1andrew1

Oxford Diecast confirmed that some projects were paused including the crane. They seem to suggest it's the next rail project after the J26.

See 1:08:13 onwards. https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OyKAWMPPlLJb

On 31/08/2023 at 00:25, 64F said:

Various first shots of forthcoming models have been shown on Oxford Diecast's facebook page over the last month or so - N-gauge Fiesta mk.I, Escort mk.II, Cortina mk.V and Capri mk.III, OO-gauge Metro, MG Midget mk.III and Dennis Eagle refuse truck.   

All looking pretty good with the exception of the Cortina, which unfortunately seems to have been modelled with a spoiler and splitter which I don't think were even factory options in the UK.  Either it is based on an export 'S' model or a tacky aftermarket customisation. Instantly the appeal of the model is reduced by 95%.  I had hoped over time to fill a rake of Revolution Cartics with these, but that will need to be re-thought.  Why on earth do manufacturers do this sort of thing...?

I would call this a spoiler alert 😂

13 hours ago, Hroth said:

I don't know if Laurie had anything to do with the metal steampunk figures, but they were well made and ideal for Discworld themed layouts...

 

They were apparently manufactured for Hornby by Warlord Games. So one key benefit of Steampunk is that it may have encouraged Hornby to invest in Warlord which looks a good idea.

13 hours ago, JSpencer said:

Hornby have rights to Warner Brothers (or did have), so there was a ton of stuff to explore would could have tied in eventually to steam punk.

 

Imagine scale figures of DC heros in 1/76th scale or other scales they normally do for example?

 

Hornby had the rights to Harry Potter which have now lapsed but not to the entire Warner Bros IP.

On 19/08/2023 at 10:49, Michael Hodgson said:

On the other hand Ive always rather liked the contemptuous way the Welsh have of referring to a box of matches as England's Glory.

England's Glory is a brand of matches so I don't think it's contemptuous. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/England's_Glory

19 hours ago, ellocoloco said:

My wife overheard the Noch haunted house above.....................and immediately gave permission to buy one!  How do I get out of this???? Its horrible!

It made me laugh! :)

Here's hoping Hornby or Bachmann do one for the UK.

1 minute ago, Gatesheadgeek said:

Was more Hornby railways I was worried about. There’s a trainy thing in one of the recent films. Was it Solo? Airfix would presumably be a good fit.

Palitoy in the early 1980s offered the MPC Star Wars kits under the Airfix brand. However, Revell now seems to have the licence. (Revell also has the James Bond licence too.)

https://www.revell.de/en/products/licences/star-wars/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=home-cat-en&utm_campaign=star-wars

39 minutes ago, ruggedpeak said:

Was in a department store the other day...

Could the reduction of high street retailers spell an opportunity for Hornby World? Is there an opening for Hornby World in department stores? 

1 hour ago, Chris M said:

The question for me is who will the replacements be? They need to bring in someone who is good at marketing and also understands the model railway marketplace. There aren't many of them around. As has been shown in the past marketing experts who don't understand the world of model railways don't tend to do very well for themselves or the company that employs them. 

Hornby employs 212 people. There who could be successful internal applicants for the roles who tick those boxes and would like to develop their careers in the sector without relocating from the Margate area.

11 hours ago, BachelorBoy said:

It seems to me that Hornby, even after a few decades, struggles with outsourcing to China. Quality is not consistent. It's not great at dealing retailers and customers either. Profits are elusive too. 

 

As people sometimes point out, Hornby is more than model railways -- especially since it's bought 25% of Warlord Games and has an option to buy it entirely. 

 

But Hornby is the best brand name in British railway modelling.

 

So why not just try to sell the brand name (and perhaps all the minor continental brands), and all the moulds. to a company in China that makes its own stuff in its own factories, but doesn't have such a good brand name?

 

(Hornby's share price is so low at the moment that the company's stock market value is LESS than the book value of all the assets. In other words, Hornby is worth more dead than alive.  You could in theory buy Hornby and sell off all the assets and make a profit. The current management is SUBTRACTING value.)

 

Most model railway companies seem to have struggled outsourcing to China. The issue with retailers seems to be more of a Hornby thing but solvable.

A profitable international company like Simba Dickie Group (owners of LGB, Trix and Marklin) would be a logical buyer of Hornby. Or as you say, a Chinese OEM looking to acquire a brand and distribution in the West, mirroring Kader's acquisition of Bachmann. However, Phoenix seems to be committed to an independent Hornby Hobbies for the time being, with Hornby Railways at its heart.

5 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

One piece of hard information: 8 years after release the Oxford Rail Radials have not "sold through". Nor have the Dean Goods roughly 5 years after release. 

 

By any normal standard these models have been serious commercial failures

 

The Oxford Rail Mk3s were irredeemably flawed (the tooling couldn't be rectified and has no future)

 

There have evidently been a significant level of non-working returns. The only other case where I can remember non-working examples of a RTR loco being sold off by the manufacturer is the Hattons Class 66. There certainly must have been a large stock of dud returns for such a sell-off to be practical.

 

While many on here may have liked the models as a budget range at attractive price, the price clearly did not shift the products. That amounts to commercial failure

 

Far from Oxford Rail being a great success snuffed out when they fell under the Dark Shadow of Margate , it seems to me that Lynton Davies managed to sell the company on before the problems became apparent, and I suspect Hornby Hobbies bought a pup.

 

Nobody would dare to point that out while he was CEO at Hornby . Now he has moved on - I suspect the new regime's view is that Oxford Rail produced models that didn't sell and created an inventory problem, as well as being unreliable product. If the locos didn't sell, and many of the ones that did came back as returns because they didn't work, it is unlikely that the product turned a profit, especially when sold at a lower price point to begin with.  On top of that, there is the question of brand coherence and where they fit

 

A small subsiduary that makes products that don't sell, and frequently don't work, at a loss; and which doesn't really sit anywhere in a mess of branding is an obvious target for a new broom. "Why are we doing this?" is the obvious question for the new CEO to ask when he trips over a pile of Oxford Rail stock in the warehouse - and it's rather difficult to come up with a convincing answer.

 

The seperate company and the retail website will no doubt be maintained to the end of the current (new) financial year. Apart from anything else they need to offload the stuff sitting in the warehouse before shutting down the Oxford website: no doubt there will be an Oxford Rail clearance stand at Warley again this year. There may be a minority interest somewhere that stops integration

 

Many of the wagons could be integrated in the Hornby range (they've already shrunk the Oxford Rail tank wagon for TT120, which is a pointer) .A few of the locos might be re-run in some years time by Hornby.

 

But basically I think Oxford Rail is being closed down. Oxford Diecast may have to remain in legal existance if there is a minority interest, but Hornby do not need to produce any further models (or runs of models) under the Oxford brand.  It may make sense for the tooling of any wagons of interest to be transferred to Hornby - it would be a backdoor way of reducing a loss at Oxford Diecast, and anyone who goes to the new regime at Margate to pitch a OO wagon project might well face the argument "but we could just buy some Oxford tools for X - so why should we sink money into this?"

A thoughtful post. I agree with a lot of what you say. What I would note is:

• The strength of Oxford has been the diecast range, not the model rail range. I am pretty sure Hornby and Phoenix were aware of Oxford Rail's weakness before Hornby bought its initial stake in the parent company, LCD Enterprises. 
• Lyndon Davies is still employed by Hornby as Chairman and remains a director of Hornby plc and its subsidiaries. I suspect the directorships will end in due course. 
• I can certainly see the Oxford Rail brand being ditched but believe the Oxford Diecast brand will continue as it is more of a modelling brand than Corgi. I suspect the demise of Oxford Rail could be announced in passing at next month's AGM. 

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

Biggest problem with Oxford Rail is product availability.

I've been doing a bit of a trawl and find that very few (no?) retailers have decent stocks i.e. more than a few items from the range.

The PO wagons are largely sold out, a few company branded ones still around in limited quantities and others "on order".

OR can't be doing much business if that is the normal now.

Agreed. Not too much on the Oxford Rail site itself either.

On 01/08/2023 at 23:36, Clearwater said:

The problem with Margate isn’t necessarily is what is in the Centre but that it’s in Margate.  It’s geographically remote, hence also bad as a distribution centre, but won’t have anything like the passing casual visitors that another location might otherwise secure.

 

It’d be interesting to compare their visitor numbers with pecorama.  But the pecorama offering is quite multi-dimensional (gardens, soft play, mini railway, mini golf etc).  What exactly are they planning and how are they going to get the numbers to visit?

Agreed. At one stage, they were going to move to a more central location in Margate but that didn't happen due to the cost. 

Shopping centres are crying out for new tenants and the move to mixed retail and leisure could sit well with the new Hornby World concept if it included opportunities to try out Hornby and Scalextric products as well as buying them. 

It would be interesting to know how Bachmann's retail outlet is faring. I suspect that its location constrains it as well.

1 hour ago, BachelorBoy said:

So ... there's a growing chance that China might devalue the currency very sharply to get things going again.

 

That would suddenly make its exports much cheaper. Great news for Hornby.

Yes, but it would also make its warehouse stock worth less. The currency benefits would also be gained by its competitors as well.

I think this paragraph indicates why someone with solid retail experience was chosen as the new CEO, as well as helping Hornby to understand how the national retailers like The Entertainer work.

Quote

We have spent the last year developing plans to launch a multi-brand retail experience, bringing our key brands to life in a meaningful way. The aim of this work was to explore routes for creating and testing concepts that customers love and that can be subsequently rolled out across multiple sites, if successful. We have learned a great deal from the development process and, in January 2023 concluded that creating the first iteration of a new retail experience should be done on site in Margate, by reimagining and redeveloping the current Hornby Visitors’ Centre. Whilst this decision undoubtedly means we will be able to test and learn more effectively, helping us get to the best solution in a controlled way, it’s fair to say that the need to pivot our approach only became clear once we had carried out a substantial amount of development work.

1 hour ago, Ninefingers said:

They are trading off the name though, granny is more likely to buy an Airfix Sherman than a Revell one, little Johnny never knows that better kits exist.

Everyone trades off a name but it's no longer correct to suggest that Airfix are poorer kits than Revell. Under Hornby, their new kits are up there with the best in the business like Tamiya. Their Vintage Classics range fufill useful niches and doubtless fill the coffers.

2 hours ago, Ninefingers said:

Still churning out 50 year old kits from knackered moulds

Hornby have replaced most of of their popular models.  Older kits which they still offer now have their mould year marked on the boxes and are branded Vintage Classics with a 1980s Airfix logo. The moulds are cleaned up and feature Cartograf decals which have a great reputation in the industry. This is in contrast to Revell who use the same branding for their new moulds as they do for 50-year-old-moulds originally made by Frog and Matchbox. 

This is because Airfix has had investment under Hornby's ownership and in 2017 was one of Hornby's profitable brands. 

1 hour ago, HExpressD said:

That's the spirit, nothing like a bit of positivity! 

Airfix has flourished under Hornby's custodianship.

1 hour ago, Robin Brasher said:

Hornby's subsidiary Corgi is now selling reproduction Dinky Toys produced by Norev through the Corgi Model Club so it has branched out to improve Hornby's financial situation. 

Confusingly, the Corgi Model Club is not owned by Hornby. Hornby licences the brand name to a small independent company called Blue 14 D2C Ltd. So, I doubt Hornby benefits from the deal between Norev and Blue 14 D2C t/a as the Corgi Model Club.

https://corgimodelclub.com/pages/about-us

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11552224

On 07/07/2023 at 08:19, Fireline said:

I think that changed when they got rid of the "Woolworths" management team....

I don't think it has.  It's not been mentioned in Hornby's quite detailed annual report. In its latest accounts, it says Hornby Hobbies Limited is "engaged in the development, design, sourcing and distribution of models" whilst the European subsidiaries are described as "distributors of models."

Looks a logical acquisition to me with potential synergies down the line on procurement and distribution.

Games Workshop has stood out as a thriving British hobby brand so trying to get into that market makes good sense to me.

13 hours ago, HExpressD said:

Arnold R&D isn't done at Margate, it's done in their EU team offices

Unless it's a recent thing, Hornby hasn't done design in its overseas offices since about 2015. In its 2017 annual report it noted "European operations and product development centralised in the UK"

We've talked about which brands are most important to Hornby before. It's six years old, but back in 2017, Hornby's sales per its annual report were split:

• £22m Model railways of which Europe accounted for £6.4m
• £12m Scalextric 
• £6m Airfix 
• £4m Corgi 
• £2m Humbrol 

In terms of which brands were profitable, in a loss-making year, its priorities were cited on page 10 as "Building on the strong profitability of the Hornby, Airfix and Humbrol brands. If still correct today, this supports my earlier drastic solution of disposing of Corgi and Scalextric. I thought I hadn't plucked those two brands from nowhere.

36 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Perhaps the one thing to consider is how much Hornby needs TT120 to prosper.

 

OO is not getting any less competitive, no chance now of Hornby trying N gauge even though they have Arnold as a brand and skill for producing product, no chance of 009 either for that matter.  So the only route to profitability will be TT120.

 

It is struggling to make a profit, it did well from Covid and then difficulties began to return, last year it rolled the dice and gambled on TT120 but also managed to fill it's warehouse with unwanted stock that wasn't TT120.

 

If it does not return to profit this year based on good sales of TT120 and other items then investors might start to become very concerned it will never get out of this rut without serious pruning of it's various brands.

 

If Bachmann, Dapol, Accurascale or Heljan went under then the remaining companies would take up the void left with their own models.  But if Hornby fails then who will take on the TT120 scale, Peco don't need to worry, they can sell their track in Europe and dump the other stuff after a short time.  No-one else has skin in the game to care about TT120 and how that might impact their bottom line trying to take on a product so synomymous with one company.

 

The next question is how much was TT120 a Simon Kohler led idea and with him no longer at the helm of marketing does the company still have the same trust in the product.  Time will tell I guess.

Some good points there.

My thoughts:

- If Hornby went under, I'm sure the TT120 would continue for the medium term. Whether a new owner felt it worthwhile investing in new range additions would be up to them.

- Arnold: In terms of having Arnold's skill, it's just a brand. All R&D is done in Margate, I don't know how much new product development is being undertaken for the range.

On 30/06/2023 at 11:53, Watto1990 said:

Announced this morning that the Visitor Centre shop will be closing for several months for improvements - presumably we’ll be seeing the first of the new retail concept when it reopens? 
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid028YEamVbyrWdudZ5TbD48m7yWRtU4fRdDcaYEibv7QCSqeh1EHRVx8ADbS86ZrizLl&id=100057106555025

I suspect it will re-open as Hornby World. (Based on a company of that name being incorporated by Hornby.)