PaulRhB

I guess the left end is the lower tone horn? Rhinos always lower the tone

Hornby started that silliness and we said at the time it would damage their brand, so many like me who bought into the brand quality and ‘coziness’ got fed up with their childishness and now they need to rebuild that trust. I had to modify the APT to get it right and not liable to blow a hole in the NDM roof and the 91 is still a dog over pointwork so I don’t think I’m overly cynical after that. The range strategy? just goes against what clearly works in most retail sectors I’ve had direct experience of including model railways. I’m also hoping the recent new advisor doesn’t end up doing what new investors control did to LGB in pushing the price purely on brand name not quality. Or getting distracted doing premium stuff at three times the price like ‘LGB High End’.

Mainly because of the then managements aggressive protection by announcing the same thing and after the Terriers (Rails), 66 & Genesis coaches(Hattons) and 91 (Cavalex) similar gazumping who would blame them at the time for saying this isn’t worth it if Hornby rush a more basic model ahead of us? https://railsofsheffield.com/blogs/news/from-Heljan-tt-120-update

I’m quite happy with the mix of eras, I’m considering a East Coast Mainline layout from LNER to BR, but as it’s a layout currently I have three pacifics with one set of coaches ,(reality is wrong region), that I can’t duplicate realistically and a HST and 08 for the later period. The 08 and HST powercars both still waiting for appropriate stock too ;) The sets are great in providing the start of a complete train but they need supporting stock for the individual locos they sell too. I’ve extended the Pullman set to 8 coaches which is great but as I said before if they’d done the equally attractive teaks I could have bought three sets and still been realistic. I totally get it takes time to establish the range and the Easterner set is the only one that is really expandable beyond the set as you have two other BR A4’s and a A3 plus maroon and blood and custard coaches and 4 wheel vans for an express freight. So that one you could already build a layout with but not really any of the others. The two HST’s wouldn’t run together as the blue one needs deflectors as some of the artwork showed. This is what I mean by disjointed, you can cover multiple eras but by some fairly basic choices you could drive more sales by having things that go together if even for a short period. They did that with the BR eastern steam so why choose a unique rake for the LNER, they may have as well done the Coronation set. Or instead of the LMS Pacific do the Bulleid first so you had two locos to go with the Pullmans. With the HST simply actually do the one they featured in the artwork with the deflector and you can run the BG and exec together. I’m not talking about producing lots of different stuff in one go but choosing to produce stuff that’s complimentary, that caters for the modeller and the trainset market. 😉 A couple of years down the line producing a pannier and a Hall with mainline coaches and an auto coach would similarly give you enough to build a layout with two locos and three to four coach mouldings / liveries so no more than producing the HST set. From that you could have a branch train with auto coach, a local train with tank loco and mainline trains with the tender loco. Websites often suggest, how about this too?Indeed the Hornby one does as well and I worked in retail for twelve years and it was common then to associate products to drive sales. They used to do it but increasingly in OO they have locos and stock separated by supply chain delays, not such an issue with other ranges available except for the APT. It is a bigger issue with a standalone range and it’s not like it’s a new concept link products as the small model manufacturer I worked for in the early 90’s did it as did the major retail chain I worked for in the late 90’s. Even Planet Industrials commissioned complimentary stock for their Victory tanks and that’s a first model so you can do it at the start.

There’s a word that sums up the explanation to both how it does and the thinking process of the creator . . . vacuum 😁

Yep and in OO you can usually model something using other manufacturers stock or the secondhand market. As Hornby went it alone, and got defensive when Heljan announced a 31 making them decide it wasn’t worth the hassle, you don’t have options which makes the release of matching stock more important. If I can run complete sets of only a few trains that at least sustains interest but currently I can’t run two East Coast sets seen together unless I buy two exec HST’s. A quick win would have been to release the BG HST set with a different number to tempt us to buy that too to get more stock ;)

The full size railway has changed to beyond as advance was confusing to some though 😁 To be honest just setting two up in the correct sequence on a piece of track would have been the simplest way to explain it. One region, SR, and not the two Hornby mentioned 😁 You do realise some GWR signalmen have palpitations if you make their signals go up? 🤣

When I worked for a kit manufacturer we always made sure suitable stock was in the storeroom ready for the release of a loco because it drove sales. And if you followed up a few months later with more stock to suit that also was easy to sell. Peco recently did that with the Kato loco and FR bug boxes and then released the bowsiders a while later once people’s wallets had had time to recover. The decision making process is odd and even in the Q&A at 5:15 they say “another loco that’s been asked for a lot is a pannier tank or a terrier, which we will get to but we have to make sure we have the right rolling stock to go with it.” So they at least understand the concept which makes the initial disjointed releases more baffling. The sets are great and adding the HST to that is sure to work well but I currently have three out of my 5 locos with no train to go with them! 🤪

Well yes if they made LNER coaches instead of Pullmans I’d have bought 24 on top of 8 Pullmans but I’m never going to buy three rakes of Pullmans, 😀 If they’d made a freight loco I’d have bought at least one to go with the 12 PO wagons I’ve bought. 😉 I’m kinda locked into buying 8 mk3’s for the blue power cars but like the APT a several month wait to marry up loco and train is frustrating and a bit silly. The teaks to go with Mallard could be 18 - 36 months away yet so yep I’d certainly have bought more 😉 Going back to the announcement itself, I’ve noticed they’ve shown the pics of the 80’s HST with deflector on the roof but the set artwork showed the just released 70’s one without.

But to an extent the established market evidence would say the pannier was always going to be a strong seller and works with a single auto coach, conventional coaches and freight. That’s why it’s a little odd, they could just keep running that in various GWR liveries for years. It’s certainly got more appeal than the J50, and that’s from someone who wants the J50 😆 All the sets so far have been big mainline trains, where’s the equivalent of the various OO 08 and GW 0.4.0 start sets? And I do hope they have a Christmas set in the pipeline this year as that’s a huge seller to the market they claim this scale is for.

Fair enough let’s hope those who do know there stuff are now getting a voice.

To be fair Phil as most modellers just don’t get the randomness you do begin to wonder if there’s much knowledge as the range is so disjointed. Ok TT is aimed at a new market but by ignoring the modeller end? I’ve bought three pacifics with only one set of dubiously appropriate coaches, an 08 for which so far there’s one wagon released and the HST in blue that’s waiting for coaches which are evidently 2-3 months away according to the May / June online? I also have a selection of PO wagons with no loco appropriate so far. I bought them hoping a 0-6-0 would appear but it’s going to be another 6 months yet it seems. They’d have been better launching the range with the sets they did and then either more sets or support for those already released. Instead we are going to see more disjointed releases soon it seems with the 50 but no stock. I’ll get a J50 to go with the wagons but it seems I’ll be waiting another 12-24 months for LNER coaches? So for now this set share one set of Pullmans, and only because I’m not picky enough to worry they’re SR ones 😉

Far too slowly, where are the LNER coaches for the A3 / A4 still? Somewhere in the future on a list. More Pullmans, no use for multiple rakes as they were a rarity. The TTA is still the only wagon for the BR blue 08 to shunt. The J50 is contemporary with the LNER Pacific’s and has stock being produced for it already so that is welcome as currently nothing for the Peco or Hornby 4 wheel steam era wagons except the vans and BR livery Pacific’s.

Note the cad shows the exhaust deflector HST again . .

The signals don’t go with anything they produce. The only place you’ll find a SR rail built signal and any of the locos is on the Marchwood branch (which are both bracket signals) and not with the containers or tanks in the liveries produced. Ok for trainset but useless for a realistic model. I’ve just bought the HST so yes I like the scale but this is still a mess of a range with no joined up thinking and silly errors in the commentary.

Ok well that was to be honest a waste of time. The HST in a box set no dates and really just updates on models already listed we can assume are next. Yet nothing on the 50 or 66. Oh and they are 45 foot containers not inch! 😆 From the new range link https://uk.Hornby.com/new-2024/new-Hornby-tt120?langPath=Hornby-uk&filters[mandatory_filter_by][product_group]=Hornby New TT120&page_id=142853&sort-by=8&page=3 The HST pack and other ‘new announcements’ due in Autumn The signals are described as GWR / LMS look like rail built SR ones to me? 50 listed as spring and 66 as autumn releases.

Going back to this one, could you 3D print the logs then sand the surface to provide a key and coat it in the bark product. Then paint the ends ‘fresh sawn’ colour and then put on a dark brown wash over that and wipe off to reveal the sawn colour again? Greenscene bark https://www.green-scenes.co.uk/store/product/gs402-flexi-bark-tub-flexible-paste A friend also recommended this stuff for bark but I’ve not tried it yet. I assume it would need painting too like the one above.

Link to the loco and wagon combo, there’s also a sound option https://thewagonyard.co.uk/product/guy-fawkes-dcc-ready-combo-deal/

Wonderful, just ordered some and the loco! Magnificent 😁

Well funny you should say that as a few more of the vans and that would be very welcome! I’ve had to buy normal gunpowder vans to bulk up the fleet! Go on a set with two vans, please 😁

Well that wasted an hour filling holes 😆

You can tell it’s photoshopped, no cakes to hand and not a rucksack in sight under the table!

I hate building points so I got Marcway to do that for me. I do however modify the soldered tiebars as I find the fracture fairly quickly as the solder is being flexed. I removed their tiebar and drilled two holes and pushed through two small brass pins. Them I bent them over a piece of card so they are about a mm off the tiebar. then they are soldered to the switch rails giving a pivot that can freely turn without working slowly towards a stress fracture. The tree had its base sawn off so I could insert a 4mm pin into it and make the trees removable so the layout packs together tighter.

I used a single line of trees with the denser forest represented by a photo that I stepped and repeated and had printed on self adhesive vinyl. this is the image, the scene for 16ft is only 8 inches deep. I’ve also had it printed on foamex board to use as a photo backscene on my mini modules. and with the background

Tonight’s preparation for routing the inset for the engineering brick platform edging. I tried plastic L strip but it just looked plasticky even when painted. So it’s the silly individual brick version but already looks better. 😆 The gravel platform surface will fill up to the top of the bricks.