SamThomas

The cynic in me wonders how many have been produced "off limited run" to be given away as freebies to favoured people..........

(& will any of these find their way to our favourite auction emporium).

44 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

A sound version of such could be interesting…

It would be loud & emit a load of bovine extrement from the chimley (or should that be smokestake for Trump).

47 minutes ago, melmerby said:

Hornby's picture of the box:

 

IMHO they've missed a trick. (SVR & Hornby)

Although the nameplate is akin to a typically WC town nameplate, many had the town's coat of arms.

They could've include the Queen's coat of arms above the nameplate

There are probably very strict rules about using "Coats of Arms" especially the one belonging to the head of the Royal Family.

5 minutes ago, Brinkly said:

Reminds me of this!

 

 

& not too far away from the SVR either.

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Thats because your asking 30 years too late.

Put the Wrenn / Dublo 20 next to a Lima 20 and ask which is better ?

Then your thinking how it used to be, not how it is today.

 

Someday, the stuff being made now will be seen as low quality rubbish compared to what you will be able to have then… thats how consumer society works… and people will be moaning of the £1600-£2000 price tag of new locos.. thats how inflation works too. of course we still wont have a new Class 81 / 124 then either and the Trix ones will be prized highly.

 

I really don't get the point(s) you are trying to get over - I'll leave it at thanks.

37 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Lima wasnt seen as poor quality at the time it was made.

I've yet to meet a UK modeller who thought that early Lima was good quality (thinking HO class 33 era here)

33 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

1.  I haven't got an app machine (and don't need or want one and its associated expense) 

2. Speaking to the cashier in another local bank today I learnt that there is in any case a limit on the maximum amount on a cheque which may be paid in using an app (the limit is £500 for your info)  - and this cheque exceeds that amount.

3.  So I either-

a. Set off on the train, carefully avoiding the Crossrail overgrown UndergrounD trams,  to the nearest town with a branch where I will no doubt have to join a queue of customers from all the other closed branches in the area and who actually have no choice to go elsewhere,

or

b. I drive to my nearest local model shop - just over an hour away - and pop down the road to the Barclays branch there.  However this depends on picking one of the days when that branch is open and getting there before they close.  But if its anything like their branch got here the hours of opening they post online were probably written by Enid Blyton and were no guide at all (but I do have some Accurascale wagons to collect),

or

c. I open an account at another bank which has a branch locally which currently opens for most of the day on every day Monday - Friday (and which might hopefully have more interest in its retail customers than Barclays and thus keep open its branch here).

 

Losing a very local model shop - tiers or no tiers is one thing because usually an alternative can be found within a reasonable distance - and I don't regard an hour's trip in the car as 'unreasonable'.  But banking is rather different and i have no wish to start off on an expedition every time I need to pay-in a cheque.  And yes, my 'financial controller' does do the internet banking bit for me but there is no way that can be used to pay in a cheque.

 

Compared to this lot  tiers are almost trivial - unless you're a Hornby retailer

All you need to do is to post the cheque to a branch of your bank with your account details & job done - really can't see where or why you have an issue.

Why are we even discussing this ?

The tiny, tiny amount of pollution from preserved lines/locomotives will make no difference at all in the real world, especially when you consider the carbon footprints of India, China & the results of Rasputins ego trip.

Whilst admitting that we do need to cut down on our environmental impact all round sometimes, I feel that the zero emmission lot ought to be told to get stuffed.

On 18/04/2022 at 21:51, Chris-K said:

Interesting, so what your saying is there is a chance if i disconnected the stay alive there is a chance it might behave properly, it obviously does let me programme it with the stay a live connected though?

i have found that setting up decoders tends to be easier with any for of stay alive disconnected.

Once set up I then reconnect the stay alives.

On 03/03/2022 at 15:49, 1andrew1 said:

I  like the Railroad concept and it's cleverly positioned. Clinically, I would have liked to have seen Hornby using the Lima branding across Europe for this purpose with the brands of Electrotren, Jouef, Rivarossi and Hornby sitting above it. However, I get that the Hornby brand is too strong to not use in the UK hence the Railroad brand.

Hopefully, this will never happen.

UK modellers experience of Lima tends to be the poor quality stuff. European Lima towards the end was pretty good quality.  Late Jouef & Rivarossi is well regarded too.

However, I do remember some QC issue with the Rivarossi DB58 when it came out under the HornbyRivarossi banner.

Hornby should (IMHO) stick to the Railroad brand for their entry level/hobby/start models & try to promote the Electrotren & former Lima group models into the Roco/Piko/Trix arena.

I used to drive HGV's in & out of Central London & often took my breaks in the road by the Blackheath Tea Hut. The starlings & sparrows would sit on the mirror brackets waiting for an outstreatched hand with breadcrumbs on it to eat from.

At night they were replaced by fox's who would almost take the food from your hands.

5 hours ago, melmerby said:

Knowing Curry's woeful lack of expertise I would guess 2)😄

Don't get me started on their PC World "experts"☹️

 

Our German manufactured Bosch washer showed signs of being tested, even though it was fully sealed in it's packaging when we got it.

I'm perfectly happy with the sevice life of Curry's own brand white goods.

However, I would not buy anything I.T. wise from them, for various reasons.

Thanks Neil - better make sure to use decent flicker frees then.

I have a nice rake of Lilliput Rheingold Coaches that are factory lit with bulbs - I plan to replace them with LED's & may as well replace the wiper contacts with Concepts Springs as the drag  means that currently few of my locomotive fleet will pull them (& I have no gradiants).

6 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Is it too controversial to suggest that in a world where people outside metropolitan areas, drive pretty much everywhere, an hours drive in a nice comfortable modern car, isn't the problem it used to be even 30 years ago? The average commute is 45 minutes, and I bet the school run isn't that much shorter.

I would prefer the 1990's experience - a drive in a car with real charactor (a BMW 635i or Astra GTE for example), less traffic, less idiots on the roads & easier parking when you get there.

Compared to a featureless eurobox that wants to over-ride you at every opportunity & has had the "feel" of the car engineered out of it, more traffic and less parking.

To me, its a no-brainer, but then again I'm a driver not simply an operator.

On 17/04/2022 at 11:39, Steadfast said:

I've had a browse over the last few days and have settled on the Multimaus and z21 start package, with a WiFi add on.  A mix of familiarity from playing with Oldshaw and it doing pretty much all I need. The WiFi add on means friends can play trains too without needing multiple throttles at around £100 each and I can use a phone or tablet for programming. Let's see how we get on!

 

Thanks again for all the help

 

Jo

Be sure to keep us updated with progress.

AFAIK the Hornby Select does not meet the NRMA specifications & there were issues with it when it first came out.

Personally, I have had programming issues with various types of "stay alives" connected so I do my setting up with them disconnected & reconnect them once the locomotive is set up.

2 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It's perfectly possible that the national number has gone up and your local number has gone down. The UKMODELSHOP info came from their first newsletter this year which reported a rise. 

Does the data from UKMS differenciate between between traditional model shops & outlets ?

I'm getting the impression that the number of traditional model shops has gone down but there has been an increase in outlets.

13 hours ago, zoomer1979 said:

That was my thinking by fitting pinpoint bearings and low friction pickups. Not just to enable single motor car working, but just improving things.

When installing lights into HO coaches I have used the Concepts pickup springs with excellent results.

Did you find replacing the original pickups alone made much difference ?

Has anyone considered that a single power car in a full set may be at full streatch to the detriment of it's service life ?

3 hours ago, SamThomas said:

I tend to agree about the hobby diminishing to some degree

Maybe I should have added "& expanding in others".

It has certainly changed in the decades that I have been railway modelling. as others have said the way we buy models as an example.

I used to buy most of the available magazines such as RM & CM, also those that came & went such as MRC then I got to the point of flicking through the pages at WHS to see if there was anything of interest for me in them, buying them that had, so of course I bought less of them. Nowadays I still buy them occasionally, mostly as something to read on a long rail journey for when I get bored looking out of the window. I have no idea how magazine sales have faired over this period.

Along comes the internet & there is so much available, but the magazines still sell & i hope that they will continue to do so for many years. I still prefer a paper catalogue to internet pages so maybe time to give start reading the magazines again.

Talking to exhibition/show managers the footfall would appear to be down genarally but there are a number of factors at work here such as covid, the costs of travel/entrance & catering costs. Some shows may fall by the wayside or end up as shadows of their former selves, time will tell. Hopefully, as they get going again there will be some new layouts to see.

Just my take, based on my own experiences, other will of course differ.

3 hours ago, Widnes Model Centre said:

We love Hornby for the people who work there, my passion for this company founded in Liverpool will never end.

I can understand the passion for Hornby Liverpool, but apart from some half-hearted Dublo models surely there is nothing of Hornby Liverpool left in Margate apart from the name itself ?

I tend to agree about the hobby diminishing to some degree - the members of my local club are getting older & spending less as their collections are nearing completion with less & less on the wants list. very few young members starting the hobby, certainly not enough to replace the old ones as they shuffle off the the great shunting yard in the sky.

Being pretty active round the shows would reflect that observation.

4 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

Well, the layout is 76 feet long so each circuit requires at least twice that and all trains ran it at least once an hour, 6 days a week, so you can do the maths. And at the end of the three months, there were (according to Pete) no worn out locos, something he was as suprised about as I was.

Depending on how you work it out that's around 100 actual miles per locomotive - not bad at all.

I have a particular interest in model locomotives that "work hard" for their living on long running show layouts, hence my question.

Couple of years ago I ran a Piko HO Hobby Locomotive (BR185) on a test track 24/7 - pulling 10 x coaches with a 1:100 gradiant on about half speed so it covered something like 1k miles before the motor failed.

A credit to modern mechanisms in both cases, I should imagine those on PW's layout would also be good for a similar distance.

59 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

How much servicing does the average model need? When I visited Pete Watermans WCML layout, after 3 months of running on a massive track, with each loco covering several real miles each day, there were no dead locos. None at all. I'd suspect very few people put more miles on their models than he did.

Any actual data on that please Phil ?

19 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

And the major plastic kit manufacturer in Ukraine has announced a set of 1/35th Ukrainian soldier figures with an AK47, mobile phone (taking a picture) and a V sign victory salute for posing next to a Russian Tank, you just have to admire their resilience and determination during this war.

Please tell me that's not a wind up & provide a link - I just have to have one of those.