64F

"Not Affiliated With Hornby Magazine"?

Sent to Hornby customer services this evening: Dear Hornby, As a customer who regularly spends a significant amount on Hornby products I would like some guidance from you as to how I am supposed to buy these, because over the last couple of years your company seems to have intentionally made it difficult for me to part with my money. After the shambolic introduction of the new "tier" system for dealers last year, when I had most of my pre-orders cancelled and had to shop around looking for new suppliers, I understand that you have now done the same thing again by telling even the Tier 1 dealers that you will not be supplying them with anything like the number of models that they have ordered. Currently I have six Hornby locomotives and sixteen carriages on pre-order from three suppliers, with a combined value of about £2,500. The carriages are two complete trains where I either want all or none of them. None of the dealers know whether they will receive enough stock to fulfil their pre-orders. What do you suggest that I do in these circumstances? I am extremely reluctant to unnecessarily cancel pre-orders with reputable dealers who have given me good service in the past, so if you have no intention of honouring your dealers' orders, then perhaps you would be good enough to inform them of that. That way, the dealers could pass this information on to the many disappointed customers who have inconvenienced your company by trying to purchase your products without having correctly guessed the secret formula which governs their supply. Once so informed, such people would have the opportunity to guess again at where they might or might not be able to give Hornby their money, assuming that they have not been so disgusted by your company's behaviour that they no longer wish to do so. It is possible that I am being a little harsh, and that the failure to supply your dealer network arises from factors outwith your immediate control, such as difficulties with supply or quality control at your Chinese suppliers. If that is the case, might I suggest that some sort of press release explaining the situation would be beneficial to your company's image and reputation? On the other hand, if this is (as it appears to be) an intentional strategy to maximise direct sales by deliberately sabotaging your dealer network, then I can only observe that the underhanded nature of this strategy and the contempt towards customers which it displays are seriously imperilling the goodwill of this particular consumer towards your business. If you are only prepared to supply pre-orders as direct sales, then for goodness sake tell everyone that - preferably before you announce the products! I look forward to your advice on what I should be doing about my pre-orders. Regards [Update - response received from Hornby, see page 16]

What strikes me about this is the apparent absence of a business strategy here. If there was a coherent plan to move primarily to direct sales then that should have been clearly communicated to dealers and staff and then publicly announced at a sensible time (i.e. before the annual range announcement) . There would have been flack from people unhappy with the change, but everyone would know what was happening and it would be over and done with quickly so people would adjust to it. But is that the strategy? We don't really know. There's been no communication from Hornby, mixed messages about the role of dealers, and continual disruptive changes which could almost have been calculated to antagonise everyone involved. The shambolic mid-year introduction of the tier system last year suggested that they wanted to support "high end" retailers who stocked the full range of Hornby products from high quality shop premises, whilst de-prioritising the smaller shops and the box-shifters. A few months on and they lay off all their sales reps, undermining relations with dealers of all tiers, and presumably not planned when the tiers were introduced (as if it had been, why the delay?). Now, another change whereby even the Tier 1 dealers are having the rug pulled out from under them, suggesting that the tier system has either changed again or been abandoned. And once again it is a disgraceful mid-year shambles where customers are left with no idea whether they are likely to receive any of their pre-orders, and the dealers are left to take the flack and suffer a loss of credibility for something which is entirely Hornby's fault. Evidently Hornby don't value their dealers, but the timing and the complete absence of communication suggests that their customers are not valued either. A healthy company does not behave like this. Hornby seem to have a calculated arrogance in some of their business dealings (e.g. Titfieldgate), but even so these constant changes smack of emergency measures. Sadly, I get the impression of a company which is circling the drain.

Super, I'd been looking forward to a IC Mainline one. I'm glad there is only one for my era in this lot though - that first batch of 86/4s was an expensive month. 86402 in rail blue 1989 condition next, please Heljan.

Yes, the M-type came out in 1968 and was heavily inspired by American practice. They were optimised for overnight motorway services between Scotland and London and the small double glazed windows gave good soundproofing, as well as looking strikingly modern. The motorway network was obviously in its infancy, and the maximum length for coaches had only been extended to 12m that year. Having only 42 seats they were very comfortable coaches for their time. When the first batches of M-types (Bristol REMHs new in 1968-71 and with a different front end to the Oxford model) were retired in the early '80s Scottish Bus Group persuaded Duple to offer the Dominant III and Goldliner III bodies with similar windows as replacements. These were briefly fashionable amongst coach operators circa 1982, but the small windows made for a dark interior and limited passengers' views, so they were not really suitable for touring coach work and a lot of them were rebuilt or rebodied later in life. Duple Goldliner III (from Flickr):

It does look very smart. The obvious compromise is the chrome striping on the sides being painted on, and the fleetname panel being flush with the body rather than applied above the raised chromework, but it would have been impossible to do it any other way without needing separate mouldings to represent different liveries. No doubt the solitary NBC example will be offered in due course: Personally I'm particularly looking forward to one in Scottish Citylink livery: (both images from Flickr)

Later on (1988-90) I remember odd Craigentinny coaches turning up in the Inverness rakes, and no doubt that happened earlier as well. In particular it was not too unusual to see a ScotRail liveried mk2 TSO in amongst the blue/greys. I also remember seeing the mk2a FKs on Inverness workings, and once a ScotRail liveried 2d TSOT. To my lasting regret I threw out my train composition sighting notes many years ago. The Inverness trains are a problem to model due to the lack of a RTR mk2c, but hopefully Accurascale will address that in due course!

At one time the Dutch were especially keen on noses to improve crash protection for the crew, even for multiple units. The NS Mat '64 "Monkey Head" EMUs were particularly ugly IMHO, but they must have been a whole lot safer for the drivers than contemporary British units. The 1100 class electric locos even had noses grafted on retrospectively after an accident. I believe that the reason that north American railroads abandoned the eminently crashworthy "long hood forward" configuration was not just the obvious one of restricted forward visibility, but also the problem of the crew being located behind the exhaust in tunnels.

The RFBs were converted in 1988 and went straight into the later IC livery with INTERCITY lettering. By that time the large majority of mk2f coaches were in IC livery, but mostly still with the earlier InterCity executive lettering. A mixed rake with all three livery styles would be fine for a WCML rake in 1988-89, but there should only be one or two still in blue/grey. On the other hand, an otherwise all blue/grey rake with an INTERCITY liveried RFB would look wrong. I can't say it never happened, but it would look strange. If you want a prototypical Cross Country rake from late 1980s, the trouble is that apart from RFBs, there were very few other mk2f in the ICCX pool. In 1988-89 ICCX brakes were mainly 2c and 2d BFKs, and TSOs were mainly 2c, 2d and 2e. ICCX had no air-con BSOs at all at that point. When it did get some ac BSOs a couple of years later these were mk2d and 2e, but by that time blue/grey stock was rare. In the blue/grey and IC transition period Cross Country rakes tended to be quite mixed, and there was still a lot of portioning. The more standardised short rakes of RFB, BSO and 4 or 5 TSOs didn't come about until the 1990s, by which time blue/grey was almost extinct.

One of the Super Minxes is doing a good impression though! BMC kept making the 1500 until 1965 so even it's not necessarily older. It's easy to forget how quickly cars of that era used to rust out.

Some pictures of forthcoming castings on Oxford's Facebook page (been there a while but I've just noticed them). Happily they have sorted out the problem with the Austin Maestro's bumpers: https://www.oxforddiecast.co.uk/blogs/news-1/austin-maestro https://www.facebook.com/oxforddiecast/photos/a.1953943968043871/4453450394759870/

Many thanks for that, that is fantastic information. I'm hopeful that I can disassemble the existing underframe details and re-use the common parts to keep the price down a bit. My loco will eventually become Haymarket's 47209, and I'll post images of the conversion in due course.

I'm happy to give them a ring, I just thought I'd ask here first as someone might have come across the same issue already and would know the answer, before I try to explain it afresh to someone at GM who might know just as little as me about what goes where under a 47. When I find a solution I'll detail it here in case it is of use to anyone else contemplating the same thing.

Yes, the GM website just has descriptions of the parts, eg "Part 209, engine oil drain tank 3" and "Part 210, combination cover B" (which could be anything). Of course there wouldn't need to be images of the parts if the Heljan parts diagram was sufficiently detailed. I'd originally planned to buy the 1970s blue version as it comes with the correct tanks for a 47/0 and has the other type of boiler port which would have allowed me to model 47017 (a regular on Oxwellmains cement trains during my spotting days), and then to swap the headcode panels and add high intensity headlights. However, in the end I decided to get the 1980s version and swap the tanks, but I'm starting to think I made the wrong decision...

Has anyone swapped the underframes tanks on one of these to convert a short-tank model to a long-tank version (or vice versa)? I've recently bought the 1980s blue one (4860) with the intention of finishing it as a 47/0, which will involve replacing the underframe tanks with the longer type. The Heljan parts diagram makes this look easy, as the two types of tank assemblies are shown as if they are single parts (the one I want being #146 "full underframe tanks for steam/dual heat locos"). However, elsewhere on the diagram part #146 is described as "fuel tank support brackets" only, which is what Gaugemaster's website also describes it as. Gaugemaster also lists umpteen separate parts for the various tanks/pipes/covers, none of which are illustrated anywhere. Evidently this is going to be more complicated than I had hoped, mainly because I'm at a loss to know what parts I'm going to need to buy and what I can reuse from the current underframe assembly. Any advice would be gratefully received!

Possibly suggested before, but a depressed-centre cement/dry powder PCA would be very welcome indeed, as the Hornby (ex Lima) one has many flaws. Obviously there were quite a few variations and it would be impossible to cover them all, but overall they were built in very large numbers and operated over a very long timespan (1966 to 2022). Many modellers would want unit trains, so they could be sold in quantity like the MGR hoppers. Also there were some quite distinctive liveries as well as the ubiquitous plain grey to add a bit of variety.

Another run of hybars would be nice - but with the sheet rail down next time please!

I'm looking forward to these even although they are 'in between' my two main modelling periods for OO. However international traffic has a particular interest so I will pretend they lasted longer. I'd like to see a couple of the more commonly seen foreign types being available in OO too, but that may be a pipe dream! I think the Ford Palvans were shorter.

Also missing tie bars in most cases - not that Bachmann are terribly assiduous about such things either. If manufacturers insist on using one standard push-brake chassis then for my money it ought to have a tie-bar, as they are less work to break off than to add! My old Dapol meat van (the seemingly rare RTR bauxite one) recently gained a Parkside PA09 chassis and is much the better for it.

The bodies have all been produced before (e.g. R6147 for the BR standard vanfit) and all are inferior to the competition. As others have said the return of a RTR meat van might be useful to some, but it's still got an incorrect chassis and none of them are particularly cheap. It's stuff like this that frustrates me about Hornby. They've apparently invested some money on a new chassis in order to warm over some tired old van bodies and sell them for the same price as better models of the same thing from other manufacturers. Most serious modellers will simply ignore them, and it devalues the Hornby brand to be selling things that ought to be in the Railroad range for much the same price as their own top quality stuff like the SR cattle wagons and the various brake vans. How much better it would be to produce a reasonable quality new van body of a type not otherwise available RTR, if at all. What about one of the umpteen types of LMS van, or a plywood Mink, or almost any type of banana van?

There was a period around 1987 when the seating coaches off the Euston sleeper did a round trip to Kyle during the day. Various pics on Flickr including this one, complete with first class:

Re. mixing of wagons with and without top skips, this was pretty common on the Cockenzie PS trains in the 1980s-90s but perhaps it was atypical even in Scotland. I grew up in East Lothian so my perspective might have been skewed! There are lots of images on Flickr showing mixed rakes on the Cockenzie MGRs:

Yes. Prior to the 1990s the top skips were mainly found in Scotland, and I recall the Cockenzie power station trains being very mixed. Later far more wagons got top skips and obviously these were not added all at once, so mixed rakes became pretty common elsewhere.

Yes, I think it is due to the packaging being too tight and rubbing against the paint rather than a printing fault, so I imagine that others will be affected. Its a bit unfortunate that it is at that precise height as it is just in the right place to cause the top part of the red stripe to break up, but maybe on other liveries it won't have any effect. However, it doesn't annoy me enough to return it and it won't take much to touch up. Mine runs fine, without the problems other have mentioned.

Similarly when Scottish Omnibuses reluctantly took SBG's first Nationals in 1977 (at a time when there an 18 month backlog of new deliveries of preferred types) they had to take them in plain green and add the cream relief themselves.