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An Armchair Question: what is the likely cost (all told) of a commissioned limited run of a simple livery like that applied to 'George Jennings' (simple green with red underframe and red banding, no lining)?

depends on the quantity, and when.. if its made alongside another run, then it's just an extension. If it's a one off with no other variants the price may be slightly less interesting dependant on quantity.

But I wouldn't expect it to be significantly different to the production models, unless the tooling was to be altered... Many previous limited editions have been released at the same time at a price not too different to the standard models.

I'm surprised that no punters have stuck them on eBay yet at like one million pounds! Unusual, maybe all the models went to actual collectors this time.

Maybe before, the reasons why collectors club models were selling at high prices on ebay, was they were underpriced in the collectors club.

Just came across this picture.  Don't know if it's already been posted:

 

British Railways 25245 by Ingy The Wingy, on Flickr

Boltons changed so little, but so much

You could use almost anything really and no-one would be able to say 'They didn't run like that back then'. Test trains tended to be put together on an 'as required' basis and I doubt the CM&EE did it any differently to the R&D Div. We often ran trains out to the WCML with maybe 10-12 vehicles of all sorts mixed together, from many Divisions, and then we'd split them up at Crewe and go our separate ways.

 

One of the common test consists with the 252 prototype cars was one to test the APT-P Power Cars, with appropriate lab Coaches as below.

 

Nothing too exciting from me, as Hornby has become the first to recognise the mighty Manchester Ship Canal (With the MSC Peckett and Sentinel Diesel) maybe some of the more well known Hudswell Clark Short / Long tanks (like 31 Hamburg, 32 Gothenburg, 67 and 70 - long tanks and Lady Armaghadale) with some suitable wagons...

oh and just a nice class 02 shunter

A couple more arrived this morning, Sourthern region...

My orders gone in.

could this be a better chassis for putting under an Andrew Barclay 0-4-0 ?  (in the past it was the l&y pug chassis).

You can pay £4.50+ for a pint in central London

sadly I've see this to be the average side.. I paid (or rather my company paid) £8 at London City Airport.

Felt like keeping the glass at that price.. but the security scanner says no.

Can't say I've ever drunk a pint in a supermarket ...................................................... maybe in an EX-supermarket called Wetherspoons p'raps ?

Canary Wharf Waitrose has a bar and a couple of restaurants in store.

Rock up, grab a pint (they prefer you to have wine) and a bite to eat, leave your trolley with you.

Arrived today.. OO gauge

I've previously used Viessman German semaphores on a different part of my layout and found them easy enough to set up.

Let's see how these compare.

Hi mate,

i'll give it some thought as my initial thinking to your question was no, but in retrospect, if might galvanize thought processes a bit. Although bearing in mind it was crowdfunding, it will not be a good indicator of the market place for such a model.

 

For example, the 74 crowd funded model is quite slow by comparison, but that could be due to a number of factors including lack of liveries and life span of the real thing, to people waiting to see what the 71 comes out like first.

 

Cheers

Dave

I definitely want a class 74, but my holding pattern is budgeting, but rest assured when that deadline date comes a class 74 order will go in :-)

When I first became a project manager decades ago the lecturer said to me a good Project Manager is one that has a start date for their next project, as it ensures their current project will have a defined end date.

When neither the GNR No1 or 1st Gen hst have end dates for subscription I haven't rushed to subscribe, but as soon as you announced the end date for the 71.. my order went in..

I suspect the class 74 is the same... 

When the deadline looms, budgets get moved.

ordered mine today.

Would be interested to know the final totals of each of the versions when the order goes in, is that something you would share ?

 Lighting to me is nothing but a gimmick.

Yes but kids love it... and some older ones too.

I just saw a roco video the other day, besides lights on the trains, platforms in peoples homes, they had a farmyard with ... yes HO scale bunch of chickens moving around the farmyard pecking at the water.. and a bus driving down a road...

Essential no.. but I nearly fell off my chair watching the video, especially when seeing a HO water pump flowing water and bloke chopping logs as a tractor came from the shed... and it was viewed from an in-cab HO scale camera giving a drivers eye view.

Someone working at Roco clearly has had a lot of fun, a huge amount of imagination and a good budget to spend time building a layout to that level of representation.

https://youtu.be/AyHuy8gfqzs?list=PLNvPmEw53CGHoH-rNwFY_UsdtI0K9cR1U

lights is childs play compared to this...

so now how about opening doors, yellow door unlocked lights and moving passengers inside the MK3's... just to raise the bar, though working toilet flushes may be a step too far ?

Frankly if this happens Brexit will be the least of Hornby's (or anyone else's) worries.

I doubt the Chinese would sink a ship load of Chinese made Hornby trains on the high seas.

But if they were yet more railroad flying scotsmans I could understand.

Agreed to above, but as I don't have the actuals I can only guess..

Looking over the numbers, it doesn't look like manufacturing, the product or product cost is the issue.

Where I'm going is operational efficiency is one problem. Marketing seems to be another.

I don't begrudge a higher paid exec, if he's adding value, but What I can't get my head round the marketing departments £12m figure and rationalising that to decisions on advertising spend, product promotion and feeding back to the company results of market research...especially when so many modellers, retailers and even industry publishers have voiced their frustrations here..it's obviously a problem...

Sales and Marketing are the deliverers of a companies lifeblood...Money. Bringing in sales is the measure of success..the results they are paid for.

Results are the equation of Skills + Activity.

It is clear the figures haven't delivered. The next step is to look at Activity..and given the negative feedback across the industry this too seems to be a problem, there's only 1 angle left in this triangle.. That's skill...are the sales and marketing people truly inline with the hobby or generic sales /marketing professionals or is it just outsourced consulting ?

It's worth pointing out, that until a few years ago, the person occupying this role was a industry respected individual with decades of experience and in every sense a passionate enthusiast. It feels to me there's a huge gap been left since his departure and trying to fill that gap with cash isn't necessarily the answer.

Operationally in my industry, a headcount to revenue ratio is approx 15x average salary.

Transpose that ratio to Hornby, 230 staff costing the company £11mn should support a company with revenues of £165mn.. Not £55m.

That is why I conclude Hornby is in some measure a company sized to operate based on past glories.

It's got some hard decisions to make across the board, as long as it has support of its shareholders they can pull through, but it's time to recognise Charles darwin's theory that the ability to survive isn't by being the largest or the strongest, but the one with the best ability to adapt to change...

That starting point has to be their customer and understanding their needs. It could also take a look at how their competitors are doing things and finally understand how the market has changed around them and look how they can best adapt to serve it...

It's not hard... By understanding a customer demand, recognising what competitors are doing and looking at what's popular we the customers have successfully been offered a 4TC to join our class 33/1 and class 71s... We're also on the verge of a 009 revolution by several manufacturers... Whilst we gripe about price, ultimately if just enough will buy to make it financially viable then that's sales and marketing at its best. That brings results and ultimately sustains a larger business.

230 staff, cost £ 11mn... That's an average £47k in salary, tax etc.

That 230 staff produce average £240k per head to the revenue figure of £ 55mn.

In my mind this figure is drastically too low.. Employees are not adding enough value to the sales total.

(At let's say a trade price of £60 a loco.. That's 4000 loco's per person ).

The £55mn revenue against production costs of £ 33mn, it's low (40%) but profitable until you look at the operating costs..

The one that stands out is sales & marketing costs of £12m... Must be getting expensive paying for magazine adverts ???.. £1mn a month - and they don't give out free samples any more ???

Distribution costs have gone up £3mn in a year too... (And I thought oil prices had gone down).

It seems that the problem isn't in manufacturing or in margin, but more related to the costs of administering the products once the goods are here.

£13mn in stock... @£60 a loco that's 216000 loco's in stock...(so taking into account the 000's of items in the range that must be in the millions of pieces of stock items across everything)... That's a lot of stock...

When other suppliers are manufacturing to order, have personnel in low numbers, and maximise their marketing at minimum costs, It feels to me Hornby are still trading in an ethos that goes back to the 80's rather than modern reality.

All of that is before we start to question the wisdom of what models they are actually making and in what quantity.

I have tried to order (twice now) using the link above and also got no email. Not worried about the email itself, just that my order has been acknowledged by the system!

Me too... I have ordered twice, but not received any confirmation.

Don't want to do it a 3rd time, as i'd be unfairly skewing the sales figures, as I only want 1... but at risk of unknown ?

You need to track down the source of the traction current.

 

Not wishing to teach you to suck eggs, but you need to start at the mains plug and work up the wiring and supply equipment until you reach the track. Somewhere in there will be a piece of equipment that is supplying the power.

 

Good luck mate.

 

Dave.

Its the track cleaner.

I took it out of the circuit.. it stops.

Doesn't affect any other loco, I can only assume that this loco somewhere has something taking the feed to operate it. It used to be DCC sound, but was bought as DC (DCC sound & chip removed).. somewhere in the wiring on the loco its getting power to the motor. Not sure I want to rewire it and risk losing the operating lights (they are controlled from on /off switches under the fuel tanks)..its wiring seems more complex than your average loco.

For now I'll just operate it offline of the track cleaner.

so at risk of actually talking about them, rather than price..

Just like Brexit and Dragon's Den.. i'm in...

I'm just trying to decide which one to order..

(My main interest is in the steam era.. so upto 68 - [67 in the case of the southern])

Does anyone know when the first units became Blue and Grey ? Ive seen a picture of an all blue one at Clapham Junction with a Std 4 4MT 2-6-4T next to it.. so I'm ok with this variant, but did Blue Grey appear before the end of steam ?.. did steam ever pull them (in either livery).. even as ecs .. that picture of 80140 next to it suggests it may have happened ..?

What puzzles me is why these even existed...why not just make as a.n.other 4 car EMU.. and attach a 33/1 for the dead sections as required..wouldnt have needed high juice 4Reps that way ?

Blue or Blue and Grey.. that is the question..

Perhaps the tooling would need to be permanently modified for the revised front end and Bachmann want to make sure they have squeezed every last penny from the existing tooling before making that change? This is pure speculation on my part and I have no idea if the revised version will ever happen.To be fair, it would seem a sensible thing to do. The modified 6-car units operated in both Nanking Blue and reverse Grey/Blue liveries. It extends the modelling window of the units well into the banger blue era. Also, it opens it up to WR modellers who have not had an authentic BP option so far. While the yellow ends were not particularly attractive, the finalised version was a lot better than the experimental custard-dip version that has been issued so far.I think this version would sell OK if it was produced.

:-)

The only thing left to do is disconnect the Track Cleaner.

 

Dave

Agreed, I'm out of the country at the moment, so next playtime is weekend

It's still a bizarre one.

Thanks for the help so far.

I don't think batteries are the issue, it's the charging time. 

With model airplanes you can get cheap battery packs (50p each) and recharge them in an hour via USB.. bit of a faff but it works.

My little one is currently obsessed by "hex bug nano"... this is a 1" insect that walks at random round your house.. (don't ask).

the technology is a 1cm sq motor with a baffle shape on the axle which makes it wobble (And hence the rubber legs look like they are walking and off it goes) and its got some power for it's size....

It runs off an  AG12 watch battery... goes for an hour (usually under a table/chair or cupboard where it makes a noise until it's rescued).

Battery cost me £1.50 for 30 at the local DIY (5p each).

it could be powerful enough to run an n gauge locomotive.. now who runs a loco for an hour non-stop ?

(Didn't Hornby have a few  Battery powered locos for a while in the 70s ?)

Possible solutions:

a. so make it efficient enough in watt consumption that it doesn't matter the cost of the battery (a-la hex bug nano)

b. faster chargers (Person who domesticates this technology will be a billionaire)

c. low cost rechargeable batteries / battery banks so a set up of spares is easily available at a low enough cost. (like model airplanes)

the other option is go down the Wilesco route, adding Brake control. then it's totally real.

I'm surprised if the blue pullmans were going to get another run produced that the reversed colour scheme wasn't produced at the same time. I wonder if that will ever be released now.

Could be a limited edition perhaps ?