scottrains29

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!

56 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I predict a long hard future on these, if they go cheap enough, I may buy a chassis to upgrade my 155’s.

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.

14 hours ago, Budgie said:

When will someone produce opening doors on models? Not hinged doors, but sliding doors. Here's a model sold in France by REE Modèles with operating sliding doors:

 

https://www.facebook.com/little.spigaou/videos/600543195549635?idorvanity=1695643574040417

I'd love Accurascale to do a 314 (and the similar cousins) with working opening doors.

The doors were quite a noticeable feature on these units, where all the (platform side) doors would open even if nobody got on/off. This makes it perfect for model form.

The light lenses seem to be set back and not flush with the light boxes, making the boxes look even bigger. This issue applies to all versions.

Would it be possible to make the light lenses flush with the light boxes?

I think they look awful, especially any writing, warning flashes etc. Looks really blurry. Hornby managed to do a good job on the drax wagons, with complex pictures and the usual high quality small printed detail. Didn't know why the same couldn't be done for the 153.

I'm not going to buy one until they're at least sub £100 in the bargain bins. I also see the 153 tooling as a railroad spec model that'll look toy like when run with a Realtrack 156. Surprised Hornby didn't release their 156 in SpotRail to run with the 153.

I've previously fitted Hornby Pullman coach springs X9097 to my Oxford mk3s. Lendons sell packs of 10 for £1.49.

Hattons have the relatively newly tooled XC sliding door mk3s for as low as £16 a coach, which at less than half  price seems like a bargain until you realise there are no XC power cars available to run them.

My (bargain-bin) full rake has remained boxed up for nearly 2 years now, hoping Hornby announce some XC power cars.  I'm not sure if this is yet another example of Hornby incompetence, or a genius move as those who bought the bargain coaches are now desperately needing the matching powercars. Just need Hornby (or Accurascale!) to announce the matching XC 43s.

Accurascale have some more in stock today, including some at £59.94 a set, with an additional 10% off when buying two sets or more. Not many left so be quick.

Great news.

Hopefully Accurascale will produce a XC 43 pack in the first production run. Hornby produced plenty of the xc mk3s but not enough power cars!

There's a very small number of each of batch one 37s back in stock if you're quick!

**All gone now**

Just ordered 425 and have 423 arriving on Friday. Can't wait!

2 minutes ago, The Fatadder said:

grills were still red in 1999, I think from some angles the grill can appear to be black thanks to the darkness of the black radiator behind maybe coupled with the grills getting dirty?

Eg this from Newport in feb 99

https://flic.kr/p/2j8BKgY

 

Looking further the photos of 001 at the Old Oak open day in 2000 again show the red grills off particularly clearly next to the black ones on the loco next to it

https://flic.kr/p/LccaNn

 https://flic.kr/p/2kV3MAz 

 

The grills were still 'red' way beyond that too, even when it received the wing mirrors. Looking at numerous pictures the grill frames are still clearly red but the grills themselves often look black with dirt! Did it ever actually lose the red grills whilst in EWS livery?

Excellent news!! 66001 for me.

Scary to think it's been 25 years since she  arrived.

I'd like to see more Ayr branded examples. I don't think Hornby ever produced an Ayr one, just numerous Barry ones.

Has anyone else noticed/ or find it rather annoying that the last few articles have had the word "The" removed from "The Engine Shed" on the opening line?

E.g. "Welcome to Engine Shed". 

It's as if they are trying too hard to sound cool. Perhaps if they spent more time understanding the hobby they'd have realised an 87 and 91 are not diesel locos!

After reading The Engine Shed it appears the lamps are provided for modellers to fit themselves onto the lamp brackets. I presume this means they are non functioning.

It's a shame they didn't follow Accurascale and provide multi packs with one pack fitted with a working, magnet operated, flashing tail lamp.

Curious to know what the difference is between the (available) 00 HST sound profiles and the (not yet available) TT HST sound profiles.

55 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Not a deal breaker from my point of view in terms of finding a second hand one to use as a HM7000 to DCC adaptor, but is the Select NMRA certified?

 

From what I can tell having trawled the Hornby website the Elite is NMRA certified but no such claim is made for the Select so I assume it isn't certified so can't claim compliance.

 

https://support.Hornby.com/hc/en-gb/articles/360014215580-Hornby-DCC-Controllers

If you're able to hold off a year or two I think it's highly likely Hornby will bring out a new controller that will work with the app.

Looking at the Hornby website they don't have any stock of the Selects, they only have a few Elites left and the e-link is now getting sold off cheap.

11 hours ago, E100 said:

Trying to work out what the April fools loco will be…

The announcement isn't until 12 noon so I don't think it will be an April fools if the 12 o' clock rule still applies.

It's a shame there is still no solution to use the app to connect to the Hornby e-link and Railmaster. Simon had earlier mentioned they hadn't ruled this out, as if to say they were still working on it.

With only an e-link, currently the cheapest way to control my standard dcc fitted locos with the app appears to be with a Select and the R7326 dongle with a total rrp of £187.74!! But the Select is out of stock everywhere, even at Hornby.

I therefore suspect (and hope) they'll bring out a new basic controller that combines the functions of the e-link and the dongle allowing users to use the app/tactile controller/pc software simultaneously to control all dcc locos on the layout.

On another q&a session last month Simon mentions they are planning full automation and loco detection using bluetooth. I would suspect with the complexity of such a system it would be pc based (eg Railmaster or similar) rather than just on the app. It'll be interesting to see how this all develops over the next few years.

So next announcement on April 1st... Luckily not until 12 noon.

Hornby have decided to have a live q&a session at the exact same time tomorrow. Could this be to detract from the Accurascale announcement.....

Perhaps we'll see another Hornby staple eg HST or 225 set.

Just imagine mk3s/mk4s but done to Accurascale mk5 standard, 43s and 91s to Accurascale 92 standard, and all at a realistic price! 😀

Not my era but looks like a great model to choose. Interesting you are producing a Dundee based example. I might need to buy one for that reason alone!

On 01/11/2022 at 18:40, sanspareil said:

 

I am in discussion with Hornby now, I need to reply back to them.

 

The current status is they are doing retooling work in China for future releases to apparently resolve the issues. When these parts are available they will have a process of repair for current customers. The suggestion seems to be that if you send your locos of now you will get a half way house fix. If you wait you will have a repair to the same standard as future releases. However they gave no time scale for this!

With the next releases due soon I wonder if they will include the retooled parts. My GNER model has been sitting doing nothing for over a year now as it derails on points and curves. I don't want to put it back in its box for fear of rubbing more of the livery off.

I don't know why Hornby designed such a bad bogie. They should have kept to their standard design with a single pivot secured by the worm box cover. It's also odd that the lower gears are exposed and not covered, surely that's asking for trouble as it picks up fluff and track debris.

The numerous inadequacies of the 91 make me wonder if model was designed by one of their new apprentices. Even the packaging design is poor and does the opposite of protecting the model and it also needs redesigned.

5 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

OK - what's the point of motorized passenger car doors without motorized passengers to use them ?

The 314 (and possibly all other pep stock) had sliding doors that all opened even if the train was empty. Is accurascale up for the challenge...?