Matt C

You can't lol. Hotel California

One thing I don't understand, we are seeing lots about they 'only' made this amount of profit against 'this' amount of turnover=bad, but surely we should ALSO take into account that in previous years they made a loss ? So they not only made a profit, but they wiped out a loss AND have covered costs of a Loan. Surely that is good ?

I believe there is talk of changing the rules governing cookies as some companies are 'comercializing' them. You get an option to either 'accept all preferences' OR have the faf of running through a long list of options to opt in or out of them. Guess what ? Most just click 'Accept All' thereby agreeing to being bombarded with crap. I'm NOT aiming this at RmWeb as I don't think they use this tactic. I think the Rule change is to make it so that your First and easiest choice is MINIMUM contact ? And that you then have to opt IN to more marketing. I think we have to accept that Warner Bros are trying to find a good balance between Subscription/ Advertising that covers the cost of running the Forum. Must admit I only saw the big box once, on logging in from a new browser and on all platforms subsequently am only seeing the small blue privacy button mentioned by Andy. I know it can be annoying but believe me there are FAR worse sites to visit out there that are almost impossible to navigate due to the 'Click bait' advertising plastered right through them !

Welcome to the Hotel California !

I have great sympathy for the Customers involved BUT. We all get old, and some will develope illnesses that will severely inhibit thier activities while still TRYING to move on with life. He is NOT a clown, he is an elderly gentleman who has obviously suffered a debilitating illness and has had operations to try and mitigate his problems. Yes his comunication is less than stellor, your COMUNICATION ?? is that of an Arse 'Simples'. Sorry but you crossed a line Sorry Andy I'll take whatever punishment you see fit but the above comment was un called for

Drop a PM to @AY Mod with your requested change

Just want to give a shout out to Rainbow Railways New shop in Linlithgow, West Lothian in Scotland (Half an hour from Edinburgh, 40 Minutes from Glasgow) Popped in for a wee look after finding they were there by accident, Very Impressed ! Had a long and Very pleasant chat to Mark the proprietor who is very knowledgeable and made me feel very welcome. Children are welcome and actively encouraged ( I'm sure if the big kids have a quiet word with Mark he 'might' even let them play in the ball pit, Go down the slide or play on some of the other attractions while your younger ones try out the test layout in the shop area The Shop, A great range in stock including :- Hornby Some Bachmann ( more in the pipeline, cmon Bachmann, finger out !) Accurascale Revolution Dapol Heljan Gaugemaster DCC Concepts Cavalex Peco ( he had some points lurking on the counter and the track I ACTUALLY went in for) And several others Ive forgotten Oo and N gauge Lots of accessories and necessities, Paint, rail joiners and most other essential bits and bobs. They also offer in house services from decoder fitting to weathering and probably all points in between Plans are well Advanced to Add more well known names to the Ranges they stock Mark mentioned in passing that they forsee no problems with, and are happy to take Hornby Pre Orders. They do Click and collect, and mail order, (You can ring and chat to Mark or use the website to do click and collect) but beware, if you go on the web site, or indeed wander in with an un secured wallet you do run the risk of leaving with a bag of goodies at very reasonable prices and a lighter wallet Talking to Mark his enthusiasm shines through for the Hobby and I highly recommend A visit P.S. they are on restricted opening times at the moment for physical visits ( wed to sat 10- 5 ) but you CAN order on the website and collect or have it delivered They are hoping to fully open soon. Oh and did I mention they have an in house Cafe ?? Coffee or Tea and Cake. . Whats not to like ! No connection but a delighted customer, happy to see green shoots peaking through in the Scottish model railway retail sector ( cmon guys its not too far, come and support a local retail shop ) Cheers Matt

Top Gear ( of old) do a comparison revew on the Deltic class 55 (May) So here we have a Hornby Deltic Class 55 Railroad range, a reasonably priced budget ra... (Clarkson) but its a HORNNBEEEE no one wants a HORNNBEEE... (Hammond) I went for the Battcmnann. ??? . Its great ! You pay a bit more but look ! Its got a little lunch box for the driver and A BOOSTER seat so even I could see out the windscree..... (Clarkson) Shut up Hammond, now I Went for the Accurascale ! Look at the detail on this baby !! This beast could even pull Jordan !! And look at the size of them snowplows (May) But Clarkson, it's not even been produced yet ! Thats just a photo. . With druel all over it..... (Clarkson) Yes Yes Yes ! i Know but when it DOES come out. . . (producer) Ok guys who's going to introduce the Heljan ? (All). Hell. Jan ??? What the. . Is a HELL JAN ???? (Clarkson) cmon ladds it's lunchtime and it BETTER not be B&@@dy Sandwiches !!

Tell you what I really REALLY don't envey you guys your jobs, you are on a hiding to nothing

I don't read a lot of reviews, no time and it just makes me sad when I see all those Lovely models I can't afford . BUT If I am reading them :- The kind of information I like to see is " couldn't pull the skin off a rice puddin" "easy to get the body off and chip". " Couldn't get the body off to chip so we've given it to Andy, he's got a bigger Hammer" " ran on anything, Even Phil's rough track". " Looks great but performance was diabolical and bits kept falling off, Not one for the faint hearted" The more practical side of things rather than " that shade of lemon yellow is 1000th of a shade too Orange" That headlight is 0.00000001 thousandth of a sqillimetre too big/ small/ off centre. I know these facts are important to the collectors, but mainly I'm interested in performance, reliability, longevity and a REASONABLE representation of prototype. Flak jacket on

Ok I'll bite, you've quoted Hornby as Saying " Order from Hornby or your LOCAL stockist." How many of those with pre orders cancelled are LOCAL to Hattons ?

Joseph have you ever tried herding cats ? Good luck getting all the involved retailers agreeing to THAT . Unfortunately I have no idea if my interpretation is correct, I just seam to remember reading in the past that this is how Hornby operated and that retailers didn't really know just how many yhey would be getting until very near to delivery.. it would be good if a retailer could confirm this so if I'm wrong I can stfu !

But they have to be agreed by BOTH parties. If Hornby don't confirm the amount you have asked for IS the amount they will supply, you don't have a contract you have a request to supply. As I've said before, as far as im aware this is how Hornby operate. They DON'T confirm amounts until the item's are made ? Or shipped or have arrived at Hornby. The only people who know for sure are 1 the retailer who asks for stock, do Hornby CONFIRM you WILL get that stock at the time you ask for it ? And 2 Hornby who know at what point in the supply Process they CONFIRM the amount of stock a retailer will ACTUALLY get

FANBOYS ? Ahh well I've been called worse, stopped reading after that. Gnight All

I take it you mean last years LAUNCH, which retailers said they would LIKE to recieve a certain quantity of, which they were PROBABLY told they may not get ( possibly in January of this year?) Actual quantities of Which were then CONFIRMED in May of this year ? We could go round in ever decreasing circles debating this Roy. I think the decision was made and the process started in January, details of which are Just now coming out. No one will come out of this smelling of Roses, I just hope when the dust settles it has benefitted the smaller retail outlets we ALL want to see surviving on our high streets Leaving the debate to others now regards. Matt

It's business Roy, As I said in an earlier post somewhere, this is probably a unique and fairly limited opportunity for Hornby to do this. A lot of hype over this years launch, a lot of interest, a chance to get a large boost in profits to help pay down loans. And this and other threads/ forums have helped by telling us that small local retail shops are a good place to order AND that Hornby's online shop exists and can supply what the large box shifter can't. I would guess that the Pre orders Hornby have had transfered to them, AND the smaller retail outlets who CAN supply will far outway those who cancel pre orders they HAD with Hornby. And some of those orders will probably STILL get met as those who cancelled, give in and buy from elseware.

Defending ? No just trying to put some perspective, I don't like what APPEARS to have happened but we don't KNOW fully what was said back in January. We don't KNOW what allocations were or werent promised guaranteed or NOT. We dont KNOW what information was or wasn't given to retailers about individual terms and conditions. Hornby is a business, business is cut throat, Hattons and others are moving into comissioning. Do you expect Hornby to just roll over and wait to die from a thousand cuts ? Or go after market share and survive ? Maybe in a years time we will look back and applaud the bravery of Hornby in taking decisive action, maybe those remaining high street retailers hanging on by thier fingernails will say how much THEY have benefited from Hornby's decision. OR they (Hornby) may bomb and go bust

But again Roy, you are Hattons Customer, not Hornby's. If you had ordered direct with Hornby (as some have) you would have been told by Hornby if your item was or wasn't being supplied. In this case HATTONS were Hornby's customer and we have no idea what Hattons were or weren't told about thier allocation. And so far. hattons aren't saying, they are just saying they are not getting the stock

I know what your saying Roy, but are orders with Hornby actually confirmed orders ? Not until Hornby actually CONFIRM them, till then its what a company would LIKE to order. As I understand it, It seams to have been the way Hornby have operated for awhile ? I really feel sorry for the small guys caught up in this but if for some reason they don't meet the particular critera to be placed in a teir then unfortunately they fall foul the same as the big boys and Hornby would be wide open to litigation if they treated them differently

Have you ever returned something to Amazon ? They just replace or refund. There are Auction sites and clearance companies out there dedicated to clearing retail returns. Its big business and for the likes of Anazon a numbers game, they dont repair etc its replace or refund and then clearance 'bought as seen' through one of the clearance houses. No doubt an agreement with the original supplier over the cost

But did they ? Or did they tell the stockist that they would NOT get what they had said they wanted but the stockist went with the view ' we have said we WANT 500 so we are taking pre orders for 500 expecting Hornby to then meet thier expectations ? Was it an accepted and CONFIRMED order. . Or a we want wish list ?? That has subsequently been turned down ? Is it Hornby's Job to tell YOU the stockists customer that the stockist is taking pre orders for stock it KNOWS it might not get ?

Hope you more knowledgeable peeps can clarify something. We are told that Hornby introduced a new tier system in January and that they told the retailers what Tier they would be in, what this meant in regards to stock alocation, and the reasons why. Hornby are being castigated for not honouring orders placed with them by Retailers. Were these orders ACTUALLY orders OR as I seam to understand the way Horby works. . Expressions of a quantity they would LIKE to receive. As I THOUGHT I understood it, Hornby would only confirm a number any retailer would receive once a delivery was confirmed and shipped by the Manufacturer ? Does this mean that actually Hornby are guilty of not meeting a retailers whish list rather than a confirmed and accepted order ? And that a retailer is guilty of over selling something they have no guarantee, and quite possibly have been pre warned, they have no possibility of actually recieving ? OTHER Retailers were told they WOULD receive the quantity they HOPED they would receive and ARE able to cover orders they have taken Just playing Devils advocate

Out of interest, having just looked on Amazon there are a surprising number of Hornby products for sale, almost 300 of which appear to be from Hornby Hobbies Ltd, A fair number under Amazon Direct and the balance from other small suppliers ( some at surprising discounts or limited time offers) Is this Hornby's new ' Firesale' outlet ? I wonder if they HAVE decided in the changing market that they need to do a fundamental change rather than suffer 'death by a thousand cuts' as more and more retailers go the comissioning route. In the past box shifters like Hattons (and others) take pre orders on a newly announced item, letting Hornby do all the work and take all the risk/ cost in bringing it to market, then buy at trade and sell at a discounted retail price. Low risk medium gain. THEN buy up any remaining 'fire sale' stock and sell it cheap. Other smaller retailers struggle to compete with this so losing out apart from loyal local customers. It does look as though Hornby have decided that in this new age of smaller runs, they can take that 'First Bite' of the retail sales, also allowing smaller (loyal ?) Retailers a bigger bite, and THEN let the likes of Hattons at any remaining crumbs if there are any, as well as by the looks of it 'dumping' stock through Amazon if Hatton's etc Dont take it ? Maybe this year is do or die and a decision has been made to cash in on what is probably a fairly unique year of new releases, when a lot of hype and promotion has been done by the modelling world, to snatch back those first sales, and at the same time re set the retail trade around thier products ? We Moddellers are a fickle bunch, a lot are saying they 'Wont buy'. Really ? If Hornby online settle down and get direct sales working and the LOCAL retail shops get improved sales, and you can then get your 'Bargain' from either Hattons or Amazon/ Hornby Hobbies ltd. I wonder how many will stick to thier guns ? Those overseas will have the choice of ordering from a smaller retailer at full price/ postage or waiting to see if Hattons eventually get stock so they can combine costs. not ideal but probably the way it will work in the future. P.S. I'm in no way condoning it, I think the WAY it is being handled sucks and Doesnt show Horby management in a good light. I'm just looking with wide open eyes at the way the market is going and how MAYBE Hornby are looking to survive.

PS I KNOW tec minded peeps can set up thier own system BUT my family are a bunch of tec numpties

Must admit, before this even came in I 'Rented' the extra storage last year for about £12 ? A year ? It takes you up to 100Gig. BUT you can share this space with up to I think its Five members of your family ( or friends) you link in thier accounts and they then share the storage space. The reason I did it was to be able to easily sort out and share a large inherited collection of scanned family photos. Whoever sets it up can create folders that are private for each individual or public for 1 or more users etc. I find it a very handy way to store and share stuff to family and or friends spread over the country.