BachelorBoy

I am very sceptical that China will build a network of lines from the Cape to Cairo, because it's railway projects in Africa aren't great successes.

Any thoughts too on modelling bamboo scaffolding too?

Hornby are careless with brands, sometimes. I think they squandered "Bassett-Lowke"

My eyesight is deteriorating. There will probably come a time when I can't see well enough to stick or solder tiny bits together. But big, bright zoominable computer screens are much easier on the eye. So, I am trying, wth slow progress, to learn 3D design and so can continue to create models that way. I've just got to (metaphorically) get off my lazy fat arse* more often. *And literally too, and do more exercise.

An extra vote from me for Boomer. He is incredible. He seems like a talented artist who decided, instead of painting or sculpture, he'd model railways.

You might be surprised by the number of swastikas in Asia. It's used as symbol to represent the creativity of God/good fortune/the universe, still There are Red Swastika Schools in Hong Kong and Singapore. And it's not unusual for statues and pictures of Buddha to show a swastika on his chest.

I worked for an American company that gave US staff options to buy shares at a fixed price. When the scheme was started that fixed price was well below the price on the stock market. The company was not very well run. The share price started to decline, and dropped below the fixed price staff could pay. This was bad for morale.

Some financial advisors say if you are an ordinary worker, you should sell the shares once you receive them, and put the money into your pension, or other investments. Imagine if your employer goes bust: not only do you lose your job, but your shares become worthless.

Waving or drowning? :-)

It might get worse, as the management is changing the set up to have brands running themselves.

If you type Option and ' on a Mac, you can (with some other letters too of course) spell "archaeologist" as "archæologist". Classy, eh?

I think it's because the cold chain is not so reliable in Malaysia. Personally I really like the Australian recipe.

I'm slightly puzzled why OO modellers accept 1:72 models, but not 1:80.

Hornby TT120 was cheaper in the very early days to attract people -- an introductory discount. Hornby accepted lower profits on each item (or even losses) to build a group of TT120 modellers who were prepared to take a chance. Lower prices meant the early buyers would lose less money if they decided they didn't like the scale, or if Hornby later abandoned it and they were left with unfinished layouts with not enough locos. (Hornby also built trust with customers by announcing lots of future models too) As TT120 becomes established, new modellers in the scale are taking less risk, and so Hornby can raise prices You have to be careful with low prices. Price can be a sign of quality. If you keep prices low for too long, customers may conclude that Hornby TT120 isn't very good, or they may expect it to be cheap for ever, or both and Hornby has less freedom to raise prices and margins. Heljan may well have been sceptical about Hornby's ability to make TT120 a success, and so decided to wait and see. Hornby's probably done much more market research that Heljan could do quickly about TT120. Too much uncertainty. If it launched the 31 in the early days, it would be taking a risk on Hornby's abilities, and, would probably not make much return on investment if it had to price the 31 to match Hornby. So why waste resources on competing with Hornby? Plus, the more manufacturers making GB120 locos and rolling stock, the more chance there is the scale will succeed. So Heljan might actually be helping Hornby by expanding the range of products. Why help a rival? If TT120 proved to be a disaster for Hornby, and it abandoned ship, Heljan might also find itself with toolings that were no longer any use, and therefore were worthless, and a warehouse full of unsold stock. So, much better for Heljan to wait, and concentrate on scales it knows best. Hornby has very helpfully mapped out its future products ... Heljan (and others) can work out where the lucrative gaps are. In the meantime, let Hornby put lots of capital at risk. If TT120 is successful, Heljan can benefit from Hornby's investment. If TT120 is a failure for Hornby, that will be a big blow to Hornby, and to the benefit of Heljan. (An alternative view: use real options analysis. It might be better for Heljan to launch a small range of TT120 stuff even if it loses money, because it might be easier and cheaper to scale that up if TT120 is successful to take advantage of demand, than starting a TT120 range from scratch in a few years time.)

You seem to be suggesting that they lied. I suspect cockup is more likely than conspiracy, and they just got it wrong. Or they got it right, but the management decided, for other reasons (such as risk, return on capital, allocation of resources) that there was no point going ahead.

Newspaper picture editors choose the most interesting pictures. If there were stunning pictures of the politician catching a ball that were better than pix of him fumbling it, they would have used them.

Ditto Mrs Thatcher's "no such thing as society" comment.

A very helpful post. Thank you, sir.* *Or madam :-)

i bet your parties are dull

From 2015: How did this work out? A gimmick that died quickly? Or am I being too cynical?

Then again, how much are the free float shares being depressed in value because the minority shareholders have very little influence over the way the company is run?

Brilliant. Simple to understand and communicate. You're hired. I've always thought "Railroad" is confusing, as it sounds American, or possibly that it integrates with model cars too. But then Hornby squanders brands. Hammant and Morgan has almost disappeared as a sub-brand. And I wonder how much damage has been done to Bassett-Lowke by steampunk fiasco. Is it repairable, or now a lost cause?

it will be interesting to see how many people switch from other scales to TT120 ... and in the process buy again all the locos they used to own in N or OO, etc. A bit like how CD makers cashed in as everyone bought CD versions of the records they owned. (NB I am making this comment here, and not in the TT120 threads, as the TT120 fans seem to be very sensitive)

Interesting! So if the main shareholder is a big lender too, are there any financial shenanigans it could engage in, such as making Hornby deliberately miss debt repayments, so the firm could be wound up and it gets all the assets for almost nothing?

One of my favourite graphs. If you'd bought £100 of Hornby shares in 1993, they'd now be worth about £50.