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Searching for pics of the "Anglo Scottish Car Carrier" suggests six (plus four mk1 carriages) was standard in the 1960s. Nice announcement, and by present standards the price seems pretty reasonable especially for a somewhat niche prototype with few livery choices.

There is also to be a different Andrews of Sheffield vehicle as an exclusive for Rails: https://railsofsheffield.com/blogs/news/new-rapido-fleetline-buses

Another batch of Fleetlines announced today, including some secondhand operators: https://rapidotrains.co.uk/fleetline/

In between the two, both in size and in power.

Yes, the Dapol body is "of its time". Removing that stupid raised patch for the number is a pain in the neck, and the bracing is a bit oversized. I built 12 banana vans during lockdown (6 Parkside and 6 Dapol/Red Panda) and had been thinking of doing some more until Accurascale's announcement.

I'm happy they've gone for the SR banana because the BR Dia 1/242 and 1/246 can be fashioned from the Parkside kit and a Dapol body/Red Panda chassis respectively, whereas the SR vans were much harder to do. However a better 1/246 than the Dapol version would be very welcome as well.

A re-tool of the Grampus. High density DMU in N using the bubble car chassis (as already suggested).

A 12 ton wagon maybe? Perhaps a Mink of the correct width. Something of which 12 were built?

Other photos on Flickr show 47363 in the modelled version of the livery as early as 1987 and the aerials fitted by 1988, so no exceptional weathering should be needed. These have been released now.

TTV/TTA Hydrocyanic Acid tanks and the matching PXA barrier wagons. Rationale: * not an obvious candidate to be offered by Farish or anyone else * not particularly similar to anything Revolution currently have on the go. Clearly there are other tanks in the range, including the caustic soda TUA in OO, but the HCN tanks were for a very specific dangerous-goods traffic, were quite different in appearance and livery, and I don't think anyone would regard them as being "too similar" * although the prototypes were limited to a single route (Grangemouth to Haverton Hill) and local trips on Teesside it would be an extremely interesting traffic to model due to the highly dangerous nature of the cargo and the precautions which this gave rise to. The distinctive barrier vehicles and the prominent "poison" lettering and warning labels on the tankers made the dangerous nature of their cargo unmistakable, and latterly at least (after the requirement for a long tail of wagons behind the tankers in case of rear-end collision was dropped) they ran in very short unit trains which are appealing to modellers. The wagons were in use from the 1960s into the 2000s, though the conversion from vac to air brakes in the early '80s obviously complicates underframe tooling. Nevertheless, I think that the operations were so interesting and that people's fascination with "dangerous" things would means that models of these would have an appeal far wider than their limited geographical use might suggest. * it would certainly tick the "niche" box

Would I be right in assuming that unit trains were usually exclusively MAT or Silcock wagons, or were there mixed rakes? These wagons were usually filthy so identifying whether the wagons at the back of a train match those at the front in photos isn't easy! [Edit - I've been confusing myself between the separate N and OO Cartic-4 threads, so had missed earlier posts touching on this issue. As the car manufacturers had delivery contracts with either one firm or another, mixed rakes would have been rare, although perhaps the BR ex-Motorail ones did get mixed in with the private-owners. Also, to be prototypical on a loaded train the cars would have to be of the right make for the wagon.]

Given that they only seem to release a handful of bus models each year, I suspect that their priority is upmarket/signature types operated by big company operators with a strong collector following. Southdown seems to be particularly well represented. At the present rate of release it will be quite a while before they work their way through even the limited number of major operators who took that style/length of Duple Commander new, so they may think there would be no great advantage to doing something more common like a Vega or Viceroy instead. I'm only surprised they haven't re-done the Harrington Grenadier yet (though that would be welcome given the many shortcomings of the EFE version). However, Southdown also had plenty of Dominants and Supremes, so we can but hope... On the subject of 1960s coaches, I nominate the Bedford VAL / Duple Vega Major for a model. Not widely used by the big company operators and not as common as the contemporary Duple Bella Vega/Trooper, but nevertheless an unmistakable and iconic 1960s coach built in fairly large numbers.

The 1980s and '90s are not well covered compared to the '50s-'70s period. Such 1980s cars as are available are disproportionately sporty or luxury models (Capri mk.III. Escort XR3i, Sierra Cosworth, Rover SD1 Vitesse, Astra GTE, Golf GTi, Audi Quattro, Jaguar XJS, Bentley T2), with just the Fiesta, Cavalier, Volvo 740 and the forthcoming Maestro being of a more useful 'vanilla' nature. The 1990s are particularly badly covered - really just the Vectra, one of the Range Rovers and the forthcoming Discovery mk.I. There are therefore plenty of opportunities for new car models from this period. We could also be doing with some 1970s and '80s coaches in the bus range too, as that period is not well covered by any of the manufacturers. Oxford's forthcoming Alexander M-type is very welcome but it is of a niche prototype built in small numbers. Other than that the only other coaches of this period have been EFE's 1971-73 Plaxton Panorama Elite (the model being of a rare 12m version) and 1987-91 Plaxton Paramount 3500 III, and the defunct Base Toys (crude and overwidth) 1977-81 Duple Dominant II. Corgi's Van Hool T8 Alizee was also available with a 1980s front, but neither this or any of the others has been produced for quite a few years. The once-ubiquitous Duple Dominant and Plaxton Supreme and an earlier style of Plaxton Paramount would all be very welcome additions.

It went to Blyth because that was convenient for the Lynemouth smelter. Since Lynemouth closed it obviously makes less sense, so I believe the plan is to ship it to Fort William direct once pier facilities are upgraded. Unfortunately that would spell the end for freight on the West Highland.

I used to walk to school every day past a red 120Y which had various holes in the bodywork and a ragged edge along the bottom of all the doors and wings. Compared to it, my parents' pockmarked Marina of similar age was in concourse condition! A shame, as by all accounts they were otherwise very well built.

I find myself enthused at the prospect of a beige Maestro. Must be an age thing. The earliest Japanese car that I can recall being fairly common was the mid '70s Datsun Sunny 120Y (which was a contender for Worst Ruster Of All!). Thereafter various dull but reliable Datsun/Nissan models sold pretty well through the 1980s, with no other Japanese manufacturer selling in anything like the quantity. These would make a nice bit of period street furniture for layouts, but there is no shortage of domestic cars of that era which sold in larger quantities and would also be very welcome in model form - Ford Cortina mk.IV/V, Austin Metro and Montego, Vauxhall Viva HC and Chevette, Hillman Avenger and Hunter, Chrysler Sunbeam, Rover 200, etc. However, Oxford have obviously obtained the necessary license from Nissan to make the Qashqai so maybe we will see some older Nissans in due course. Other period imports I'd like to see would be the Fiat 126 and 124. The latter mainly as a means of representing a Lada without breaking any sanctions!

RevolutioN's recent announcement of the 1988 Alcan PCAs will be a big boost to West Highland modelling in the 37/4 era. Together with Kernow's PRAs they were signature wagons for the route. Re. the previous discussion about mk2B carriages in Scotland, the trio of 2B TSOs allocated to ScotRail (5437/5445/5488) were part of the varied collection of air-braked stock which was transferred to Polmadie in 1987 to replace the vac-braked Sealink mk1s on the Stranraer trains This image on Flickr shows a Glasgow-Stranraer train at Ayr in 1988, and the lead coach appears to be a 2B TSO with ScotRail branding. By 1989 the Super Sprinters had taken over in the south west and two of the mk2Bs had been reallocated to Craigentinny, so I'd imagine they might have turned up on the Inverness trains after that.

The description does say Longannet but the repurposed iron ore tipplers suggest coal slurry empties from Methil.

Even if it is the case that 043 is the only one of the six named ED split-box 37s that suits the initial tooling, it is still a daft choice as there were plenty of un-named ones to choose from. I understand that namers might sell better as a rule, but that obviously isn't going to be the case when it is a duplicate like this. Like others, I'd have happily bought any of the other ones, but I'll stick with my Accurascale pre-order for 043. There are plenty of other demands on my wallet without buying duplicate locos at current prices just to renumber them. Those two Eastfield 37/4s, for example...

I have received an extremely comprehensive and apologetic response to my email to Hornby, which I think does them great credit especially given the tone of my email to them. It doesn't explain what I should be doing about my pre-orders but there is probably no simple answer to that if there is not enough stock to go around. Personally I've not yet had notice of any of my own pre-orders being cancelled (touch wood) so I'm going to cross my fingers. I'm not sure that I follow their explanation of why Hornby Direct are still able to accept pre-orders when shops have had their orders reduced, unless they mean that Hornby Direct has had its sales quota cut too but because they charge full price they had so few pre-orders for it that they still have some free stock(?). In any event, having shared my sarcastic email here I think I owe Hornby their response: "Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in replying, this is due to annual leave being the time of the year. Last February and after an internal appraisal of orders received for the new 2022 product range our retailers were notified that some of their orders had to be reduced, mainly because the demands received for specific items were in excess of the production numbers we had placed with our manufacturers. Making the decision to reduce the orders that had been placed by our customers was not something that Hornby wanted to do but due to what can only be classed as human error allocations of several key products had been exceeded. For those at Hornby who have to make such difficult decisions as reducing orders is not an easy one but there is no point in maintaining an illusion if at the end of the day orders cannot be met. As an aside it is worth pointing out that the current manufacturing situation in China is not as straightforward as it once was mainly due to the issues caused by China’s handling of Covids. ie, they close whole areas down in a bid to control the spread of the illness. This action creates many problems for the manufacturers in meeting deadlines, therefore it is not possible to ask them to just add another 1000 or 2000 to a particular production run as they simply do not have that flexibility in manufacturing time. If we insist on an increase then another scheduled product would have to be delayed and not just by a few days! It is worth noting that we place orders with our suppliers many months ahead and even before the new range is announced. Returning to these latest adjustments. The management of the company was under the impression that the revised order quantities as a whole had been conveyed to our retailers in February but apparently that was not the case. It does now seem that our retailers were only told half the story and that all the reductions which had been agreed in February had not been actioned. Recently, Hornby has restructured its Sales division and it was the new sales manager who when analysing the order/delivery situation for the rest of the year discovered that many of the reductions had not been made and to make things even worse it was found that some products that should have been adjusted in February had been missed. Why these potential adjustments had not been picked up sooner is difficult to explain as the person responsible is no longer with the company. Of course it is easy to blame those who cannot defend themselves however, the fact remains that not all reductions had been actioned in February but were left until half way through the year has quite rightly caused a great deal of anger and annoyance with both our retailers and their respective customers. This situation is both embarrassing to Hornby and extremely annoying for our customers. For this we can only apologise and state that steps have been taken so that this does not happen again, which can sound like empty words but where 2023 is concerned a huge amount of time and planning has been spent so that what our customers order in January 2023 will be what you receive. One final point. Much has been made about Hornby’s Online service. Hornby has had such a service for well over 20 years and that particular sales avenue is and has been a legitimate route to market for that length of time and like other customers they are allotted a sales quota. As Hornby Online do not discount it is not unreasonable to note that they have free stock available on their website while others who do offer a discount do not. Hopefully the above goes some way to explain the current order adjustments. It is not in Hornby’s interest to upset its retailers and indeed their customers but I believe we need to be frank and honest rather than allowing those having placed orders living under the false hope that what the requested will arrive."

I once had to go on a training course about how to conduct annual performance and development interviews, as these had been renamed "Be The Best Conversations" and all managers across the organisation therefore had to waste half a day listening to someone from "Change Management" explain why. Having more pressing work to do I kept ignoring the reminders until being ordered to attend the final session with the other hold-outs. One of the questions we were asked to consider was how best to deal with an employee who was really ambitious and keen to climb the ladder but was actually no good at their job, which was amusing because the person undertaking the training was someone that my own department had purposefully got rid of by paying for him to get a HR qualification. One of the other attendees suggested the senior leadership course, which was not well received.

But what do they think their name stands for, beyond nostalgic memories of Christmas mornings many years ago for a dwindling number of customers? Almost all other manufacturers are associated with a particular quality and price point (with the exception of Dapol which has in effect two separate wagon ranges, each of which is sensibly priced for what they are). Hornby would doubtless like their name to be associated with quality, and (patchy Chinese QC notwithstanding) some of their range delivers that. On the other hand, there are also plenty of inaccurate old toys being churned out at ludicrously inflated prices, and not just in the Railroad range. In between these extremes is some OK stuff that is not bad but does not always represent good value for money either. They seem to want to be all things to all people, and ultimately I think it devalues the whole brand. Perhaps that is one of the factors in their chaotic relationship with dealers.

The obvious solution to balancing production against demand is to be doing everything they can to encourage pre-orders, and then only producing what is ordered plus a little extra as contingency. Dealers who want stock would include this in their own orders. However, Hornby seem either not to do that or they are terrible at it. As the dealers offer discounts from list price and the serious modellers who do most of the pre-ordering are well aware of that, surely there must be far more pre-orders placed through dealers than via the Hornby website. Cutting off supply to the dealers late in the day as they have done last year and again this year will not result in everyone who had pre-ordered switching to direct sales because some people will change their minds about the purchase or resent the inconvenience and additional cost, so Hornby's actions have only served to undermine the relationship between pre-order information and actual demand. Also, Hornby's repeated (and inexplicable) failure to properly describe their forthcoming products properly suppresses the number of pre-orders because people have to wait to find out what they are actually producing. Case in point the re-tooled Black Fives announced six months ago (and not now due until next Autumn). Does "Era 5 1956-68" mean early crest or late crest? Does "Era 4" mean British Railways lettering or early crest? Presumably Hornby know their intentions because they have selected the locomotive numbers so they have presumably done their prototype research, but why on earth do they not reveal the liveries to modellers? The quality of information on their website is generally awful, with lots of incorrectly described items (see the Caprotti Black Five page which still has a blurb describing the BR Standard 5).

There were at least three 86/6s in Railfreight General - 86 602/613/627. They lasted a bit longer in the livery than 86 502 but eventually got distribution markings. I'd like one to double head with the Distribution one. From Flickr:

It depends on what period you model. For the sectorisation period circa 1990 the 86/4s are probably a more useful model because they were mixed traffic machines and carried far more liveries than the 86/2s (which at the time were all passenger sector locos in some form of Intercity livery). After privatisation the situation was reversed as the 86/2s were split between a larger number of operators. Personally I'm hoping for a few more 86/4 and 86/6 liveries before they tinker with the tooling. Late BR blue, Parcels, Railfreight General and maybe another Intercity variant are on my list.