NickC

Sorry, I should have been a bit cleared, it easily pulls the 5 Mk3 coaches I have and I'm sure it would pull a lot more

My class 43 power car can easily pull 5 coaches and a dummy car so it is highly unlikely that an 800 would require more than one motor. I suppose that to be more accurate both 800 driver cars should be dummy's and one (or more) coaches should have the motor

No, the saddletank appears to be solid metal to give it some weight.

Arrived today from Hornby...

Just been notified by Hornby that my MSC Pecket will be with me tomorrow afternoon I guess Hattons etc either got theirs today or will get them tomorrow. How fast they can then ship them out, who knows, but I bet it's fairly quick...

I've just received an e-mail from Hornby saying my pre-ordered Manchester Ship Canal Peckett is in their warehouse and will be dispatched shortly. So I wonder if it will manage to arrive just before Christmas or just after...

I get the impression that a small number of H&P unexpectedly arrived in the shipment of B12s so Hornby have used them to fulfil some of their own pre-orders. Up until last night on Hornby's website all 3 Pecketts were showing Pre-Order and an expected date of 16/12/16 (i.e. today). Today they are still showing as Pre-Order but with no date. So either they have arrived and are just about to be unpacked and shipping started, or the container hasn't arrived and thus Hornby now have no idea where it is or when it will arrive. Only time will tell.. Edit 16:21 - According to today's published Engine Shed, the Pecketts have arrived.

From what I understood from earlier statements, the 40% reduction in product lines is across all product line, not just model railway items and is the items that don't sell well and/or have a low profit margin (or even a loss). Given Hornby produces a large range of products not exclusively model railway products the reduction is model railway products could be less than 40% if model railway products are [relatively] good sellers with the higher profit margins. Alternatively it could be more than 40%, we won't know for sure until we see the full 2017 range in January.

"These problems would never have happened if the railways were still nationalised". Oh wait a minute... Network Rail is a nationalised organisation!!

@Hatton's Dave Thank you for your quick response. It is refreshing that fitment of the DCC decoder is going to be easy compared to all the dismantling required with some other manufactures locos.

@Hatton's Dave How easy/difficult will it be to fit a DCC decoder? Where is it located and how much space is there to fit the decoder? apologies if this question has been asked before and I've missed the answer.

Does anybody know the size of the X9659 decoder that Hornby suggest? Interested in what other decoders might fit in what is undoubtedly a small space

The Telegraph article says sales down 2% in total and down 4% in the UK, not up as was posted by Culmhead. It doesn't say which part(s) of the business have falling sales, but the fact the article mentions Scaletrix might be a clue?