Jon Harbour

Why not e-mail Hattons direct? I'm sure they will answer you promptly.

Have a look at this thread. I recently faced the same dilemma. End result was not too bad.

And now the finished article! Overall, I'm very pleased with the result! Need to get more passengers and then I can do the other three coaches in the rake!

Fitting inside the coach... Probably not the neatest install...

Not the greatest piece of soldering, but not too shabby. Lights off: Pas a magnet over and lights on!

Not 100% true... pretty much all of my locomotives coming from Hattons or Rails have had a 'tested' sticker on them - often with a signature or initials of the tester. Admittedly, that is a slightly more recent development....

Yes, but not many of them will 'hold on' to pre-ordered once they arrive to assist overseas customers with reducing shipping costs. Before Hattons introduced the trunk, I might have four items on pre-order, perhaps three of them would be wagons costing around £16.50 once the VAT is knocked off. Let's say for arguments sake they arrive with the vendor a week apart - I end up paying four lots of shipping costs, which will probably out-weigh the VAT savings. That's why Hattons are such an attractive option to pre-order from when overseas. With the saving in shipping costs, I can order more stock. If each piece is sent on at the time of arrival the portion of my spend with a vendor that actually generates revenue for them is reduced.

It's certainly an unusual situation. I've tended to stick with Hattons for my rolling stock orders as generally they don't charge UK VAT or Australian GST for those of us based in Australia. As Cor-OnGRT4 commented, the Hattons trunk is a fantastic option for those of us outside the UK. I love the option of having my pre-orders put into a box until such time as I call it on for delivery. A single shipping cost for multiple pre-orders! Hooray! It massively reduces shipping costs for us antipodeans. Now I can't say for certain that I will boycott Hornby products. I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to order directly from their website though. I am looking at alternate manufacturers for the models I am interested in... for example the Rapido Titfield Thunderbolt, the Accurascale Manor and the Hatton's Genesis coaches. Most of the wagons for my layout are Dapol - that wasn't deliberate but it just sort of worked out that way because they tended to produce more of the wagons I wanted. I suppose if I'm browsing for an on-line purchase and the retailer has a Hornby model that fits my planned layout and era then I would probably order it. But Hornby do seem to have irked a lot of their potential customers and I believe this will not help them in the long run.

Bit of a shame, but perhaps not unexpected.

Sizing it up for how the Layouts4U lighting kit might fit... Soldering the kit up may have to wait for the weekend. Won't take long to wire up and fit it. Kudos for Hornby who have already allowed for the fitting of lighting at the centre of the compartment walls. No need for any butchery there!

Thanks for taking time to respond. Much appreciated. Success!!

I recently bought a set of four Hornby 57' Bow Ended Suburban coaches (R4874 to R4877) and am planning to populate the coaches and fit interior lighting. I'm going with the battery operated kits from Layouts4U (although I could have sourced the components separately and more cheaply via E-Bay I know. Here are a couple of images of R4876 - the LH bow ended brake 3rd: I fitted some Kaydees but after I found that the 18s I fitted are not long enough. Next opportunity I have it will be down to my local model railway store and get a couple of packs each of 19s and 20s. I'll post photos of my progress with this very simple project, but the first snag I have it is actually getting inside the coaches. I thought that they would unclip at each corner and and attempted to use some old business card (do people still use those? I have loads from my old job that I never gave out but kept getting new sets every couple of years...) to unclip the corners but either I wasn't forceful enough or that isn't the way to separate chassis and body. Would really welcome explanations / illustrations on how to master this very basic step.

That is an amazing resource Some great photos there.

I think the likely list of products we don't want produced is below:

I've got a few of those myself and I did wonder which was the best Kadee to use. Thanks!

That is spectacular Chris. Incredible work.

I'd held off pre-ordering one as I've been trying to cut down on my train spending, but having seen that sample - resistance was futile! Sound-fitted 7801 pre-ordered!

Thanks Andy - that's great news. Any ideas on when there will be a price point for the Titfield Thunderbolt range?

I'm keen to order from Australia. Happy to order from the UK, but keen to understand how it will work.

I was actually thinking along the lines of the Magnorail cyclists.... but using the arms instead of the legs as the clear plastic wheel revolves!

But do you have an animated man driven by a servo or a stepper motor to actually move it? Seriously though, this work is so impressive!

Just had my order for the Siphon H canned. Not thrilled. Been on pre-order for months.

I'll wait until Rapido are taking pre-orders themselves but will definitely be in the market for a deluxe pack. I suspect I'll end up with the buffet car as well, particularly if it is offered on its own.

My sound fitted 6336 4S-043-001DS arrived last week and on Friday evening I had the chance to try it out on my local club's layout "Tulong" (named after the time it took to build!). It ran faultlessly, the sound quality was excellent and I could not fault the locomotive. Delighted with the purchase!

It looks like the decoder and speaker will end up in the tender. However, it means I have to have 6 wires (pick-ups, motor, and firebox glow that cross from tender to the locomotive. Haven't yet plucked up the inner fortitude to tackle it...