Widnes Model Centre

Just a quick few words from me and mine. Haha, me and a quick few words are not really synonymous. Thank you to everyone who has given us support over the past 24 hours. The PM’s, emails, telephone calls but especially the support on this Forum has been fantastic. Might be a good time to mention our ‘noisy neighbours’ in Widnes. A lot of comments on here, for and against Hattons. Yes, as others have pointed out their physical shop is still closed. I believe the owner made a commitment to keep his staff as safe as possible. No one can dare criticise that ethos. What most won’t know is that during the time Hattons shop has been closed a banner has been placed at the entrance gate. The banner reads to the effect that the store is closed. Order online or by telephoning the Call Centre. It then reads again paraphrasing, The nearest model shop is Widnes Model Centre about ten minutes from here. Complete with our contact details including our full address. Hattons actually contacted me to ask if it was okay to put the banner up! Didn’t have to think about that for very long! Hopefully that will put a smile on your face and certainly worthy of a round of applause? Now that is a company helping their local model shop. Thank you Richard Davies of Hattons you made sure we have reached this point in the Covid pandemic.

Once again Mike, you have distracted me from what l should be doing. In short, just told what Band we were in. Excellent points raised. We have had numerous poor quality websites. We have been unlucky in our choices. We paid £7000 for an all singing and dancing website. It was more like a broken record. So much so the Director gave us all our money back. That’s how bad it was! Not sure why but he left and set up his own business. The current website he donated by way of an apology. He became a friend. We have been operating with an online presence for more than ten years. Mail order to us is picking up the telephone or answering an email. We have one customer who does write to us and that’s refreshing that people haven’t forgotten how to write a nice letter. We have a Facebook page with nearly 7,000 followers. We post regular updates and orders come flooding in, especially on Friday evening when we put any new arrivals into stock. The vast majority of which are collected very quickly. I know we spend less than a £100 a year on advertising, all on Facebook. Proof of the pudding was during Lockdown. Notes stuck through the door, shop phone redirected to my mobile. Had to have it plugged in to keep the battery topped up. If l am being totally honest it was exhausting. It was practically 24/7 and often customers just wanted to talk. Especially those who were on their own. Financially it wasn’t great for the hours we were putting in, but it was something coming in rather than nothing. Blowing our our own Trumpet? Yes, because we were providing real customer service and at times it was real fun. Nothing can take away the pleasure of handing over a parcel with paints etc or whatever to a customer who hadn’t seen anyone for days, possibly months. You cant do that even with the best website in the world.

Well, had chance to read all of this. Despite what you might think, we are very much in Hornby’s camp. Am l going to return all my items that l have treasured for so many years? No. If l wanted l certainly would, but as Binns Road has gone certainly not driving down to Margate. Family history of connections to Binns Road would have my mother and aunts turning in their graves. Thinking aloud, why was it the women in the family that worked there? Communication from Hornby needs work. I suspect they know that. Openness, honesty and integrity are big in our business. We expect the same, no matter who we are dealing with, be it customers or suppliers. We would like to get to the bottom of the Tier System, metaphorically speaking. It seems to us a tad flawed. As a family run business we are all in agreement. This is last year or so has seen challenges that l suspect none of us could ever have envisaged. As a model shop, we have to be grateful that we are still in business. We have seen too many businesses go to the wall and the jobs that go with them. Calls to boycott Hornby? Why would anyone want to see the company that has fulfilled our childhood dreams in various guises disappear? Tired now, still got work to do on a promotion. If l don’t get it right my wife Gill will have me in Tiers. Final word, who saw their first model railway in a Department store? I did.

I very much get your point. We do have a very effective Mail Order and local delivery service which we introduced at the beginning of the pandemic. Thank you for the Bold Lettering, it has helped. Key word repeated here; invariably These retailers invariably have an effective website As I don't have permission from Hornby to quote and or reproduce any communication from them. Our email is worded differently.

Many thanks for your kind words. Shop looks a bit different from the photo and when you last visited. We now have even more stock and a different layout, not to mention lots of Covid screens.

Having not read all the posts, we are willing to state our position. We are in Tier 2. We stock Model Railways, Airfix, Scalextric, Humbrol and Corgi of the Hornby brands. You will be very disappointed if you visit as we have no heritage or museum items on display. If Dan at Derails and ourselves compared ages, Dan would say... ‘you’re the museum pieces’. You have to laugh or we would end up in Tiers. l know many on here have visited our shop. Do you think we are Tier 2 shop?

Well spotted. Believe it or not, that is exactly what l meant. Must be tired. I had to read my post again to see what l had written. Same principle though, trying to deduct the money from the days takings might not only attract VAT but the VAT Inspectors as well. Monday l will speak with our friendly HMRC office and seek their advice. Incidentally, we only found out about the charge on the BBC news website which led to discovering the penalty for failing to comply. You are always welcome with our favourite photographer to stand outside our door next time you are Up North.

Thankfully we have a really great, supportive customer base. We lost £10,000’s in sales during Lockdown but saved an absolute fortune on tea, coffee etc. Every cloud.... We don’t need to keep any records of bag sales strangely enough. Adding it to a till receipt l see as problematic. Last Saturday we had 65 paying customers. Yes, since we reopened it has been like Christmas. If they all had one bag that would be £6.50 ‘extra’ in sales. That would attract VAT. We have a charity box at the till and we are asking for 10p to go in the box. Not exactly a ‘contactless payment ‘. Although l agree with the plastic bag principles. I had one customer today who spent just short of £200 on paints. Went and found a large paper carrier bag. Conscience got the better of me and l put 10p in the charity box. How could l have asked him for 10p? We have been entertained with a few songs this evening. I will add another... Who knows what tomorrow brings..... ?

Sadly Mike, you are now behind the times. We have a very vigilant Local Authority. “ In order to serve refreshments the customer must be seated at a table. They may remove their face covering in order to eat and or drink”. With us limiting customers in the shop to four or groups of four, not much room for a table and chairs. We have had two inspections in the past year. Now awaiting the third because... From Friday 21st May 2021 we now have to charge 10p for a plastic bag. Failure to charge will result in a £200 fine, reduced to £100 if paid, if l recall correctly fourteen days. We have also been advised that ‘Test purchases’ can be used. The fine can rise to £ thousands if you particularly naughty. I think l would rather tell someone that l couldn’t honour their pre order than ask for 10p! One thing after another...... So next time you get a chance to visit your nearest model shop, have a drink before you get there, expect someone to shout if you dawdle and take a plastic bag. Back to normal on the 21st of June. Really?

Off topic from the main thread but l would like to add: Just to reinforce what Gareth is saying. Our mail order has gone back to pre pandemic levels. Mail order is also a small part of our business. You may be surprised to know it is for a lot of shops. We we are certainly on Saturdays seeing queues outside from opening to closing times. It is heartwarming to see customers return, also heartbreaking as we know of customers who didn’t survive the pandemic. A lot if shops have reduced their opening times to accommodate cleaning regimes. We are also still finding local delivery is still in demand for those customers who don’t want to or feel uncomfortable returning to normalish shopping. As for Model shops in this area.? I can think of ten shops, all within thirty minutes drive from our shop. At least nine of them sell Model Railway’s. Forty five minutes drive will find you at least five possibly six more Model shops. So so there are plenty of Model shops, you are just living in the wrong part of the country. Somewhat a tongue in cheek comment. Certainly true in our case that customer loyalty is very much in prominence.

Doubt they came in a plastic insert like this though Jason. Barry

Yes, you could from memory get an Arsenal and came with Leeds United as alternative plates, it was only the metal plates that were different. They all came with two teams. However if you look at mine, the tender isn’t lined. No lining or numbering on loco body. Even the paint looks like it’s given a thinner coat on the undecorated side.

Correct, Henners84. I bought it as an unboxed loco but in plastic inner,eBay auction . The inner says R133 Sample. 1994. I can only presume l actually bought a Hornby pre production sample. As l said, never noticed for years,

Great win. However you haven’t spotted why it’s probably different to every B17. Look again..... Don’t forget it’s Everton and doesn’t always pan out the way we think it should. It took me about five years to even notice. Barry

Is it anything like my B17 Everton? Look carefully.

I have been following this topic with great commercial and personal interest. Having been a Hornby stockist in the bad old days. We could order what we liked in pretty much any quantities. Delivery and out into the shelves. Fantastic. First customer through the door... ‘do you price match Hornby?’. Check Hornby website and it’s being sold for less than we paid for it. Angry phone call... basically that’s tough... Jump forward to 2020 and Hornby are producing some fabulous products. Announcements made, order in within minutes of the announcement. Let’s use the scenario of what might have happened with the Limited Edition Triangle Rocket. I can almost see the place where the Trials took place. Making 500, bold gamble ‘we will have them all’. Hornby...’ you’re not being fair’. You can’t have them all. But l know we can sell them, Hornby won’t sell them to us. Commercially, Hornby have produced a product and sold them all. Happy shareholders. Unhappy, all the rest of the Hornby stockists . A bit bit far fetched, yes, but no? Hornby are in the business of selling to make a profit , they could have sold them all and saved on sending multiple parcels all over the country. Thankfully for all retailers they haven’t operated like that. Instead they have an allocation process. l am fairly sure when Hornby decide on numbers for a production run, the most important consideration is that run will sell out. Stock in warehouses is a financial liability. Fast forward to the start of this topic. When Hornby decided on numbers, there was no pandemic and no one had heard of Fairlough, Covid and Lockdown would have been the latest film on Sky Cinema. The last twelve months and some more has seen unprecedented gardening, decorating etc. More importantly model railways are being turned into layouts instead of having to find the time to do it, we had plenty of time. So Hornby decided to make 500 of a model, 600 were sold on various websites, customers in the shop etc. Only solution is to cut back on allocation and try and do it fairly. Disappointed retailers, customers and very disappointed Hornby no doubt. Hornby could of course return to the ‘bad old days’ and we could return to the Fire Sales. Results? Very angry retailers, even angrier customers who had bought at full price and now see it at half the price on Hornby’s website. Retailers having to slash their prices just to get something back. Outcome? Another model shop decides it’s no longer worth staying open. Conclusion? Can only give my thoughts. We would love to have more Hornby products that are guaranteed to sell. We would all want to satisfy customers and not have to let anyone down. For that matter we would all love customers who don’t let retailers down. Reading about placing multiple orders to make sure that you get your order from anywhere could just be artificially making the problem worse. We sell out to pre order and then we have the order cancelled by customers who have placed orders with multiple retailers. We will have turned down pre orders as we had sold our allocation. Apologies for the long post. As can be seen this is just my thoughts. Our overriding wish is for Hornby to survive. Indeed my late mother may well have been involved in the building of that old loco in Binns Road, Liverpool. P.s. If you are wondering why l am writing this on a busy Saturday afternoon.? Currently nursing a bad back!

Hope to be reopening on Monday 12th April 2021 Opening times: 10am until 3pm Monday to Friday. 10am until 4pm Saturday. Closed Sunday 128 Widnes Road, Widnes WA8 6AX 0151 424 1196 Reduced hours as above, as we have been asked to continue our local delivery service. No queuing before Midnight.

Last October l posted our experience for the six months from when Lockdown first started with a threat to update in six months time. Here it is: Just over 12 months ago we had not long returned from the Model Rail Scotland Exhibition. Some complaints were heard about feeling unwell from exhibitors at the show. Most of them put it down to lack of sleep and generally having a great time. Then 12 months ago today we were on a short break in a caravan in North Wales. My wife called me to come and see the news. We were given a few hours to leave as the Welsh government was locking it’s borders. Did anyone ever envisage not being permitted to travel to Wales? We all know what has happened since. The Model Trade has done it’s very best to keep us all modelling with a tremendous effort. Supply issues continue. I am reliably informed that some containers are now 350% more expensive than 12 months ago. Assuming that the container ship can get into a UK port. We have been closed in our case for the vast majority of the year. In between National and Local Lockdowns. At one stage and for a short period of time we were one of only four shops in the country allowed to have customers in the shop. We are sadly very aware that we have lost family , friends and customers to this dreadful disease. They remain in our daily thoughts. Mass vaccination has given us renewed hope and the Light at the end of the Tunnel will hopefully be soon shining bright . Assuming we can get the bulb off- loaded with correct paperwork from Felixstowe. The Exhibition circuit will eventually resume but how many of us will be willing to attend? Scotland 2022 is in my diary, nothing before that for me. l regularly speak with quite a number of shops , the networking between us had been absolutely fantastic, supportive and deserves a mention. How many have closed? We won’t l suspect know until the great Opening day arrives. We have been told that Covid 19 Compliance will be the way to remain open, or else. .. So it will still be Hands-Face-Space. Wouldn’t it be great to return to the setting were anyone coming into the shop wearing a mask was intent on committing crime? Now not wearing a mask triggers a different reaction. Assuming we can get to all open on the 12th of April your local Model Shop will be delighted to see you. I will be absolutely delighted to not have to give another update on this subject. Fingers and toes crossed. Stay Safe and Well. Barry, Gill and Tom.

Hi Les, good to see one less thief. We took the decision to inform all our shoplifters that they would not be allowed in the shop until the Government says it is safe to do so. They still have to sanitize their hands and wear a mask. The last time I actually went into any shop was my local hardware shop. If they don't have something they send customers to us and vice versa. They sell, wood, paints, brushes, tools, sand paper, adhesives, nut, bolts, screws and ladders. Err, so do we.....

With many topics covering the current Hornby Rocket etc. I came across this on a local Liverpool History site. Court Hey park runs alongside the Liverpool to Manchester M62 motorway and further over is the main railway line. The drive towards the parking area at Court Hey Park is lined by sandstone sleepers, on which bolt holes and fish-plate indentations can clearly be seen. These are original sleepers from the Liverpool & Manchester Railway when it opened in 1830 and obtained by Robertson Gladstone of Court Hey Hall (a railway director) when it was renovated. Gladstone was the elder brother of four times Prime Minister, William Gladstone. Certainly different to what we would recognize as sleepers today. I used to live behind the green fencing and when walking the dog never realized as I stepped up onto the grass area exactly what these stones were. Photo credit to Steve Horton; Liverpool Hidden History.

Hi Liam, Sorry you feel this way. May l point out that we are not a shop to interrogate customers and the post l think you are referring to was not posted by ourselves. Looks like that post has now been removed but I do recall you posting on there. If you consider our shop and therefore my family to be discriminating against people with disabilities may l be permitted to state the following? From 1992 until 2006, my family and I gave up nearly all of our annual leave and a lot of weekends to assist in the UK with Disabled Sport. We travelled the world at our own expense to help organise and assist in Disability sports. I myself was a Director of the Charity. I am proud to say l was able and honoured to represent England in international tournaments. My wife was selected to represent Canada in the World Championships. Sadly age and our own business meant we had to step down but still keep in touch with the organisation. Still very much miss the camaraderie and was only reminiscing on New Year’s Day with my disabled sport partner of the time when we were British Masters Champions three years on the run. Still think we are ‘that type of shop?’

Thank you for your kind comments. Our own Facebook post was shared far and wide on Social Media. There were some negative comments on some of the Model Railway forums, answered by members of those Groups. The one's above are not from our own page. The support we received was outstanding. Over 22,000 people have viewed our Facebook post to date. The three of us spent most of Sunday and Monday evening replying to as many as physically possible. On our own Facebook page, support was just like the Sanitizer sat on my desk 99.99% effective. I would like to add that the 0.01% negative post was from a poster who had a horrific lung condition, I have to take his word for that as we have done with a lot of customers. A quick look at his Facebook profile showed he had fairly recently walked nearly 4km, with 33,000+ steps and walked up 12 flights of stairs. I will leave you to draw your own conclusion on that one. On the point of whether we have discriminated: We have served and allowed into the shop genuinely exempt people. A father and son who had to lip read. Others with clear issues. We have offered them the use of a mask or a face shield. Not cheap but safety first. But we first made sure they were the only ones in the shop at that time. Customers were very understanding on this. We have kept the double doors open with the back door also open to ensure good ventilation. Cleaning work surfaces between customers whenever we could. With the thousands of pounds we have spent on PPE, cleaning and perspex screens, we made the shop as Covid Secure as we could. We did refuse access to the "you're not making me wear a muzzle", "fake virus" types. The guy who had breathing difficulties who came in sporting the gym wear from the gym across the road still sweating from his workout claiming he was exempt. "We don't wear face masks, government plans to track us all". One of whom did put on a mask when I pointed out that it would hide his identity from the government watchdogs. Genuine customers were not the ones abusing us. On a really positive note; only one customer was known to us. Clearly Boris follows our Facebook page as he decided to follow our example....... Stay Safe and thank you.

Hi all, Posting our Facebook page updates for our customers not on Social Media. Final straw was Gill getting spat at. Be nice to your shops, we all need each other. Widnes Model Centre is sharing a COVID-19 update sharing a COVID-19 update sharing a COVID-19 update.Published by Barry Williams · 15 m · Hi all, following a discussion with all three of us, Barry, Gill and Tom. It is with a very heavy heart we have decided to close the shop to customers actually entering the premises. We have not taken this decision lightly and financially this past trading year as you would imagine has been disastrous. But health and safety of ourselves and our customers has to be our highest priority. This past week has seen us having customers coming in from the South East, The Midlands, Yorkshire and Lancashire as well as the surrounding Tier 4 areas. We have received an unbelievable amount of abuse from people who we have requested to wear masks and sanitize their hands. We have been threatened with being reported and action taken against us for discriminating against those who are, they say "exempt". Even though we have offered to serve them without entering the shop. The effect this had had on ourselves has not been good. We are a small family run business, we are human beings trying our best for our customers and ourselves. Being threatened once too many times has been to say the least "discouraging". At best we are not achieving our goal of keeping anybody coming into our shop Safe and comfortable. We will still be offering sales at the front door during our normal open days of Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. 10am until 3pm. We sincerely hope you will all understand the reasons for us doing this and look forward to fully opening the shop as soon as it is safe to do so.

Not really sure where to start, but here is as good a place as any: We congratulate all the shops who have made it to Christmas in what has been an incredibly difficult year for us all. Open, closed, open again, closed again, wonder what next week/month/year will bring? We have on many fronts been acting like a Band of Brothers to satisfy our customers needs through our own form of Mutual Aid and we think this deserves recognition on this very special Christmas Eve. So, in alphabetical order, we thank, Stuart at Ashton Models, Mike at C and M Models, Dan at DeRails, Richard at Hattons and Gareth and team at Trains4U. Would have been an even bigger struggle without you guys. We place our thanks on record to Hornby, Peco, Gaugemaster,Accurascale, Metcalfe Models, Expo Tools and Drills and Javis Manufacturing for all their help with our model railway supplies. Merry and Peaceful Christmas to You all. Barry, Gill and Tom. Widnes Model Centre

Can anyone who has received 371-111A confirm the directional lighting? Catalogue just says "fitted with directional lighting". Illuminated Headcode box and rear red lights. Is this correct?