mevaman

Awful livery.

 

How about we repaint a few GWR locos into GBRf livery? What about Scotsman or Tornado - they’d look good in GBRf blue?

 

I am afraid that using branding to change heritage locos is a big nooooooo for me. I won’t be going out to see them now. Glad I had them both at the SVR.

I would expect Hornby to match liveries to its own similar and complementary products rather than those of another, competing manufacturer.

And there is the nub of a common problem. Different suppliers using different livery interpretations. Hornby would sell more if they matched the colours of their stock with the coaches that would form a prototypical rake.

My money is going to continue to head to Bachmann despite the higher price if Hornby match the colours to their Mk2es.

Another question. Will Hornby get the colours on the blue/grey coaches to match my Bachmann Mk1 buffets and Mk2s? I have a rake of Hornby Mk2es and they look pants when in a train with my Bachmann stock.

 

Otherwise a good announcement.

Just received my order. Fantastic wagons - some of the best I’ve seen. Thankyou Ben and Mike for your hard work and attention to detail.

 

I now have to work out where I am going to store them as my wife tells me that the railway room is ‘full’!!

I know that this doesn’t really help but I have fitted mine with a Dapol Imperium and all works fine.

 

You could try asking the guys/girls at Kernow.

This is the wrong place to discuss this as it has nothing to do with Hatton Commissions.

 

I would repost in the Model Shops section.

Classy52

These prices are the new ‘normal’. For a super-detailed model that replaces a basic Hornby rendition, the pricing seems reasonable to me.

Kernow have had the Mk 2fs, POTs and DBSO for several days so I think any conjecture over supply to ‘box shifters’ is misfounded!

Network Rail pair for me.

There is a photo of 37175 accelerating out of Fort Bill on 28 May 1985 with 3 vans (VBA/VAA?) and 7 PRAs in ‘37s in the Highlands’ by Roger Siviter. This book was published by Kingfisher Railway Productions in 1989.

Simple maths:

 

Trade price £5, Retail price £10. Retailer buys 10 of them. He pays £50.

To break even, he must sell 5 of them at £10 each.

If he sells 6, he makes £10 profit. 7, he makes £20, and so on.

If he sells the last one at £1, he has made £41 profit in total.

Did he actually sell number 10 at a loss?

 

Stewart

Yep!

 

I am an accountant and this is dangerous thinking as you will need to make a certain gross margin to cover your operating costs, some of which are fixed (such as business rates, shop rent, wages that are not zero hours etc.).

 

So the last item you sell, you still will have fixed costs to enable you to process the sale.

 

The risk with selling excess stock at a loss is that you risk running out of cash if you wipe out the profit that you made on the earlier sales.

 

Andrew

What some of you don’t appreciate is that retailers will sell at a loss to shift stock. This generates cash and, ultimately, in business cash is king.

 

In a nutshell, Hattons and others will be making losses on some of their lines in order to move excess stock.

I have mentioned previously that things might have happened either on depot or at works after delivery - could you reference the link (or book for the photo please. But assuming it is the one of D600 in the Swindon wood yard (judging by the background) the doors do appear to look green and it is probable they were repainted off the loco. Originally it definitely had black battery box covers as various monotone pictures make clear simply by consistency of tone.

Hi Mike, the books are referenced in my earlier posts. One is from the Strathwood stable and the other is from the Ian Allen Portfolio series.

Well it was very definitely black on D601 when new and the same on either D600 or D602 (one of which I saw from ground level in the part of Laira long shed converted for diesel servicing. I remember the surprise of a green lower bodyside on the D8XX 'Waships' compared with the black which I had up to then seen on the D6XX and the EE Type 4 D200s.

Mike, the photo that I refer to is of D600 after overhaul at Swindon in May 1962 with a green battery box cover - the other is missing. It is not a trick of the light but simply the same colour as the body. Have you seen the photo? This may lead you to question your assertion.

 

 

I think we have seen enough pictures to conclude the fuel tank battery box was green on delivery, but what colour they were on repaint but still in green livery or when repainted into blue livery is still not clear.

 

Also green after overhaul not just after delivery.

Same photo on page 8 of ‘The WR Diesel-Hydraulics’ (Rail Portfolios 10) has the photo dated 6 May 1962. The box cover is definitely green in this reproduction.

D600 on page 104 of ‘Sixties Diesel & Electric Days Remembered V’ has a green battery box cover. The photo is dated May 1962 after an overhaul. You can clearly see the colour difference between the bogies and the cover. The former are black and the latter are green.

I cheekily suggest that we have a poll ‘Green’ or ‘Not Green’ and exclude anyone who is colour blind!

I have photos of Evian liveried wagons at St Blazey working China clay.

 

They were pretty regular and I have seen as many as 4 sets on the Enterprise services.

With the price of models nowadays, surely they will be delivered personally and in Rolls Royces!

I realised this after I had posted! I have looked at the BFYE version on the Hattons website and the blue looks the same.

 

I have calmed down now!

I am really disappointed as I hoped that the bluey/green colour of the first batch of locos would be corrected. This has been done for the small yellow panel locos but not the full yellow panel. Why on earth didn’t Dapol simply use the same blue paint for both!

Grrrrrr.

Normally Kernow will make a note on a customer’s account if they have a specific request. I reckon this was down to human error.

Coachman

 

This is really helpful. I hadn’t thought about sleeper thickness (although this is obvious - duh!).

 

I may opt for C & L sleepers with Peco code 75 Flat Bottom rail. The idea of filing down the Flat Bottom at the ends makes most sense.

 

I will also look at the Exactiscale joiners.

 

Andrew

Peco bullhead joins to Peco Code 75 flat-bottom no problems apart from the Peco rail joiners being a tight fit on the bullhead rail section. These rail joiners are actually quite slack on C&L and SMP bullhead rail. The bigger problem is sleeper thickness. Peco bullhead, Code 75 flat bottom and C+L 'hi-sleeper' all share the same sleeper thickness. C+L 'normal', SMP and DCC Concepts have thinner sleepers.