MarkSG

The Hattons website is probably one of the most user-friendly, in terms of functionality, of all the main model railway retailers. In terms of visual design it's not quite as slick as some of the others, but the back-end is very well put together. It reminds me a lot of some of the websites I've worked on in the past for major retailers with a much higher profile than Hattons. The thing is, though, that front-end techology - what the customer sees on their screen - changes faster than back-end technology. As far as online retail is concerned, the underlying functionality doesn't change all that much. Fundamentally, it's a fairly simple process whereby a customer selects a product, pays for it and then you send it to them. Unless you add completely new functionality, it's not going to be significantly different for different retailers, or significantly different for any retailer than it was last year, or the year before that. Or even ten years before that. The front-end, though, changes a lot for all sorts of reasons. One is usability, and the increasing tendency of people to use their phones for online shopping and general web browsing. That requires a very different visual design to a PC sized screen - or, more specifically, the ability of the site to adjust to whatever size screen the user is using. Even as recently as about a decade ago, a "responsive" design, to use the jargon, was advanced, or optional. These days, it's absolutely fundamental. The Hattons website does get that right, and does it very well. But making it do that is a lot of work, particularly when you're having to add it to an existing website. If you're using an off-the-shelf online retail system, it's just a case of updating to the latest version. If you're completely outsourcing it, you don't even need to do that. But doing it in-house is hard work. Other front-end changes are simple fashion. What looks nice is very subjective, but it's surprising how much people's subjective opinions tend to concur! I said earlier that the Hattons site is a lot like some that I've worked on in the past for much bigger retailers, but it also has to be said that it still looks a lot like the sites I worked on, despite the fact that I haven't worked on them for nearly ten years (and they've moved on since). So maybe that is an indication of the fact that managing it was getting too much.

Everything is still in recovery mode. Almost across the board, every part of the leisure sector hasn't yet returned to pre-Covid levels. There are all sorts of reasons for that, including the economic shocks of the past couple of years which have dented recovery as well as the simple fact that a lot of organisations and businesses simply didn't survive lockdown at all and their replacements haven't yet got into their stride. In any normal year, the number of organisations in any sector closing will be broadly balanced by those opening. Obviously, if it's a declining market then the new ones will be fewer than the ones they replace, while in an expanding market there will be more new ones than those they replace. But, still, it tends to be a fairly clear trend line either way. Covid massively disrupted that. Significantly more organisations closed during the pandemic than normal, despite the assistance of the furlough scheme. And the pandemic also inhibited new startups. So we're only just beginning to see a return to normal levels of new businesses, events, etc. And it typically takes around five years for a new organisation, either commercial or non-commercial, to become established and here to stay. So it's going to be at least five years from the end of lockdown, and probably more, before we will have a reliable indication of where the market is going. We may be in a long term decline, or we may not be. We simply have no way of knowing, yet. I wonder what people would have said, had RMweb existed back then, when the National Model Railway Exhibition in Westminster Central Hall closed after more than half a century of operation.

Thanks for the heads up, I'll have to dig that out on IPlayer later. But yes, it's good to see some positive reporting. The main thing is, that this is a season of change. Not just for us, but huge swathes of the leisure sector are having to readjust post-pandemic. I was at a meeting yesterday of our council's Town Centre Panel (which I chair), and one of the items on the agenda was an Economic Assessment of Tourism. And the reality is that we still aren't back to pre-Covid levels of tourism, or of events and their attendance. There's been a steady year-on-year increase since the end of the final lockdown, so things are moving in the right direction, but it's still got a way to go. Expecting everything to instantly return to pre-Covid levels, and then stay the same, is unrealistic. Things change, for all sorts of reasons. We've also had various other factors, including the economy and inflation (which puts considerable strain on event organisers). For some events, and some businesses, it's a natural end of the line (corny rail-related pun intended, sorry!). After all, it's not the first time it's happened. I wonder how many of us are old enough to remember the "National Model Railway Exhibition" at Westminster Central Hall. I certainly do; I remember reading about it in Railway Modeller and persuading my dad to take me, and then, as I got older, being allowed to go to London on the train myself to go to it. But it doesn't happen now. I don't remember when it stopped, but I'm sure there was wailing and gnashing of teeth over it back then, just as there is now over Warley. And for Hattons read Beatties, and Railmail Model Railway Centres. But the hobby has survived all these changes in the past. And it will survive them again. Clinging on to a rose-tinted, nostalgia-laced view of the past won't stop that.

That's a rather unfair comment. The context of the post (which you selectively quoted) made it clear that it's a different field to ours. So the same economics don't necessarily apply. Most model railway exhibitions are run by clubs, who need the show to turn a profit as it's an important way of financially supporting the club for the rest of the year. But there are other sectors where it's acceptable for a show to make a loss, because the ancillary benefits to the community of having the show go ahead justify the need to subsidise it.

Good to see that the media still can't resist corny train-related puns in news articles, though!

The trunk service didn't create cashflow issues (because the items were paid for when they went into the trunk, not when they left it, and carriage was paid for when it was incurred). But it did, obviously, take up storage space. I presume that worked for Hattons because they had a large, modern warehouse that had more capacity than was strictly needed for just retail stock, so they were able to utilise the extra space by providing a unique (and, to customers, valuable) service. It certainly gained them extra business from me, and probably other people as well, so it was a creative way of exploiting their infrastructure assets. It would be nice to see other retailers picking up on the idea. But it does, of course, need there to be the space available. It might not work for retailers in smaller units, and particularly the retailers operating from more traditional city centre premises where space is at a premium.

From the bottom of that item listing: Additional Items Required (NOT INCLUDED) - Baseboard (PLY) size 1320mm x 1020mm x 10mm) - PVA glue - Humbrol 32 Dark grey paint (or any dark grey paint or painting trackbed) - OO scale I can just imagine someone looking at that list and then going into a shop and saying "I want to buy an OO scale, please". 🙂

There were fewer trade stands in 2023 than 2022, at least if we assume that the versions of the traders page from the website archived at archive.org is correct. My gut feeling is that that's primarily what made it feel more spacious, rather than significantly fewer visitors, although of course attendance may have been down a bit as well. But a reduction in trade stands would, of course, also be a reduction in income to the club. I don't think that, alone, would have made it unviable. But I do wonder if part of the thinking was that if visitors were less pleased by the trade last year, they'd be less likely to come next time. And, if so, that could have led to a vicious circle whereby less trade makes it less attractive to visitors, and fewer potential customers make it less attractive to traders, and therefore both would dwindle until it did stop making a profit. So maybe going out now, on a reasonable high and before there was any risk to the club, was felt better than carrying on until there was a real possibilities that economics might have forced the organisers' hands.

OK, thanks. That's a bit disappointing, to be honest. I appreciate that it's beyond your control and it's too late to do anything about it now for this year. But if the stadium is going to continue being unhelpful, then maybe the time has come to look at a new venue altogether for 2025.

Is it going to be in the bowls hall again this year, or are you back in the main hall?

I'm pretty sure that some people spend more time on web forums than actually modelling, as well 😉

I don't disagree. But, realistically, most people judge value for money by comparing like for like. And, while a day out at a model railway exhibition is cheap compared to many other days out, Warley was an expensive model railway exhibition compared to other model railway exhibitions. That said, I'm not convinced this is as much of an issue that some people want to make it. All those complaining that Warley is too expensive seem to be the people who went to Warley. Which is fine, everyone is allowed to complain, but it clearly didn't actually stop them going. And I haven't seen, at least in this thread, people saying that one of the reasons they didn't go to Warley was the cost. I also haven't seen, at least in the information published by Warley MRC, that declining attendance was one of the reasons for calling it a day. Of course, anyone with information from closer to the source than me may disagree with that, but I still have a feeling that the statement posted by the club would have mentioned it if it was the case. It's not as if there would be any reason to keep it confidential. On the contrary, the statement on the website starts by saying that the 2023 show was successful with many thousands of visitors. I see no reason to disagree with that. So I think that talking about the cost is a bit of a red herring. The people moaning about the cost of going to Warley are the same kind of people who moan about the price of a pint of beer, but buy it anyway, or moan about the cost of a train ticket but still travel. That is, they're moaning simply because they're exercising the God-given right of every Englishman to moan about the price of things without it actually having any effect on their purchasing habits.

I think that's a fair point. One of the things I've really liked about the Stafford show's move to a new hall (same location, just a bigger unit) is how spacious it feels. Obviously, the number of people viewing each layout is the same, so you can still get situations where you have to wait your turn to get close to the barrier. But the wider aisles make it so much easier to move around. And the extra space means that layouts designed to be viewed from two or three (or even four) sides can be given a spot which allows that. The issue from the organisers' perspective, of course, is that a bigger hall usually costs more to hire, so to recoup that you need more people through the door (and more traders paying for a space), and the obvious way to do that is make the show bigger so that it's more attractive to attend - particularly to people who will travel further for a bigger show than they will for a medium-sized one. Which is fine, but if it works you end up just as crowded as you would be with a smaller show in a smaller hall. I don't think there's an easy solution to that. From my perspective as a show attendee, I'd prefer the organisers of large shows to focus on quality rather than quantity of layouts. But that's easier said than done, and I suspect we're all a bit guilty of looking at the numbers when deciding whether to go or not.

Model World Live isn't quite the same thing. It's a multi-discipline modelling show, rather than just model railways - at time of writing, the website for it only lists ten model railway layouts, although it does say that more will be announced. It's also in a smaller (and less convenient) hall than Warley - I know Warley didn't use the whole of Hall 5, but the amount of the hall they did use is still larger than Hall 17 where Model World Live will take place. That's not to say that MWL will be any less good a show. It's being professionally run by people who have a track record of successful shows elsewhere. So I expect it will be worth going to, particularly if you are interested in more than just railway models. But it's not a like-for-like replacement for Warley.

On the door prices last year were £21 for an adult. There's no free parking on site, so you had to either pay for parking or go by train (or bus or taxi, if you live locally). Parking costs were, IIRC, £18 a car, or a bit less if you were willing to walk further. Catering costs were typical exhibition hall prices - that is, about 25% higher than you'd pay for the same thing on the high street. So it was expensive, and probably the most expensive of all the large shows. But, if you look at it in terms of cost per layout, it was still value for money. You got a lot of show for your entrance fee. I have no idea about attendance, but my impression last year was that it was no more or less crowded than it has been in the past. The organisers can probably give more accurate figures if they're so inclined. But, from reading the press release and comments here, attendance wasn't the issue. The show was still profitable to run, which is the bottom line. It's simply that the organisers were running out of people with the time and dedication to do the work.

It's available for free on MSN: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/death-of-the-model-railway-as-ageing-enthusiasts-run-out-of-steam/ar-AA1mSvNy

I have to say that I don't actually mind a bigger proportion of trade to layout at the bigger shows. There's a practical limit to the number of layouts I can watch in a day anyway, at least if I want to spend a decent amount of time at each one. And the more traders there are, the more likely it is that there will be one selling something I'm interested in. With the decrease in model shops, shows are a very important opportunity to view new products before buying them. I know that most traders are on the web these days, but unless you've already heard of them there's no way of knowing that they're there. Or, even if you are aware of them, there's no easy way to assess the quality and appeal of the products without seeing them in person. There have been quite a lot of instances where I've first come across a trader at a show and then bought their products online later. But I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't seen them at the show first. So trade is important to visitors, not just the show organisers.

I'll be honest, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I've always enjoyed going to Warley, and it's always been a fixture in my calendar. So I will miss it. But. In the times I've been recently, I haven't enjoyed it quite as much as I used to. Maybe that's at least partly me getting older, and no longer having the stamina to traipse around the hall all day. But I have had the feeling that the show itself, not just me, was getting tired. Quality is, of course, always subjective, but there haven't seemed to be as many showstopper layouts as I remember from the past. The trade stands seem a bit less inspiring, and I've bought less from them. Autumn is, also, an increasingly crowded time of year, especially now that Stafford has moved to September. There's also the Great British Model Railway Show in October, which is well within my travel radar but I've never been to because it's too close to Warley. So I had been wondering whether to give Warley a miss anyway this year. That decision has now been taken out of my hands, and in some ways I'm quite comfortable with that. That's not anybody's fault in particular, and this isn't intended as a criticism of the Warley club or its members. I've been involved in putting on an exhibition in the past, and being an operator at an exhibition, and I'm fully aware that it's a thankless task which involves considerable time and effort for no reward other than the satisfaction of putting on a good show. Those involved in running the Warley show have done a sterling job over the years and deserve to be loudly applauded for it. Time hurries on, though, and the green shoots of enthusiasm turn to brown. Without an influx of new volunteers, the burden on those doing the work will only ever grow. There have been signs for a while that Warley was struggling to keep the show on the road. The lack of a show guide last year, because there wasn't anyone to produce it, was one such symptom. So it looks as if the club has made a sensible decision. Sometimes, knowing when to call it a day is the most important decision an organisation can ever make. And communicating it properly, at the right time, is equally important. Warley MRC has done both of those well. So I wish them all the best for the future. Birmingham is within my show travel radius, so if they put on a smaller, more local exhibition, I may well go to that anyway.

I've still got a single item in my trunk, a second hand Bachmann van. I was planning to leave it there until it had been joined by the items on pre-order. Since I'm not going to get those, I'll probably just wait for the trunk to close and its contents to be shipped to me, on the offchance that I might see something else in the closing down sale that I like before then and can combine shipping. My most recent delivery from Hattons was a Rapido "Titfield" coach and "G Fawkes" gunpowder van.

As I've said elsewhere (in the Andrew Barclay thread), the toolings and associated CAD files are valuable intellectual property, so it would make good business sense to sell them if there is a willing buyer. They're of no value to a non-trading Hattons, but selling them would be a worthwhile return to shareholders. Alternatively, given that the retail side appears to have been the main issue (as explained in the local radio interview), another possibility is that the manufacturing side of the company can be sold off as a going concern, possibly as a management buyout, and continue as another niche manufacturer in the same vein as KR Models, Cavalex, etc. I think that would be a positive outcome for that aspect of the business.

It wasn't Hornby's decision to drop the Thomas range. The switch to Bachmann was a decision made by the brand owners. Kader (Bachmann's parent company) already had the USA rights, and when HIT Entertainment was taken over by Mattel, Mattel decided they wanted a single, global licensee for the brand on model trains rather than different national licensees. Hornby clearly weren't in that market because they don't have a significant US presence, so the only show in town was Kader who therefore acquired the UK and EU rights along with the USA rights. The models now being sold by Bachmann UK aren't new tooling, they're the same ones already used for the US market. So technically they're HO rather than OO, but of course with the highly stylised model design that's not immediately obvious to the naked eye so it doesn't really matter. But if you put a Bachmann Thomas next to a Hornby Thomas, the Bachmann one is visibly smaller. SamsTrains did a side by side comparison of them a while back, so if you search on the channel you might be able to find the video.

They're routinely in the mid to highish sales rankings on Amazon for their category. I don't know what that means in terms of actual sales volume, since Amazon's API only gives a rank rather than absolute values. But, at Amazon at least, they're routinely outselling some of the things that we all froth over here. In the run up to Christmas, the Christmas train set (not Beatles, I know, but similarly fictitious) was consistently in the top five for toy trains. Obviously, Amazon isn't where most of us buy most of our models from. But it is where a lot of people who wouldn't describe themselves as railway modellers buy models from. And those are the people that Hornby are targetting with these kind of releases.

I'm already looking forward to it!

Yes; the toolings and the associated CAD files are valuable intellectual property and it would make obvious business sense to sell them to another manufacturer as part of the business shutdown. They're of no value to a non-trading Hattons, but disposing of them would be a worthwhile return to the shareholders. Alternatively, given that the retail side appears to have been the main issue leading to the closure (particularly in light of the local radio interview mentioned elsewhere), another possibility is that Hattons will re-emerge as another niche manufacturer in the same vein as Cavalex, KR Models, etc.

That's a really good interview, it asks a lot of the questions being asked here and Richard Davies gives some very informative answers. I'd suggest that everyone takes a few minutes to listen to it.