frobisher

Or Avanti were not yet ready to reveal the working livery of the trains? Regardless, as a licensee, Hornby have certain responsibilities, some of which may conflict with their ambitions, and the brakes went on for a reason, presumably at Avanti's request. If these are in the catalogue, we might find out why when those hit the shelves, or we might find that they are not in the catalogue after all (which may or may not be connected). But there are differences between the 800/801 and the 802 which the 805 is closer to. I'd imagine any blocking issues on the differences would have been negotiated by now as the 802s that are due from Hornby are also FirstGroup franchises as well.

Also looking at the pictures provided it appears the 6 pin and the 8pin (non sound) have one and the same circuit boards (just different interfaces) which might explain the size. But these might be prototypes and the production 6 pin might be more compact?

Though of course these decoders do have provision for addon stay alive... that's the bit that will be potentially getting smaller as technology improves and are retrofit.

Except we do not have technology currently energy dense enough, and certainly at the right price and aren't likely enough for quite a while. Taking power through the rails is actually a bloody elegant way of doing things, and horrendously backwards compatible.

It all depends what's announced for Oxford (Toy Fair..?) I suppose (Hornby only lists Intercity Swallow at the moment).

And also realising until you have the big money, it doesn't matter how viable the market is. As far as can be observed, KR not ploughing ahead with projects without knowing that they are viable and ultimately deliverable (which is where DJM collapsed into the mess it did).

Maybe. The chassis of a lot of the early "Super Detail"/Chinese models is not the same as the later ones, and DCC compatibility was a modification rather than as designed. Tender connections changed as well over time. It might all add up. But there may be slightly less assembly steps in the body as well, just not as obvious. Or not, Hornby may have other criteria such as which factory actually manufacturers each, and the various set up costs between them all.

As I understand it, the HM6000 is a single loco system using any analogue loco and does what it says on the tin. With this, you could have multiple, independently controllable locos (equipped with the decoders) running on the same track with just a power supply plugged into it, with the benefit that the chip fitted locos are fully DCC compatible. If the HM6000 does everything you need it to, there is no need to upgrade and there wouldn't be an upgrade possible in any case. As far as I can see, you can use an HM700 equipped loco on analogue control, provided you ramp the power up to max. I don't know if they've stated that they have a "normal" DCC analogue mode for direct controller control.

There must be an element of that as of course the tooling hails from a time when the wages component of the production costs was a fraction of what they are today. As those costs rise, the benefit of the tooling being "paid out" gets rapidly diminished. If the cost of production of an old tooling is higher than the cost of production (including recovery cost for tooling) for new tooling then the end price of the former could likely be higher than that of the latter.

That's not a failure to deliver, that was a failure to find customers.

Well they do have that Lima body which would probably fit...

Not the same thing as I presume these were fully refunded if any funds had been taken.

In their defence, KR haven't yet not delivered a model. However, for a manufacturer primarily using a crowdfunding model, they appear more like a Christmas Club style venture than anything else. Crowdfunding needs a constant, consistent level of communication, as to where things are, what will allow things to proceed to a next step etc. Currently seeking any proper evidence of that.

Is it a particular loco on the train each time, or any loco/train combo that does it? Just a wild stab in the dark, it's not a loco with an old-fashioned open-frame motor is it? That would have large magnet mounted near roof height of the carriages so might be a little "leaky".

Mind you of course, that only applies to and is enforceable on UK companies...

A cynic would say at least not yet... I suspect Heljan are waiting to at least see some proper evidence of Hornby's 31 before potentially leaping in again so they'll know how long it's going to take Hornby to have been "already developing" items.

Perhaps you should have edited the first line at the same time, just saying..?

Really? That's certainly not what you actually wrote...

Possibly it was simple analysis of their pre-orders. After the manufacturing delays caused by the wheel weight issue, maybe Hornby knew they were going to come up short one way or another to fulfill all the pre-orders accrued to that date. As the more expensive set, it is likely the Scotsman orders would lag behind those of the Easterner and had perhaps tailled off to a trickle. As such, you could probably fulfil all those pre-orders with a bit of a margin in a production run for Scotsman, whereas orders for Easterner were still accumulating at a fair rate perhaps meaning a larger production batch that time wouldn't permit to fulfil the totality of orders likely by the end of production wasn't possible. This leaves three possibilities; Scotsman Only : Pre-orders covered pretty much, and happy punters (mostly) get those sets around Christmas. Easterner Only : Pre-orders covered to some extent, but with some disappointed punters wondering why they didn't get their set around Crimbo. Both Sets produced: Serious shortfalls on both pre-orders causing much disappointment and peeps questioning why some got both sets they pre-ordered, yet others who ordered one getting none, some who ordered both getting one but not the other etc. Obviously 1. looks to be the easiest/best path from a PR and manufacturing point of view if production has to be restricted to hit the Christmas deadline. Also with the higher price point, a better movement within the internal books for the company cashflow wise. This is of course based on the assumption that almost everyone who ordered the Scotsman before a certain date have either now got it or knows it is on the way, and is no way based on actual insider information being purely speculative.

But "sharing" a chassis is pretty pointless these days, you'll only be saving maybe half a day's CAD work to adjust one to be correct for the other, and then cutting that separate tooling you'd making anyway.

Unless you can't and produce an excess of electricity that cannot be used elsewhere for whatever reasons

I seem to recall it was mentioned in the TT Club magazine. It would make sense if Hornby were developing the Tornado tooling to cover her predecessors in 00 alongside a TT version.

Indeed - there are certain subjects should be duplicated because they are bread and butter items. For instance (and not limited to this brief list) MK1 through 3 carriages of various types, brake vans from the big four and BR, certain "standard" freight wagons, BR classes 08, 25, 31, 37, 47, and certain iconic 0-6-0 steam locos (Jinty, 57XX etc).

With the best of intentions, Hornby are more like Hattons than Amazon and their warehousing requirements would be much closer to the latter. If their requirements were anything like a single Amazon hub, Hornby would be turning over circa 10-100 times what they currently are.

Hornby have a Railroad quality tooling for the 56 they could easily revitalise should they want to do a spoiler run of popular liveries on the cheap, and as discussed up thread they could do the same with the ex-Lima 50 as well (which I presume you meant rather than 59 though they have that from Lima as well...).