scottrains29

The 153 with it's Cummins engine will also be useful for other 2nd gen sprinter classes.

That'll be next year's era 1 loco! 😀

Hopefully it'll be the 156 and something else, 101 maybe.

Having more announcements throughout the year means they can coincide with various events, anniversaries etc. The 9th of June 2024 will mark 30 years since the creation of the shadow freight companies. Perhaps we'll Hornby release a 31,56 and 60 in Mainline, Transrail and Loadhaul liveries to mark the occasion!

Airfix have anounced a new tooled modern shannon class lifeboat and also a new tooled chinook. They're both to 1/72 scale but might look ok on a 1/76 layout.

Great to see the GNER HST with original light lenses. Bit pricey though. Interesting that the seacow is priced the same as the ex Lima sealion. Is this a mistake? Also looking at the pictures it appears the main range HAA is now in the Railroad range with a slightly lower RRP than before. It could just be they've used the wrong picture. Suprised not too see the airbraked salmon wagon added to the range. Hopefully this'll come soon.

The 8 pin ones at £42 have all sold out.

or a Transrail 56!

For 2024 I think we'll see Hornby release the later airbraked asf bogie salmon wagon. Seems a very obvious and popular choice. I wouldn't be surprised if they release a large number of class 31's, 56's and 60's at a new lower price to compete with competitors' soon to be released superior models. There was mention a few years back about someone else doing a class 86. I wonder if this could be Hornby. It would fit well in their range. I also think we'll see an expansion of the popular HM7000 range, with new sounds (various DMU's would be good) and a new all-in-one controller that allows users to use the new app based Bluetooth system, control standard dcc decoders and link up with a new pc software package that can be used with a loco detection system (Simon briefly mentioned this last year) to enable full automation. Finally, I've always thought it would be good for Hornby to integrate the Airfix brand more with the Hornby range, producing modern 1:76 kits of typical aircraft, buildings and boats; eg tugs, inshore boats or the numerous small calmac-type ferries that are seen across the UK and Ireland.

I'd also like Hornby to produce a GNER HST set with the original headlight that they had for the majority of time with the operator. I think it would also be good for them to produce more single non-powered class 43s so that we can add a little variety to our sets, eg original Virgin with yellow cab roof, or one of the Virgin/GNER buffered 43s that you would occasionally see. It would also be useful for Hornby to produce more mk3s that are clearly in high demand, eg GNER, Northern Belle, Royal Train sleeper and kitchen etc. These have all been fetching high prices on ebay for many years now. Hopefully they'll produce a realistic ratio of coaches to powercars so that modellers don't ever up with bargain basement mk3s yet find it impossible to get the matching power cars, as with the Arriva XC sets.

I suspect it will be a standard limby motor bogie. Hornby seem to want to standardise the Railroad mechanisms. They even recently removed the superior flywheel-motor, twin bogie drive mechanism from the recent class 67 releases and redesigned it to take the inferior Limby motor bogie. As for the 110, the Hornby website states it's a 5 pole skew wound motor. The last ringfield motors were 5 pole but they wouldn't be skew wound. Unfortunately, It doesn't look like Hornby have improved the model much. Many of the older models, especially ex Lima DMUs eg the 156 could be greatly improved with working lights/better underframe for minimal effort from Hornby. It would then help justify the prices Hornby are asking.

All the big retailers occasionally discount by >50%. Hattons have just had a big sale with many new models well over 50% off. TMC regularly have similar sales and Kernow can often be one of the cheapest for certain models. Kernow, Rails, TMC etc all currently seem to have a large amount of Bachmann 37s to shift. I highly suspect we'll see further discounts on the 37s in the coming weeks. MRD probably wanted to get in early before the boxing day/ jan sales start with other retailers.

The system seems to be very popular and selling well. I would suspect Hornby are working hard to develop it further. I currently have a Hornby elink and about 10 hm7000 decoders. As these two systems are not compatible (due to lack of expressnet port) I really hope Hornby release a new tactile controller basically combining all the benefits of a Select type controller, elink/ railmaster pc control and the Bluetooth system. Currently the cheapest way for the app to control standard dcc decoders is by buying the dongle and a (now dated and hard to find) Hornby Select.

Hopefully Bachmann will produce the new 20/3 light boards as a spare to allow us to upgrade the original batch of Bachmann 20/3s. I always thought it was odd they didn't produce the cab sidelights from the start. It would be good if they could upgrade the 66 to also include working sidelights.

The HEA,MEA,MFA type wagons would fit in nicely to the Accurascale range. The elderly Bachmann models aren't too bad but definitely not up to the Accurascale standard!

Very true! The 2 DRS 37/4s I have are superb. Can't wait to get a couple of the 37/6s soon!

When you get round to the EWS examples it would be good if you could do some that haven't been done by Bachmann or Vitrains. I think I have every EWS one done by them! 37408 Loch Rannoch, 37410 Aluminium100, 37416 Concrete Bob, 37421 and 37426 would be very nice!

Class 185 Class 43 HST Plasser & Theurer Track machine

Perhaps CrossCountry could use them once they withdraw their HSTs. I think their franchise is up for renewal in a month or two so it could be part of the next agreement. Anyway, I'm sure Accurascale will produce them in whatever livery they end up in. They could also produce some in 'what if' liveries like what Rapido did with their apt-e.

I think it depends when you joined the club. They changed the benefits earlier this year so that members now earn 15% bonus points instead of the 10% discount. The new benefits are worse since non-members earn 10% reward points anyway. Topcashback are also offering 5.25% cashback on Hornby.com

Not much privatisation era Scottish oo models this time. I was hoping for a tatty looking ScotRail class 117 in late 90's condition. Always next time I guess...

The fact the new announcement is an Accurascale exclusive doesn't necessarily mean it'll just be a version of an existing model. It could be an all new niche model like their Acc-Exclusive mk5s. I still think a class 185 would fit nicely in their range, or perhaps a track tamper.

I think Making Tracks could do with a nice new DMU/EMU. A TPEx class 185 would fit in nicely!... as would any pep type EMUs!

I think it'd be far cheaper to get the spares separately. Lendons have the 153 chassis for less than £2 and they were selling the similar Limby 156 drive bogies for less than £6, though currently oos. I bought a few to keep as spares. The 153 bogie frame fits the 156 drive unit. Makes you realise just how poor value the complete Hornby 153 is!!

That didn't take long before they started to get reduced. They're still the wrong side of £100 so I'll wait off.