andyman7

At RRP I totally agree. I've got one bought in around 2009 for just over £100. I was able to update the firmware to the current version. At that price it's a useful bit of kit for testing/operating DCC fitted models.

The Hornby Elite has 2 knobs....

The weathering is indeed printed and is not a subsequent pass of the 'dirt' airbrush. It's applied in layers but unless you want an expensive test there's no telling which bits will come off first. One other thing to note with this type of weathering is that the base BR blue is a faded shade - there's no 'pristine' model under there.

No, Triang-Hornby changed to Code 100 rail in 1970 and the 'new' 1978 Turntable was always Code 100. The change to Nickel Silver rail was made to the track range in 1993. No, it was before the move to China. The very last locomotive to be made with an X.03 motor and Magnadhesion was the R866 Battle of Brighton 'Fighter Pilot' deleted at the end of the 1989 season. That cleared the way for the change from steel rails, the track was still made in Austria by Roco under contract although 'special' pieces such as the isolating tracks (and the turntable tracks) were made in Margate,

An option with the blanked off matt black approach would be to have the interior of just one house modelled with a clear/perspex viewing window. That would create a feature/talking point!

Change is never easy but all good things come to an end. All I can say is the Hattons story finishes on a high because of the manner in which it came to its conclusion. I can't recall the closure of a single other major organisation done with such careful organisation, compassion and style.

Those ones are the only Hornby ones where the entire production runs were affected. I've had about eight or nine later examples and none have had any chassis trouble at all - including BR Blue 31111 bought in 2006 which is still fine. In my experience where other examples appear affected it's because they were either renumbered or their original chassis had been swapped with one from the affected D5512 Green/31270 Blue/31110 Dutch livery batch

Not strange at all - this wasn't a sell off in the conventional sense but a long term investment. Some of that stock was still being sold 'new' in the 1980s by which time items prices reflected the 'collectors' rates. I imagine Norman Hatton would have given short shrift to anyone that argued he should still be asking 63p (12/6 rounded up) for his Dublo Super-Detail coaches (Hattons advert below from the October 1982 Railway Modeller)

Browsing the 'bay for a copy of Stewart Joy's 1973 economic treatise on BR, this listing includes the most risible AI-generated cobblers I've seen yet. Yes, it's a book concerned with the railways but is an analysis of BR's economic performance from the 50s to the 70s and not "...a must-have for any train enthusiast....this book contains 160 pages filled with captivating information about trains....a fascinating insight into the world of trains, covering topics such as the history of locomotives, train designs, and the impact of trains on society. Whether you are a collector, historian, or simply a lover of trains, this book is sure to provide hours of reading pleasure." If AI really is going to destroy society, it will presumably be by means of burying under a tidal wave of bullcrap! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315037371225?itmmeta=01HQ6XSDA3MS3Q753FZ88468HP&hash=item4959b0cb59:g:2HIAAOSw6RBlfzxR&itmprp=enc%3AAQAIAAAA8I9yytHvKythbm9v6zrGpbjPn9SSu7WTCXQWUVeezLDxSlsV4VrSg0hM%2FahTPFPVLvjzKevbdDfGMVKrvV4Ulu0%2BTCNxSOVvqu8PXCmSmlpeRVCmj7lWyZe2mXDvZmjzveAXzvHFAtiTWdYBKx%2BGkH%2Fi6P6iiDKvEhNkyPG2fJHYfZB7WuQuULg3iFdHasKUE%2FBfoDByp1iNCxQaJUl9ra1IIDo2sTZA1nB1uYAM0NvJVywn2x2gp54M89r68tzPbz06DSql0UawXUTIoZXZl2TvW5%2ByRmx22%2Bm9iPd5pXSrgQcPytDLv9ym4Z03Lop%2BGw%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR4zV5d25Yw

The DCC items are bought in rebadged ones; the DC stuff is made by them onsite so they are in a position to repair the latter.

I'm afraid that's likely to be far too broad a definition to help! Taken to extremes that would exclude 99.9% of modellers and potentially leave us only with a painfully serious gentleman modelling a section the Fairford branch (or whatever) in P4 as it was on the afternoon of Wednesday 4th October 1950. I'm more inclined to this one although I'd argue that the input/knowledge of operating the train set to prototype practice elevates it. The 'operation' is being modelled by the user in the true sense of the word.

I've noticed that the Hobby Shop Faversham has a pretty good price for the SWT one (no connection other than as a satisfied customer): https://hobb-e-mail.com/Hornby-r30107-south-west-trains-cl423-4-vep-66211-p.asp

An alternative if you're up for it would be to slice through the houses and model the interiors where rooms and lofts are exposed - it might drive you mad but it would certainly be a feature!

Unlike the Margate days each loco is allocated its own part numbers fro pretty much everything and the tool sets are spread across different suppliers, so whilst it's a missed opportunity there's no guarantee that the 4P front bogie tool was available for use with the 8F

If it's weak and running hot that does sound like it needs remagnetising

I'm still not quite sure what the motivation is behind some of these circular discussions. It is extremely useful when considering a purchase to have the information about the model spec - this is marketed at a full superdetail price point yet is an older model that doesn't even match up to the spec of previously-issued versions. What I'm less sure about is the debate about the motives. Anyone that has bought or been aware of Hornby products will know that due to their enormous back tooling bank, their brand position and their longstanding inconsistency of pricing and use of sub-brands like Railroad, you cannot assume that expensive = high end and cheap = low quality. The recently re-issued ex-Lima GUV was put in the main range at a price north of £40 yet for under £100 there are some fairly decent diesel models in the Railroad range right now. The retooled VEPs come in at 25% less than Bachmann 4 car EMUs and in my opinion are (at last) really very good models for the price. So frankly rather than assuming some specifically malevolent intent I would just treat this as business as usual 'for Hornby' and take the information we have as a clear message that if you want an 8F buying a previous issue secondhand is a much better bet than paying 'new issue' money for this one. The feedback has been passed back to Hornby, if they choose to ignore it than so be it. The field is still wide open for a newly-tooled 8F, I'm sure it won't have gone un-noticed!

If I need any SEF flushglaze I just ring them up to order stuff. Works for me, no cheques or POs involved, just my card to hand.

Hornby Dublo mechs, being old school metal can take these machine oils. These oils generally have to be avoided like the plague due to their effect on hard plastics but that's not really an issue on the old HD stuff

They didn't, the beams are only on the outer (motor) bogies - one of the 'motor' bogies on this one is a dummy. The 501s on the North London lines had quite a different arrangement, a single driving motor car with both bogies powered and with shoebeams plus an additional shoebeam on the outer bogie of the driving trailer.

It's a dummy bogie at one end (the dummy one as used on the R157 DMU but a late version that takes pinpoint axles). The motor bogie is great - it has smooth wheels and these when in good nick are bulletproof. I might at some point add some extra pickups to the trailing bogie.

I might add those at some point - I've a few units that would benefit

I've completed another MTK project. A couple of years ago I bought a number of kit built EMUs at auction. They were well built but in many cases missing finishing details such as numbering. I traded on a few that were not from my core period but one I did put aside was a BR Class 416 4-EPB. The motor bogie was loose and the model had no numbering but really appealed - unlike @Darius43 's (very lovely) detailed approach, these models were built with the aluminium coach bases, the door shut lines applied by transfer, Triang coach bogies and Triang DMU motor bogies with collector shoes added. The models were gloss varnished and very much echo the feel of Hornby Dublo 'super detail' era models. We all know that Colin Massingham's castings could be rather variable but in this case the cab ends were really spot on and captured the classis 'Eastleigh' BR cab end. I numbered the unit up, added door handle detail using a silver pen, picked the shoe beams out as per an ex-works unit and added the shoe fuses. Some colour correction was carried out at each end where the pipes were not quite correctly finished. The aim was very much to capture the spirit of these units with a period model and I'm very pleased with the result.

An interesting discussion that once again highlights that no matter how dedicated one is to fidelity, once you get down to 4mm scale there have to be compromises. One of the massive benefits of kinematic couplings in my opinion is their ability to allow buffer-to-buffer or corridor-to-corridor coupling when correctly configured. For me, this vastly outweighs the trade-off of the NEM box. For others, the appearance is more important. At the end of the day you have to make a choice!

As far as I can see, the nail is arranged to nudge the pocket over when the bogie rotates rather than relying on the force exerted from the vehicle it is coupled to - but presumably only in one direction, so I assume the model has to be the right way round. A number of kinematic mounting arrangements on coaches are arranged so that the rotation of the bogie nudges the pocket in the direction of the curve but as long as the pocket is free-moving it's not a requirement, and on the Cavalex 56 the rather nifty NEM mounting for the dummy screw coupling is reliant on the pocket not moving by itself on curves.

Yep definitely no card in the DC ones. Maybe it can be included as part of the DCC sound upgrade pack when available