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One aspect of retail I think manufacturers over look, is fashion and resale. Our hobby isn’t subject to fashion.. a Black 5 is a black 5, it was 5 years ago and still will be in 5 years. Unlike £6 fidget spinners that will be binned next week, a £70 2014 black five will not end up in the bin, but on ebay, and it will fetch...£80, so when Hornby made the £130 black five in 2016, although not discounted by Hornby, it was discounted by the trade to approx £100. Roll on 2017 with the £160 black five.. it’s competition is £60 less and identical. Most likely what will happen is us modellers will increase our insurance premiums as our Black 5’s climb up to £120 on ebay, whilst Hornby’s sit in the warehouse. The only way out I see is for Hornby to cut off all spare parts, so when ours break..their broken, eventually attrition may force us to buy new.

No but Phils post helps me a lot, I just found a dozen Replica coaches (my intercity white roof FO set), and NSE stock etc from a recent house move.. but somewhere in the last 20 years the couplings were removed (hacked off), in a close coupling attempt had a fitting melted on ! so at £1.95 for a kit Replica bogie that’s just the solution I need to bring the set back up to scratch, you could have these old commonwealth bogies if you wish ?

The maroon ones are BR1 bogies. (R4788/9)

If a company is knowing to miss earnings it is required to notify the stock market. Stock market initially dropped 1.5p, to 32p, but finished the day up .5p at 34p, so the market has confidence. Trading volume is minimal since July, some days nil.

I read elsewhere, there’s thoughts to repainting a 142 into a “1980’s heritage livery”.

I actually came to a conclusion and solved my own problem... I’ve bought another rake of Mk1’s in Maroon with lights as made by Hornby 2 years ago, £30 a piece. I’ll strip the lights and bogies from two of them and put one in the FO and one in the BSO.. makes me a rake with lights, £10 less than the new ones without lights and I only need to buy 2 new coaches. Blue/grey can wait another day, I found my Replica Railways FO’s the other day, and these really aren’t that bad, indeed their good.

So if there’s stock in the warehouse, no one has bought... And they aren’t going to discount it... What do they plan to do with it ? If no one bought it in the first place, something was wrong with it, the statement suggests they don’t believe it’s the price that’s wrong after all they just put them up. I guess k1’s, B17’s are going to be in the catalog for sometime. But if that tied up cash was to put the stops further production, MNs, Duchesses, Pecketts and 87’s could end up being rare?

So the market prepares for another year of losses. It seems obvious that Hornby has over produced some models for many years, seemingly setting sales targets on selling X, missing target and Dumping at year end to get cash back. (This is however a more natural retail sales model, so without understanding this niche market it’s easy to see the trap). But... this is Hornby... Dealers now only have 2 years to sell before the warranty expires. If there is a large inventory of stock at the Hornby warehouse, without a sell by date, but a sell by date in the shop, once sold from the warehouse.. unless there is a registration system, any shop with repeat orders, this may be difficult to enforce.. is a shop working on LIFO or FIFO and proving it. I suspect quiet times ahead in R&D, more retail sales at RRP, shifting the discounting onto retailers shoulders once the product is out of date. A much smaller Hornby could ensue, and a return to the days were a loco is in the catalog for years. But with less staff, less R&D, less production, and a higher price achieved on inventory... that could be profitable. But what about that mass of expensive metal moulds, all slowly resting in the humidity of China ? I think this years Warley could be interesting, models this year have come thick and fast, from all vendors, and pipelines of 5 year plus waits are going down.. the 87 / Duchess last year were 3D prints, and in 12 months to the day there’s an outside chance they could be on the shelves. No new OO announcement from Heljan in a year+, Oxfords pipeline is nearly fulfilled, Dapol, Kernows’ has reduced somewhat too, Hornby’s going from Scan to shelf in a year whilst Bachmann has slowed considerably I suspect we won’t have many new toolings announced this year at Warley either by all vendors. This means one thing.. spare factory capacity in China... How and Will those factories try to fill the gap, especially if the Hornby orders were to move to the Oxford factory ?

When was the last time anyone saw a magazine ?, I think for me it was around April ?

In another thread about a coach which costs not much less than this 87, I was shouted down for suggesting that coach should push the envelope when it comes to carriage detail, and the concensus was that apart from being triple price of any previous, everyone wants a coach that is the same as any other regardless how much it lightens their wallet yet how std cost it is to make. Why therefore is anyone expecting an electric loco priced competitively to its peers to be head and shoulders above any other locomotive in quality and detail and complains when it’s industry standard at std industry price ? If the class 87 was to innovate i’d Be looking at weight, clever use of traction tyres and a quality similar to Pikos’s new offerings, which are of a similar price and nature. A spring loaded pan drawing current is as niche as some of the niche gauge configurations people use off the back of OO... Hornby must focus on the 80% to sell and make money not the 20% that demand most but represent little revenue.

So much negativity about a non functional part of a model. Hornby has the most UK experience on pantographs.., Steeplecab, EM2, 81, 86, APT, 90, 91, 87, Eurostar, Javelin, 71.. Apart from the moulded plastic panto of the train sets in the 1980’s each has been good for its era of introduction. Let’s give them a break, Bachman has only had an 85, Heljan the 86 and DJ class 71, Ok lima’s 87, Trix 76.. The panto is the least likely to be used, rarely ever to be lifted and almost certainly the easiest part to break. So my criteria is it should look good and stay down... the 71 certainly meets that criteria and that was the immediate predecessor. HO scale panto’s to me are much the same and being metal doesn’t make any difference, apart from being too shiny.

Sounds like a lot of effort photographing and cataloging for not a lot of return. Why not just post the parts list, or a parts diagram and let people contact you with the parts numbers. Alternately, do like Howes do, with Heljan spares, just sell a full sprues, rather than each bit individually. You could always sub it to Peters spares, some of us must have a standing order with them :-)

There’s a bunch of SR cast iron signs at Bridges and overpasses along the West Croydon to Sutton line, I’ve seen about 5 so far, varyingly hidden by undergrowth. For example, there is a very nice sign visble along the road by the siding at West Croydon (in google maps it’s clearly visible), look up 27 Ruskin road, Croydon, then in street view head back towards Croydon and you can clearly see it after the red car.

It’s honestly not worth sharing.

Maybe one to do in conjunction with the LTMuseum shop.

What’s considered to be normal ?

So your admitting to stealing or handling ? Sorry couldn’t resist in view of the above. :-) Just done the same myself, £150 for a Black 5 and three super detailed coaches, when the new released black 5 (same tooling) is now £140 on its own after discount !!!

So what evidence do we have that a large prairie is being made ? I’ve only seen two very circumstantial pieces... A picture of one in the background of a well known retailer known for dropping future unannounced models in the backgrounds whilst showing something new, but that in itself could mean nothing at all. (And said loco has not been seen since). A visit to Didcot by a scanning team, who may or may not have scanned one. Unless there are any other clues I’ve not seen, then this seems to be a thread about nothing.

C class is preserved, is a Bluebell Loco, is running in that current livery, is a pregrouping livery and is pretty... it checks all the boxes.The two Bluebell P’s are the same (and are Hattons 1&2 in their list). Hornby missing 263 really would be missing a trick, but if done as a limited edition for the club it would certainly be penance for their current (arguably must be loyal die hard remaining) club members. If the real Birch Grove was in that current brown the model may have done better, as it is the collectors club edition of it in 1960’s brown has moderate interest. I suspect 473 in Green as preserved has done well. Preserved locos will always do well but in the hierarchy, Bluebell, KWVR and NRM prototypes probably have the bigger following, ELR for diesels. The other lbsc brown one is just a non-preserved loco without any stock to run with,an LBSC 4-4-2 may do the same, though you may get away with disguising it on Pullman’s, but I think 32424 in Black will outstrip the rest, even if the real one hasn’t run yet.

Buy a load of seed trays and set up a stall at Warley, everyone here will be there.

Ebay is fine. If your a Railway modeller in london, with limited time at weekends, it’s pretty much your only choice. Anything turns up not working, press the “return item” button and get the seller to give you a return stamp in full comfort that your refund is guarenteed.

Fear not... Here’s one of the previous non-gloss versions. https://www.thejunctionbox.net/shop/steam-engines/Hornby-r2323/

Disguise as something other than a Western till you get it to safety.

I don’t know for mainline, but Bachmann produced a good number of chassis in blister packs for Jubilees, 4MTs and I think possibly 03’s, J72s and Pannier tanks. They were straight swap replacements for Mainline equivalents and were sold as such.

How about a realistic comparison... https://www.bdo.co.uk/getmedia/e280403a-cd23-4e6f-b518-51143b3506d7/AIM_Directors__Remuneration_Report_Final.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf&disposition=attachment Average AIM listed CEO salary for retail is £375k Remember any person seeking a job (any position in any job) will always seek higher than average. Similarly any company hiring will want the best, and if that person will settle for less,it’s a warning sign.