Porfuera

I point you back to my previous statement that everyone has their own ideas on what they should have started with or what they should be making now 😄 What they have produced so far has sold out repeatedly - would anything different have sold better? No-one here has access to their sales figures but presumably they based their opening sets on what sell best in 00?

It has been said many, many times that they can't do everything at once. Also everyone has their own ideas of what Hornby should have started with or what they should be making now. There is a Castle and a 57xx in the catalogue (the 57xx was subsequently brought forward into Phase 4) but there have been a lot of production delays to the original schedule and these are still years away by the looks of things. But then Hornby aren't the only ones hit by production delays.

Thanks! Maybe this one,,,?

The Q&A liink should be here (I hope!) EDIT: apparently that was 00 - try this one:

The Q&A link is here (I hope!) in case anyone hasn't found it yet

Those container liveries have already been announced by Arnold as a second run of those wagons so those were a bit of a cheat. However, a lot of people won't know about Arnold so it will probably boost sales, especially in shops if they are reboxed as Hornby.

I agree with all that except I think people were perhaps expecting to hear more about the Phase 3 stuff already mentioned in the catalogue. I'm hoping that will be this afternoon - it sounds like it is a Q&A so I'm hoping that is the whole point of it and maybe doing it at lunchtime will allow more people to join. As for the containers, those liveries were already announced by Arnold. It will be interesting to see whether they rebox them into Hornby boxes or whether they send them out in the Arnold boxes to try to increase brand awareness for Arnold - although leaving them in the Arnold boxes might just cause too much confusion amongst some customers!

But AFAIR Hornby said that they were delaying the digital publishing of the Club magazine because of this announcement. I can understand them not wanting to wait for the next issue to include these items but I think that will have added to the expectations The magazine doesn't seem to have been uploaded yet so maybe there will be more information on the Phase 3 and 4 items this afternoon. However there are existing items to be released up right up to the end of the year (Class 50, Duchess, Class 66, green 08 and maybe now the J50, Mk3s, Mk2s, 21T minerals, more coaches maybe) so I'd guess that the Phase 3 items won't get a look-in until next year (and Phase 4 the year after?), although they could still give progress updates on these.

The new items mentioned are on the website already - J50, HST set, signals, level crossing - pre-order only, obviously

That was slightly underwhelming considering the buildup. If I've understood it correctly there will be a Q&A at 1am so hopefully more will be revealed in that.

Sometimes this sort of website activity is a sign that items are about to arrive in stock or ship to customers, although the coaches are still showing 'Summer' rather than 'Spring'. Or maybe they're just trying to generate some extra excitement for tomorrow's announcements 😂

I can give an update on the postage situation with regard to the £135 limit. My latest package from Modellbahnshop-Lippe was ordered on the 10th March and arrived on 20th (there was a delay of a couple of days in that time because they notified me that the wagon I'd ordered had become unavailable and I had to let them know of a like-for-like replacement). The order cost was €153,59 after German VAT was deducted (so approx £131) and the postage was an additional €9,90, giving a total spend of €163,49 (so approx £139 to £140) - to date I have not had a request/demand for UK VAT to be paid - fingers firmly crossed! Modellbahnshop-Lippe use FedEx end-to-end and from what I remember reading here previously it seems that if the Post Office/Royal Mail are involved at the UK end then the postage is included in the £135 whereas FedEx don't currently seem to do that.

Others will probably come up with some ideas but would Peco's small radius points give you more space in the fiddleyard? More expensive, I know, but it might give you more space to work with. I don't know where you were looking at Tillig prices but if you buy from Germany then they deduct German VAT and if keep your spend below £135 (excluding postage) then UK VAT should not be applied (although this isn't universally guaranteed - it seems to depend on the courier but I've been OK so far with Modellbahnshop-Lippe who use FedEx). For example the small double slip here works out at around £29 (still not cheap but better than UK prices at around £40-£50). Shipping is around 10 Euros which wouldn't save you much on that one item but if there is anything else you need (like curved points or a 3-way point) then the savings are better. Tillig frogs aren't the best (some look like solid lumps of aluminium while other are plastic like Hornby's) and they don't have locking springs but if you're looking at using point motors anyway then that shouldn't matter. Another thing is that the tiebars don't seem very robust so a slow-motion point motor or a servo might be better than the 'thump' of a solenoid point motor. I shall be following your thread with interest as I'm also strapped for space.

But none of those things are designed that way. As I said before, these days you wouldn't get away with deliberately designing an HST to run as a 4-car set. It would be the same if someone decided to use a generic chassis for a number of steam locos - that would be unthinkable, and to me a 4-car HST would be the same, regardless of the fact that most people won't be able to run an 8-car set anyway. And as I mentioned already, Hornby had problems with the Mk1s and these were easily sorted. I like to think positively and say that any problem with the Mk3s would be equally minor. These things go through a lot of testing and hopefully any problem will be an assembly error rather than a fundamental design issue.

I know you have some TT:120 but that thought wouldn't even have crossed my mind - not designed to run anything less than an 8-car set, not these days. After all, they are selling 8 differently-numbered coaches in two of the liveries - presumably they expect some people to buy all of them so why would they deliberately design it so that the powered car couldn't pull them all together?

That's interesting. No wonder mine was running freely - I didn't have the correct coaches for the test! Good to know that your power car is running OK, at least, and hopefully you'll get to the bottom of what's happening with the Mk3s. I seem to recall that there was a problem with the early Mk1s where a stub of plastic was left on the underside of the coaches (IIRC it wasn't meant to be there - it was something to do with the assembly process and should have been removed) and this rubbed against the wheels but only when the coaches went around a curve. It has since been fixed on the Mk1s but given that you were running a long formation on a loop of track could it be something like that? Maybe at some point you could you try the HST and the Mk3s on a straight length of track to see if they are OK on the straight and therefore whether it is something that only happens on curves? And good luck with your house move - I hope it all goes smoothly!

Hi Andy - I don't comment often but it was good to see another video and nice to know that Tonleigh Bridge went to a good home even if it wasn't what you'd planned. Best wishes to Mrs. P and I hope she is improving and that the building works won't be too disruptive. I always enjoy your updates and along with everyone else I'm looking forward to seeing your next build develop!

Hi Michael, I'm sorry to say that you might want to return your HST to Hornby for them to take a look at it if fitting it with DCC doesn't cure its problems (and I'm also doubtful that it would cure it but it must be worth a try). After seeing your post I thought I'd give mine a test as I currently have a running-in loop of track on my dining room table (much to the delight of the Domestic Authority). The loop is a full circle of Tillig bedding track of radius 396 (so equal to Hornby's R4) plus only four 166mm straights, laid out with two straights per side (so the circuit is an oval rather than a 'square'). I don't have any BG Mk3s (they're not out yet) so I tried my HST set with three unlit Pullmans from the Scotsman set and three Mk1 from the Easterner. My HST set is DCC and it came pre-fitted. The 'train' was long enough to cover almost half of the circuit so a considerable amount of it is always on a curve yet it pulled away at the lowest speed setting (i.e. '1' on the app) and continued crawling at that speed without any problems for a full circuit. Then I noticed that you said you were running 8 coaches rather than the six that I had. The only bogie vehicles I had left to try were three Arnold container wagons so I added those to give a total of 9 vehicles plus the dummy power car. I think the Arnold wagons are a bit heavier than the coaches, plus the 'train' now covered more than half of the circuit, so it was even more demanding. However, the result was the same with the HST starting at '1' and continuing to crawl around at that speed for a full circuit. I have to say that my three steamers (Blink Bonny, William Whitelaw and Trigo) didn't show the even slightest interest in pulling the six coaches plus the dummy HST car at the same low speed as the HST. Even at speed setting '10' Trigo would stop and wheelspin frequently. However the steamers weigh a bit less than the HST so maybe they'd benefit from a bit of extra weight (and maybe a bit of wheel cleaning, too). Finally, I have to say that if the TV series 'Hornby: A Model World' is even faintly true to reality then I think the idea that Hornby would settle for a 4-coach HST as a 'maximum' because "TT:120 is for smaller spaces" doesn't really hold water. There is no evidence for them thinking that and on the TV series they seemed just as enthusiastic to see a loco pulling a realistic rake of carriages or wagons at speed as the rest of us.

The five GWR Mk3 TSOs in the online shop that that were recently showing "Spring" are now also showing "Summer", with metadata dates of 30th July. Therefore all the outstanding BG and GWR Mk3s are now showing "Summer". Hopefully these will change to earlier dates at some point - my HST pack arrived today and I would very much like to have some coaches to run with it! I think Hornby will get some stick if the Mk3s don't arrive until June/July. Maybe we will hear better news on 2nd April.

There is a post on the Hornby Bluetooth decoders thread saying that the sound profiles for the TT:120 Duchess, Class 50 and Class 66 are due to be released by the end of the month (although I haven't checked this myself). However the shop is showing 'Expected' dates of Summer (for the Duchess and Class 50) and Autumn (for the Class 66) for the locos. If they're releasing the sound profiles soon then maybe the shop dates for these locos are being pessimistic. Fingers crossed! EDIT: Or maybe it is the easiest way for the factory in China to get hold of the profiles to preload them onto the sound-fitted locos, which are due to be released at the same time as the DC locos...?

It is interesting that they are getting these out so early because (according to the shop pages) the TT:120 Duchess and Class 50 aren't due until Summer (possibly end of May and end of June respectively) and the Class 66 isn't due until Autumn (possibly end of November) at the earliest. Hopefully the shop dates are being pessimistic!

This is why I put "the only way we'll know for sure is to check these dates against something that will be released in the near future". I'm not sure I agree about the dates. Just because 'long' dates frequently slip, it doesn't mean that near ones are unreliable. Hornby must have a good idea when stock is going to arrive so that they can send lists out to dealers. However, going by how quickly the Swallow-liveried Mk3s were sent out after the power car packs you'd think the BG and GWR Mk3s would be here already but who knows? And I've just had my notification email for my digital BG HST (or rather SWMBOs HST!) so I'm as keen to see the Mk3s as anyone else, otherwise I'll be running it with Pullmans!

Well that blows my theory out of the water! 🙂 EDIT: I've just checked and it look like it is only the power car packs so maybe I'm safe for now...

As a continuation to the above, five of the GWR Mk3 coaches are showing an availability of "Spring" (all look like TSOs) while three are showing an availability of "Summer" (these are Buffet, TF and TGS). For those with Spring, the "product:availability_date" is showing as "2024-03-28T00:00:00+00:00" so we will be able to see whether this happens on the 28th March or not (assuming the date doesn't change). For those showing "Summer" the date is showing as "2024-07-02T00:00:00+01:00".

I'm still seeing a date of 2nd June on the shop page. Anyone can try this for themselves to check something on the web page called "product:availability_date" The following is for a Windows 11 desktop using Google Chrome (I haven't tried it with anything else so if you're using a different browser or Android or Apple devices you may need to find a different method). The instructions may even be different if you are using a different version of Chrome but you can try the following: - View a product in the Hornby shop (e.g. the blue/grey Mk3 Tourist Standard Open, E42141 here) - Put the mouse pointer in the white space above the photo and right-click. A menu will appear - click on "View page source" (or instead of doing this you can just type <Ctrl-U> i.e. hold down the Control key and press the letter 'u') - The HTML/JavaScript code for the page will appear in a new tab - don't panic! You are looking for something that says "product:availability_date" that has a date and time after it - this is in the format "2024-06-02T00:00:00+01:00" On my screen this appears on the first page at about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way down but that may depend on the size of the screen that you are using, the screen resolution, that sort of thing so you may need to scroll if you can't see it. There are line numbers on the left and for me it is at Line 42 but again that may depend on different factors/settings on your PC - I don't know, I'm not a Java/HTML person. Alternatively if you can't see "availability_date" then you can search the page by typing <Ctrl-f> (hold down the Control key and press the letter 'f'). When you do this a small box appears at the top right of the screen - type in "availability" (without the quotes) and all occurrences of the word "availability" will be highlighted. Click on the down arrow in the box until you reach "availability_date". I'm not saying this is 100% guaranteed to be the actual day that an individual item will become available but someone on Facebook was able to 'predict' when the GWR and blue/grey HST sets became available to order on the Hornby web site and I'm guessing that this is what they used - the only way we'll know for sure is to check these dates against something that will be released in the near future, for example the Duchess of Athol, which has a date of 30th May, or something earlier if someone spots something with an earlier date. Interestingly there is another item called "data-stock-level" which appears to be positive for available items (like the HST sets) and negative for pre-order items (as you might expect) but it seems to be quite low (generally less than 100 for most values that I've looked at). For the TSO above it is "-54" and for the Duchess of Athol it is "-127" so I'm wondering if the value is scaled (maybe by a factor of 10) because I would have thought that pre-orders would be higher - unless people are now mostly pre-ordering from retailers because the TT:120 Club discount is no longer available. AFAIAA neither the availability_date nor the stock-level are directly displayed on the web page - I'm guessing that the former is used to calculate the season while the latter is used to determine whether you are allowed to order an in-stock item or whether you have to place a pre-order and it is used to format the page accordingly. EDIT: I've just checked the 2nd June and it is a Sunday, which is possibly unlikely (unless Hornby's logistics/warehousing company works a 7-day week) so maybe it is just a placeholder for an earlier date.