The Stationmaster

The mag has permission to use the Hornby name and that has been public knowledge for a good while. Whether or not they pay to use it would be a commercial matter between the two organisations so we don;t know the answer to that and never will. But the big thing for Hornby is that the front page of the magazine is putting their name in front of tens of thousands of people who might otherwise think the company no longer exists or that it had gone the way of umpteen other British brands. I suspect that far more people visit places like WHS, or other retailers selling magazines etc, than ever visit model railway retailers' premises so it's good advertising that creates brand awareness..

I doubt it makes much difference except possibly to what is actually bought. Kernow were buying & selling stuff off the mountain well before Hattons were back on Hornby's Christmas Card list. And there are others who no doubt get a chance at this stuff. What is really relevant is how much the end of Hattons did, or didn't reflect the way the overall model railway market has changed as those who were previously loyal buyers from them will simply have gone elsewhere - as happened when they ceased to stock Bachmann and Hornby.

Wot no Izal ! (something which i say with mixed feelings). Very nice of Bachmann to do the bauxite ones in the right markings etc detail for me.

Hmm - good job the health insurance friendly society to which I belong (originally founded for LNWR staff but several name changes since then) should be shortly reimbursing a couple of my claims as the 'fishy on a dishy' van is very definitely on my list. And the new POS variants are arriving in the correct livery with the right running numbers 'out of the box' although it would be a shame to buy just the one which is needed when such a nice pair is on offer. So definitely several somethings in it for me

Another interesting point about 'recent years' Hattons is that they were clearly buying Hornby items out of the unsold stock mountain and no doubt at a substantial discount of. But Kernow were buying some of the same items and contrary to the past known to many Kernw were selling the same things a few £s cheaper than Hattons. Obviously the 'headline' retail prce might not be everything - unless you happen to buy in a shop instead of by mail/'net order - but the lead in price on most stuff saw Kernow doing the slightly better offer. Back to Hornby ... where Railroad remains something of an enigma which needs to be either dumped (wrong move I think) or be given a consistent brand and price point identity. Hopefully the new marketing people will get round to sorting that one as properly marketed it could be just what the company needs for part of its model railway business in the current economic climate.

But they knew well in advance when their exemption certificate expired so did they take the bookings on a somewhat 'misleading' basis without advising passengers who booked that they might not be able to run the trains? That is nobody's fault but theirs

'Fully committed to safety' while at the same time not complying with the requirements of the Rule Book? That sounds like yet more WCRC double speak - this lot are beyond even a sad music hall joke. I really do wonder exactly what they are playing at - apart from not complying with the Rules?

And the Ashburton branch was in any case 'Uncoloured' although certain 'Yellow' engines were allowed to work over it by the immediate Post WW!! period. Apart from anything else the branch was still worked in accordance with South Devon Railway Regulations which permitted one or two seemingly very unusual things to be done. Back t little tank eb ngnes. As an aside some years ago someone contacted all the GWR/WR modellers he knew of on RMweb to establish if there was any interest in an Aberdare and the possibility of commissioning one - the price was well beyond the resources of c.100 people.

I think Hattons departure needs to be out in a properr context. Firstly don't forget that it bowed out as a solvent business but one where its profits were shrinking. Don't forget also that its past business model (high volume, rock bottom prices with very slim margins) has been shot to pieces and is never likely to return. It had become a large retail concern competing price wise on a more even basis with other retail concerns but now on an industrial estate without a proper 'High Street' retail outlet as its public face. The market had changed, the deep discount situation has gone (in my view something which is good for the hobby - as I've long said) . So the old, high turnover, highly profitable, Hattons business model is no longer valid. And, for whatever reasons, diversification doesn't seem to have worked as well for Hattons as it has for, say, Kernow

Quite agree. The lamps issue and the loco tender chasm apart Hornby seem to have dropped something of a marketing own goal with this one - even compared with their 2MT. If it had been an Accurascale, Bachmann, or Rapido release - albeit with variations between what they do - there would be around half a dozen or more released now covering all the main stages in the life of the class with various detail differences between them. Bigger market, more sales (if the model is up to scratch) and greater immediate return on investment so potentially a more attractive price. Yet again it looks to me as if Hornby have let themselves down not only on one or two issues on the models themselves but also with their marketing. However I can understand, in some respects, that they might be constrained by their present financial situation (but surely that means they should be taking much greater care with their marketing?).

That fits with the sort of reduction level that comes from items sold out of the longer standing stuff in the warehouse. Kernow are listing the W1 in late BR livery at a similar level of discount (33.2%) which is a larger discount than their usual discount level on the other W1 and A4 models they have in stock

I could do with a truly good model of Black Five and would consider the Hornby one when the right mix of various detail add-on parts comes to market. But I am put off by the lamps (I have a scalpel which might be better than tugging things off?) and some of the other comments on here give me the impression that for what is clearly meant to be a long tooling life model it is over-priced (I could still afford it but then we come to my perception of value for my money). I'll bide my time and see what transpires as it matures in manufacturing terms.

Hmm - a bit off my territory (that was 64XX land) but I see that Pontypool Road had one until the mid 1950s so a time warp might be a possibility?

Apparently its is part of the paper where Labour make very clear their determination 'to get more freight onto the railways' and that would be assisted by giving freight trains the right priority. However they don't understand the core issue involved which is really about resource utilisation & associated cost savings which help to make railborne freight more (or even at all) financially viable. That means that trains have to run at certain times of day in order to turn round resources without having to use, say, an additional set of wagons. Mind you I doubt Labour politicians are no different from any other politicians in this lack of understanding and it's equally clear that DafT and TfL don't understand it either. I would give more credence to their 'aims' if they actually demonstrated that they understand tne issue rather than the naively inane statement reported (was it accurately? by the Daily Telegraph. Actually they, i.e the 'Giuard', did apologise for the delay to a West Of England train which I was on when it was hit for very nearly 15 minutes in total after a train of stone empties was let out from Theale ahead of it. The IET was already running a bit late and the empties left Theale right time but instead of them being put inside at Newbury Racecourse Didcot TVSC had us following them all the way to Woodborough Loop. And of course after that magnificent piece of non-regulation our train was caught behind a Weymouth train between Witham and Castle Cary so we were even further off our path and we ended up going inside at Tavistock Jcn to let a following, Penzance Bound, IET overtake us because it was running on time. There was no apology from DafT for ordering a train which was suffering 'technical difficulties' (the biggest of which being that it was ordered by a bunch of (un)Civil Servants who knew zero about railways or trains and have never apologised for their error). re my final comment - on the first day of IET public operation on the GWML the set I was on returning from Swansea got its revenge on one of the uncivil wallahs when water started to leak from the ceiling all over him.

Quite right (and I have been there by trains so I ought to have got that right - time to correct it thanks.

One interesting thing in their AGM resolutions is that they again passed at the most recent AGM resolutions allowing them to buy back their own shares. However they didn't take the plunge when it would have made most sense to do so with the price down at c.15-16p instead of its current (to me inflated) level of twice that. But of course in reality control of the shareholdings, and hence the company, is in concentrated in a limited number of hands with Phoenix still holding a tad over 70%. So it really boils down to what Phoenix/their Jersey based offshoot decide to do, or not do. Thus the small shareholders in reality having no voting power at all (and another resolution at the last AGM also effectively made that clear by giving the Directors the power to shed what amount to brands without reference to shareholders). And yes - since they dropped out of profit they have gone from one financial crisis to a continuing re-run of the same crisis. Sales have not kept pace with inflation but costs have generally kept pace with inflation, albeit up & down due to various management actions, so whatever else they do the face a continuing hole in that respect and that means borrowing (or the alternatives). And of course the big advantage if them remaining fully public is that they have to produce detailed accounts.

I simply quote what Hornby themselves have said. In last year's accounts the amount, in excess of £20 million was noted as being a result of over-ordering/not selling product into the Christmas market. But the figure had been high before then although it had increased massively. We know that some of it is much older stock as that is easy to see from what has been banged out at reduced prices to retailers and can be seen from their adverts and stock levels. We also know to some extent what is currently in the model railway pipelinge from China and it might be possible from ads to do the same for the other major brands. And we know the cost of the mountain has been reduced by £3 million since last year. By looking at retailers' web sites it's easy to work out what has been bought in at vastly reduced price and is being sold at substantial discount (more than 50% off rrp in some cases) and a lot of it is stuff which was first put into the market 3 or more years ago although some of it is more recent. I would lay good money that c. 75%, or more, of the current mountain is stuff actually unsold products sitting in their logistic company''s warehouse although that means they have more than £5million's worth of it paid for ex-factory but not yet in UK warehouse stock. You also need to take into account what they are continually trying to get retailers to buy when they place their orders which indicates that it too has been sitting on the shelves for a long while. Hornby could, if they care to readily identify stuff not yet arrived in the UK from stuff already sitting here unsold (which might sense from a cashflow viewpoint but would also sound some alatm bells.

Maybe I should dig out my HD 'Duchess of Atholl' to see how it's doing - it was made when our previous King was still on the throne.

I picked up an interesting point in the Labour policy document from the 'Daily Telegraph' cmments on it. Assuming the DT read it right the document appears to be saying that freight services should get greater priority including 'not allowing express trains to delay them'. I haven't bothered to wade through the iumpteebn pages of platitudes and political snake oil salesmanship to check the accuracy of that comment but if it is correct it would pose some interesting dilemmas for 'someone'. The best example I know of, and have watched in action on 'Staff Information' screens at GWR operated stations is not so much 'express trains' but the impact of stopping trains, particularly Elizabeth Line trains where station stops are only a few miles apart and freights are obviously being heavily checked when following those trains. In addition the frequency of Liz Line trains in the inner WRML area has caused the loss of freight paths (contrary to the original Crossrail operating agreement back in BR days). which has resulted in increased resource costs. So what will Labour actually do in cases like this - although I'm pretty sure that I can guess, notwithstanding what they might have thought they were 'promising'.

What happened in BR days isn't wholly relevant as what matters here is what the Rule Book says now. And Modules TW1 and TW5 are unambiguous - if all the exterior doors on a coach are locked out of use passengers must not be allowed to travel in that coach. That shouldn't preclude them being allowed to walk through the coach at a station stop if we take the wording literally but it is, I repeat, unambiguous when it comes to someone travelling in such a vehicle. So simples - as pointed out by 'Legend' above. if somebody goes into a locked coach when the train is passing Point A an in order to use the toilet and in consequence doesn't leave that coach until the trains passes point B then they are travelling in the coach. And that is not permitted. When it comes to the Rules WCRC are, once again taking the p*ss even if they now actually happen to be putting it in retention tanks.

There might well be a small telephone switchboard of some sort in that period as there weren't much in the way of automatic exchanges serving smaller stations in the early part of that period.

The April 1939 Appendix to the No. 6 Section Service Time Table sjhows both Liskeard - Coombe Jcn and Coombe Jcn - Liskeard Looe as worked by Electric Token

One interesting thing about Kader is the way its manufacturing numbers have changed and improved. The reason for this is that it was selling - to subsidiaries - model railway items too cheaply. As a result - taking the Bachmann Europe example in particular, retail prices in the UkKwere basically too low for what was being offered but the company was making good profits. What Kader did to sort out its problem was increase the ex-factory price to the likes of Bachmann Europe. This in turn meant higher UK retail prices from Bachmann and also had the effect of turning that company into a loss maker until it too sorted out its balance between ex-factory prices from Kader and its retail price - and returned to profitability. Thus what Kader did through that change was move profit from that particular subsidiary back to the internal books of the parent company. Kader's manufacturing is of course much wider than model railways, for example its die-casting factory in China sells mainly (if not completely?) to the automotive industry both in China and overseas. Plus there has been debate within the company about concentrating its plastics moulding and assembly business on simpler, but more profitable, products than complex railway model - fortunately model railway products still seem to be continuing and hopefully that strategy won't change but tempus fugit

Not if you keep a nice round 'unbeaten tail' on the end for fixing into a round hole. (I must admit to having problems when it comes to drilling rectangular, or even square, holes.)

Some of the simplistic answers - 1. The newcomers are smaller and much closer to their markets so go for what the market wants. Put that decision making in the wrong place in a larger company and ignore retailer and sales rep feedback you could very easily be in trouble. 2. Outsourcing sounds great until you have to keep on paying for it - such as giving distribution to a warehousing and logistics company then ending up being over-stocked in expensive warehousing or selling your former (factory/)office site and then renting it back. 3. Having a managerial and admin team which is far too big, and consequently expensive, for the sort of markets you are trying to serve compared with your competitors doesn't help keep your costs down or enable you to quickly respond to market needs. 4. Poor marketing decisions mean you don't make the right things or sell them at competitive prices which means you lose sales income. 5. Poor marketing decisions mean you end up with unsold stock - which costs you money in several different ways. 6. Slide out of profitability due to poor decision making and you are on a rocky road to borrowing money to keep your business afloat - which further increases your costs. 7. If your total sales don't even keep pace with inflation but all your costs do increase with inflation your losses will carry on. Now apply all of these fairly simple rules to Hornby PLC. But single elements don't necessarily make the overall result poor. Interestingly not so long back Bachmann Europe's employment costs per head per £1 of revenue were higher than Hornby's. But the company was profitable so Bachmann were clearly getting some other things right which kept them in profit.