frobisher

But for a launch range, you don't need that kind of duplication to be honest, and it takes a production slot for something else providing more variety in the range. It's a case of pick one for launch, not both. Unless they are horribly behind with the other promised coaches and needed to get something, anything produced... It's quite bone headed by Hornby to be honest.

No, not really. Even to most modeller's you'd struggle to tell 2Es and 2Fs apart at a casual glance. But these are two near identical looking MK2 aircons in the first release and in the same liveries. They will be bought interchangeably by Joe Public so why make BOTH at the same time when you could have tooled up another set of coaches.

The greatest puzzle is why 2Fs AND 2Es in the initial release?

AS could probably calculate to the nearest 5 how many CS Dellner fitted models someone could sell right now... The biggest sales opportunity for those is right now or the next 18 months, until CS reliveries.

Not quite, total of 3 liveries, and 3 tooling variants... You don't exactly need to do 73951/2 BUT they are NR yellow so you're sitting on a huge pot of gold with those... And ...cough Class 89...

You can't go wrong with one of these IME Single Track Controller with Plug in Transformer-Gaugemaster-GMC-COMBI | Gaugemaster (gaugemasterretail.com) Not cheap cheap, but available from most model shops. The Bachmann trainset controllers are a bit better than the Hornby ones if you can find them for sale. A bit though...

Pedantically speaking, they are carbon neutral already as their farts are derived from plants that digest atmospheric CO2... But the contribution of farm animals to "global warming" is grossly exaggerated to deflect attention from the major sources (shipping, power generation, etc.).

What it appears to be is that KMS seemed to have decided to go with A N Other manufacturer, but the project appears to have stalled.

OHLE would be a lot more likely than 3rd rail (beyond the prohibition on new installation). 3rd rail and snow DO NOT MIX based on the feeble snows that the South generally got (the arcing off of the third rail was "interesting" when frosty and snow even more so), and OHLE is a lot better in that regard. "Ruining the landscape" clearly didn't apply to the WCML so I'm not sure it would be a factor for the Highland line. As it stands, there are more than a few powerlines trunked through those areas which are way more obtrusive.

Ah cool, I do recall someone saying they didn't, glad they were wrong.

Not entirely sure - I think very little was reused from the donors so the tanks etc. may be different. The NR ones I think have their 3rd rail shoes and their DC capability removed, but anything below the solebar is cosmetic on modern models anyway. But they'd be able to share a common drive system and bogie design I'd have thought.

Brake Standard Open (Micro-Buffet) - Wikipedia would suggest that they were MK2z conversions based on the original running numbers.

Er, the two types of 73/9 are quite substantially different (the NR ones are dual engined, the GBRf ones have a single prime mover), the main commonality was that they were converted from Class 73s, so pretty much two sets of body tooling. Would love to see AS do them of course, and I would see the GBRf/CS ones as a priority but even then you have variations pre/post MK5s entering service (coupling conversion...).

There was a massive uptake within the software industry, and remains so, and quite a few firms grew substantially during lockdown no longer encumbered by "needing" to be in the office. The visual effects industry has also seen similar benefits. The financial sector has found it can work this way too, and a friend is happy to work from home in Sussex most of the time rather than a weekly commute to Dublin.

Fixed that for you...

I'm trying hard to think what mass produced RTR non-locomotive rolling stock is/will be fitted with sprung buffers - I'm coming up blank. Accurscale's MK1 suburbons would have been a prime candidate I'd have thought, but nope (happy to be proved wrong). But then it's not a loco so it doesn't matter... Does Sam review rolling stock..? Asking for a friend who can't be arsed to go through all his videos...

So you can squish them with your fingers to go "oooh, sprung buffers" and get that last star in your Sam's Trains review.

I think Les' point was that it doesn't actually improve the look of the loco/wagon either.

The initial Limby releases had no traction tyres. and to be completely honest Rice Puddings would look back defiantly at them. The future batches gained traction tyres rather than the weighting needed to sort the issue out.

Not as nice as an 06...

I'm presuming the first batch 2Cs aren't beyond the realm of possibility? That would be nice, AS could do them after the Pullmans 😉

That would match evidence from the Sam's Trains review. It crawled better in reverse than forward, which may be something to do with screw gear fitted to the motor would be my guess so a bit more mechanical resistance in that direction perhaps? I'm surprised that there isn't a proper flywheel on the motor given Farish managed that on the V2, which would probably help in this regard.

Wouldn't quite go that far, but it does expose some biases (mostly not having looked at UK N gauge in at least 30 years for starters it would appear). But then a proper side by side evaluations of those three models is really singing the praises of TT:120. "Look at me, just a little bit bigger than N but so much more accurate and I just look like a smaller version of the 00 model, so don't compromise too much on size if you want to go smaller!" The size argument is completely bogus of course. I started in N gauge not because it was smaller, but because it wasn't 00 and presented different challenges. My brother had an extensive 00 layout, and I wanted something different. I can't really justify buying into TT:120 when most of my existing stuff (N and 00) is still in storage... or have I just talked myself into it...? Clean slate... or I could just get the loft floored and get everything out of storage... and there would be room for some TT as well... I'm hiding the credit card before itchy fingers start clicking buy and repurposing the dining room table...

Absolutely. It's good we're getting it early, because again it's a something that will sit in so many liveries and in so many train sets. And crossing over through Arnold is win win. I'm more disappointed that Heljan had to back out of the first wave of TT:120. I'd like to see a proper alternative take on the scale, but I don't think until the Hornby range s more extensive (and that's down to Hornby's production pipeline) we're going to see the more "premium" approach hinted at by Heljan being enacted by them or another party. This is not to denigrate the approach we've see so far by Hornby. What we are getting is well detailed and finished locos and carriages, but with more moulded detail than we're used to in the main range in 00 but appropriately so. What we saw of the Heljan 31 CAD pointed towards 00 detailing shrunk and done the same way in TT:120, and a matching price point but we literally don't know yet if that market exists in TT:120. The Hornby 08 looks gorgeous, and looks more finessed in many ways than the rather lovely Farish (don't mention the con-rods...) one in N probably because of the choice of more moulded detail rather than the separately fitted and slightly overscale bits that "we" have all been demanding.

But reasoned lacking evidence to the contrary ;) Regardless, the choices revealed by Hornby were sufficient to shut down that path for Heljan, at least for now.