MarkSG

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.

Can I just be the first to say..... There's nothing there for me! 🙂 OK, having got that out of the way, it's not a hugely interesting set of releases. But Locomotion No 1 is the one I hadn't expected. I might actually buy that, just for the sake of it, even though I've got no jusification whatsoever for running it.

I entirely agree. The trunk service is the reason why Hattons have had the bulk of my online business since they introduced it. I hope it's an idea that other retailers can pick up on. Hopefully the Originals will find a new owner. Possibly a little ironically, given the somewhat fraught relationship between Hattons and Bachmann, they'd be a fairly obvious fit along with the ex-DJM models in the EFE range.

Realistically, though, how many people would buy a royal train? Given that it would require new tooling with the associated development costs and hence need a hefty price tag to justify the work. I know we can all be suckers for the "because it's there" appeal of various one-offs and oddities, but perception of value still comes into it. One of the issues with rolling stock in general is that we expect them to be a lot cheaper than locos, because they're not motorised. Which is partly true, but when you're looking at a rake of coaching stock then the total price is going to be pretty hefty. The motor was only a small proportion of the total cost of Bachmann's Blue Pullman. A rake of all-new, but unpowered, coaches isn't going to be significantly cheaper. That's not to say a royal train pack wouldn't sell, particularly if it included a loco as well as the coaches in order to help justify the cost. But it isn't something which regularly gets wishlisted (unlike, again, the BP, which was probably the most vociferously demanded new product of the past 20 years). So I'd be surprised if internal market research at the manufacturers was flagging it up as a "must do" project.

Wishlisting is probably a bit pointless at this stage since anything which is going to be announced will have been planned long ago. I don't think there's anything wrong with wishlisting per se - I'm sure the manufacturers do read the forums and social media, and the annual wishlist poll has had too high a hit rate in the past to be coincidence - but it needs to be focussed and in the right place. And this thread isn't the right place. What we're doing here, mostly, is having a bit of fun to see which of us have the best crystal balls and which of us are simply talking balls. And that's fine, too. It won't achieve anything (other than a feeling of smug self-satisfaction for those who are on the button with their predictions), but it's an amusing diversion and one that is, hopefully, free of some of the more negative comments that tend to plague product threads. We'll have to wait for the announcement itself for those 😉

Well, of course, as eny fule kno, all the railways in Wales were miniaturised 😉 That's part of the problem with Ivor, though. Visually, it looks like a narrow gauge loco (and the model you refer to is designed for narrow gauge garden railways). But, in-universe, Ivor is standard gauge (the Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway has a junction with the main line at Tewyn). So being faithful to the fictional canon would require a standard gauge (or, at least OO) model, but I suspect that might just look a bit too odd. Visually, it would probably work better reimagined as a narrow gauge loco, allowing it to be modelled in OO9. But that also restricts the number of potential manufacturers.

Tension lock couplers are, on the whole, a lot better than they used to be. Pretty much all the manufacturers now use the slimline ones rather than the old-fashioned full-width ones, and it does look a lot better - particularly from the side on. But I don't think there's any solution which ticks all the boxes of being amenable to automated coupling, minimal visual intrusion and robustness. Even Kadees would look odd on a loco that small.

Intreresting that they're building to 1:100 scale in order to use standard 16.5mm (HO/OO) track to represent the Indian 5 ft 6 in gauge.

The point is that the appeal of Ivor is mostly to people like us, who can remember the series being on TV. Unlike Thomas, it hasn't been revived, re-revived and reimagined for a new audience. So there's little to no mass market recognition, outside the trainspotter community and people who were kids in the 60s and 70s.

It would certainly need the agreement of the owners of the intellectual property in Ivor. I don't think that would be likely to be a significant issue - there's already been computer game based on Ivor as well as a full size "Ivor" used on heritage railways, so the rightsholders clearly aren't averse to it being used. I suspect the main issue for the model manufacturers is the question of where it would fit in their range. Ivor doesn't have the mass appeal of Thomas, and the loco is entirely fictitious so any model of it would be standalone - unlike the Titfield Tunderbolt, for example (or even Thomas for that matter) it's not just a fictional version of a real prototype. I suppose Hornby could do an Ivor and then use the mould for yet more of their fictitious liviered Railroad train packs (Ivor hauling a Christmas train, maybe), but it's hard to see it working for any other manufacturer. Although, on the other hand, Ivor would be a relatively simple design, given that the "prototype" is a hand drawn cartoon and wouldn't engage the rivet counters of this world. So there wouldn't need to be a huge amount of research involved.

1. Keep working on the scenery. 2. Replace that dodgy point motor that I've been putting off doing for ages because it happens to be the one in the most awkward possible place! 3. Get round to weathering some of all those nice new wagons I've bought recently. 4. Be a bit more selective about what I buy. 5. Add some more track to the fiddle yard so I've got space for more of the wagons I've already bought.