spain’s operations, Margate’s shutdown.. every year there’s a new excuse, the Olympics was 5 years ago. But we modellers, and retailers have become attuned to a plethora of new expensive toolings being made each year, but 18mths later finding them in the bargain bin...each pound reduced comes from shareholder cash injections. If I were a Hornby shareholder, i’d Be concerned at all Hornby IP, business plans, R&D being exposed to a competitor, but it appears it is Hornby majority shareholder that’s done this... which means they either have an interest in both companies, or see benefits in bringing these two companies together. That doesn’t necessarily mean one eats the other. It could mean a short relationship where they trade skills, resources, management and yes assets.. then at a point down the road, divide their interests once again. It might be that Hornby may buy into Oxfords production line, and gain longer term production stability, but it hasn’t got stacks of cash to do so, without more borrowing, which right now is probably not what Hornby needs.. but it could do some bartering... and if it’s refocussing it’s business they certainly do have a lot of capex tools that are of value to trade, and off load some debt to a more profitable partner at the same time. That could give Hornby some much needed stability, a new focus and possibly a reduced range of products, brands and hopefully.. debts. As I said before.. if there’s nothing in it for Oxford and it’s management... why would they step in to help a competitor ? Same thing for the majority shareholder.. why would they risk their investment further ? If Hornby simply buys Oxford, i’d be concerned... didn’t some guys mortgage a castle to buy Rover and manage its debts at one point ? I think (hope) it will be a negotiated trade between these businesses, but at the same time I think there will be a refocus at the company and some other brands may be offloaded or run down aside of these two companies. Whatever the plan is, i’m Sure we’ll find out, it will be a solution that benefits the shareholders.. at the end of the day it’s their money.

I’m surprised no ones commented about the interior detail... It looks, unlike most coaches, like a real interior...all that’s missing is a bunch of passengers crawling over luggage, and scruffy tables of food bags