Oh Hornby! Where did it all go wrong?

[cessna152towser]

Browsing my 1972 Hornby catalogue this evening a quote from the inside front cover:-

"Tri-ang Hornby trains provide fun that lasts.  Their strength will absorb playroom knocks and ensure the trains will still be running years from now.   Only the finest materials are used in their construction and prototypes underego a rigorous programme of developing and testing before new models are put into production.

Rolling stock and accessories are carefully checked before despatch from the factory and locomotives are triple tested.  Tri-ang Hornby is your guarantee of value for money".

Exactly as they said, the trains will still be running years from now, I have many locos, coaches and wagons which are shown in this catalogue and still run smoothly fifty years later.

It is sad how quality control has declined with more recent models.

[andyman7]

Oh dear, the rose tinted spectacles are well and truly on now!

 

I too enjoy the products of Triang-Hornby circa 1972, but you are quoting the advertising copy verbatim. Back then, if you'd shown that copy to a pipe-smoking, cardigan wearing model railway enthusiast they would have dismissed the range as cheap modern plastic rubbish, not a patch on proper Hornby which was made of metal in Liverpool etc.

 

They are indeed infinitely serviceable but it is because mechanically they are extremely basic and crude. Great fun, but no comparison with modern market expectations. 

 

For what it's worth, I don't suspect that any of today's modern superdetail models will last 50 or 60 years without intervention - there's too many electronics to degrade. But I also suspect that (much in the same way that modern enthusiasts remanufacture and remake parts to keep 1930s Hornby O gauge models working) there will be an aftermarket industry in parts such as PCBs that can rejuvenate such models.

Edited February 22, 2022 by andyman7

[Nearholmer]

It all went wrong when, to quote James May as best as I can remember what he said: "They stopped making toy trains for boys, and started making model trains for sad old men like me.".

[TheSignalEngineer]

23 minutes ago, andyman7 said:

They are indeed infinitely serviceable but it is because mechanically they are extremely basic and crude. Great fun, but no comparison with modern market expectations. 

 

For what it's worth, I don't suspect that any of today's modern superdetail models will last 50 or 60 years without intervention

Last month I had all my HD stock out for its periodic run. All the locos still going strong after a quick clean and oil. Considering I had my first Montrose S/H in 1958 that's pretty good. 

Whats more my youngest grandson had a great time helping with the tracklaying and running even though the newest item is about 50 years older than him.

[locomad2]

WWW "means world wide web" to me it means "what went wrong", Hornby has become like nearly all other manufacturers obsessed with turning out stuff which looks good, expensive, but doesn't last, easy to  break, doesn't work, and can't be repaired.

 

4 decades ago I ended up on a American Quality control program RAM-D, meaning Reliable, Assessable Maintainable, and Durable, something to do with keeping B52 Bombers  flying for years to come, they are still flying.

 

Then I noticed, collected  and kept things which I knew would last, RAM-D products I call them,  Land Rovers, Hornby Dublo trains, LEGO, Meccano, British made tools etc etc

 

Now i notice stuff purchased in 1980's  has lasted both garage and train room have stuff like 1980's radios, wolf power drills, H&M transformers etc etc (generally stuff purchased since has failed)

 

Recently lady friend purchased a modern Dyson v10 cordless hovver ~ £300, its crap, lasts a out 10 minutes on a full charge, takes 4 hours to recharge,  unlikely to last a year, filter already causing "computer error", so out comes from Railway room, my 40 year old Kirby Hoover to finish the job, now that's a RAM-D product

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It all went wrong when, to quote James May as best as I can remember what he said: "They stopped making toy trains for boys, and started making model trains for sad old men like me.".

 

Regrettably nowadays that's where the money is.

 

Mike.

[Nearholmer]

6 hours ago, locomad2 said:

Then I noticed, collected  and kept things which I knew would last, RAM-D products I call them,  Land Rovers, Hornby Dublo trains, LEGO, Meccano, British made tools etc etc

I too like what you call “RAM-D products”, but I think you are more than a bit off-beam when you criticise the later “not-RAM-D” as being expensive.

 

A very major reason for many of the older style products falling out of favour was that the newer style ones were/are significantly cheaper , certainly in first cost (lifetime cost accounting for throwaways is debatable). People swapped to buying the more affordable things, or were able to buy for the first time, because they were cheaper.

 

Taking two examples that you cite: Hornby Dublo trains, and Landrovers: go back to, say, 1957*, and both were very costly brands, well out of the reach of most ordinary people.

 

There are still RAM-D products around, being made now, but you have to hunt about a bit, and some of them are by no means the cheapest on the market, things like Dualit toasters, some (not all) Stanley** tools, Genesis steel-framed bikes. Notably, they tend to be slightly less “mega functional” than other products, but are things that your kids could inherit, still in good working order.

 

The “hole” that I observe in this hobby is the absence of RAM-D ready-to-run 00 toy trains. In 0, Ace Trains of London and ETS of Prague provide such things (see my thread if you aren’t familiar), but nobody does in 00, and the modern-Hornby Faux-Dublo doesn’t fit the bill …… the mechanisms certainly don’t look RAM-D. Whether there would be enough customers to justify making such things, I don’t know; there might, but they wouldn’t be cheap, so would generate vast amounts of moaning on RMWeb.
 

 

*Chosen because, by coincidence I have owned both a 1957 Landrover, and some 1957 HD toy trains.
 

** See tediously prolonged discussion of hand drills in my thread!

[Butler Henderson]

Those TH locos did have metal whistles whereas today there is the use of plastic for parts that are too fragile and a lack of spares. They need to copy Heljan and nominally make every part available.

[spamcan61]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Regrettably nowadays that's where the money is.

 

Mike.

I see no need for regret, I'm buying models that cost no more (or quite possibly less in real terms) than 1950s HD toy trains, for far better detail and finish, much smoother running and hugely increased range of products. OK the level of hand assembly means the quality isn't consistent, but I'd rather put up with that than have a 'choice' of the same  10 robust but primitive toy trains in the catalogue year after year. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by spamcan61

[spamcan61]

7 hours ago, locomad2 said:

Recently lady friend purchased a modern Dyson v10 cordless hovver ~ £300, its crap, lasts a out 10 minutes on a full charge, takes 4 hours to recharge,  unlikely to last a year, filter already causing "computer error", so out comes from Railway room, my 40 year old Kirby Hoover to finish the job, now that's a RAM-D product

Oooh don't get me started on Die-soon, the triumph of marketing over engineering. Guy at work has one of their eye wateringly expensive fans on his desk, it looks really 'cool' and is good for providing a very gentle breeze. As soon as you turn it up though it gets very noisy with very little increase in airflow, a 20 quid fan from Argos would do much better. Still, he's a billionaire and I'm not lol!

 

Whilst not quite a Kirby, my Henry at home is definitely a RAM-D product, on/off switch eventually went, new one off eBay cost under a fiver and took minutes to fit.

 

In my day job (which is commercial/industrial electronics, not consumer products) I've been putting RAM-D techniques (or DFx as I would call it) into reverse for the best part of 20 years now...

Edited February 23, 2022 by spamcan61

[Nearholmer]

Some Dyson products are very good indeed at the functional level. The Animal cordless “hoover” is very good, provided you wash the filters out when it tells you to. The desk fan I would agree is a gimmick though.

 

But, and it is a big but, they fail spectacularly, almost deliberately on the repairability front. We had an ordinary ‘plug in’ one, and the main ‘head’ had an air-driven sweeper feature. The design was a bit iffy, relying on absolute cleanliness in order to work properly, which is hard to guarantee with a hoover head, but the real trouble started when I wanted to replace a component in it. Stripping it down was possible, after hours of trying to understand how it had been assembled, but could I actually get the part? Nope! I wasted vast amounts of time trying, and failed. Eventually, much to my disgruntlement the tjing went to recycling for want of one component. About as wasteful as anything ever could be!

 

IMO, one of the biggest enemies of RAM-D is constant upgrading of things to incorporate ever-more functionality. This applies to almost everything, phones, cars, washing machines, even quite trivial objects. What this does is cause constant change, making it unviable to keep spare parts, even if the design facilitates their use, because the production run of items incorporating Part XYZ.ABC is small, and usually distributed globally. We have got trapped by the forces of consumerism into a shocking cycle of wastefulness.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Enterprisingwestern]

20 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

I see no need for regret, I'm buying models that cost no more (or quite possibly less in real terms) than 1950s HD toy trains, for far better detail and finish, much smoother running and hugely increased range of products. OK the level of hand assembly means the quality isn't consistent, but I'd rather put up with that than have a 'choice' of the same  10 robust but primitive toy trains in the catalogue year after year. 

 

I didn't mean regrettably in a negative way with regard to quality, more in a way that the shift in focus isn't bringing as much new blood into the hobby, how many train sets and accessories (of which there aren't any where near as many of as in days of yore) are sold as entry level toys to children as a christmas/birthday presents to be developed over the year?. We've been here before elsewhere, but the age demographic is vastly different to the Triang/HD days.

 

Mike.

[kevinlms]

9 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I didn't mean regrettably in a negative way with regard to quality, more in a way that the shift in focus isn't bringing as much new blood into the hobby, how many train sets and accessories (of which there aren't any where near as many of as in days of yore) are sold as entry level toys to children as a christmas/birthday presents to be developed over the year?. We've been here before elsewhere, but the age demographic is vastly different to the Triang/HD days.

 

Mike.

If young people don't want them and their parents etc know nothing about them - what other conclusion is there? It gives an indication of how long model trains as a kids hobby has been dying for. The 50s, 60s & 70s are way back in history!

[ikcdab]

The model railway manufacturers supply what the market demands.  For years, modellers have demanded greater detail and fidelity and these are obviously much more fragile than in the past. Modern RTR is just not a toy anymore, it's a scale model. Of you want the toys, buy the railroad ranges, I expect not many of us do that.

I would never every go back to the dark days before the 1990s with the rubbish locomotives that were on sale then.  Pancake motors, split chassis, thick wheels, flange less drivers, no brake rigging, graunchy, uncontrollable mechanisms, shiny finishes, low level of detail...need I go on.  Modern RTR is, by and large, a whole universe better than in the past. My modern RTR runs faultlessly out of the box and if it doesn't, I send it back for a replacement.  No different to anything else I buy.

As someone said above, rose tinted specs...

Ian

[33C]

Built in obsolescence is the way things are now. If it don't break, they can't sell you another one. Most stuff that goes to recycling ends up abroad, is repaired cheaper and keeps their economy afloat. 

[Nearholmer]

I think you might be slightly missing the point that's being made by some of us, ikcdab.

 

It would be perfectly possible to make and sell models that run like swiss watches straight out of the box, are bristling with details, and are reasonably repairable and maintainable so as to yield effectively limitless life. As I say, it is done in 0 gauge by a few makers/commissioners who cater to the "old fashioned" segment of the market.

 

For 00 there seems to be no equivalent in the UK (I have a feeling that Maerklin might fit the bill for continental enthusiasts), and my conclusion (based on wild guesswork) is that the market segment that woulld bear the resultant prices is too small. Lets assume the price for a 'bread and butter' loco like a Pannier tank would turn-out to be double, possibly treble, the current going price, would UK customers buy it? Possibly not, although a sound argument coud be made that most people end-up with two or three times more locos than they need anyway, so could well opt for one really beautifully engineered one, instead of three good, but not beautiful, ones.

[RedgateModels]

9 hours ago, locomad2 said:

my 40 year old Kirby Hoover to finish the job, now that's a RAM-D product

 

Which were eyewateringly expensive, sold door to door to miners with more money than they knew what to do with (my now wife used to run a team selling these back in the day)

 

But yes, built to last, not to a price because there was a very captive market for them

[Nearholmer]

Recent history can trick us into thinking that all things were beautifully made, robust, and repairable "in the old days", which they sure as heck weren't, simply because we focus on the survivors, and they tend to be the really good things, which were expensive at the time. Back to my poit above about 1957 Landrovers and Hornby Dublo trains. High percentages of these survive today relative to the percentage survival of cheaper toys, and cheaper cars.

 

I honestly think that the ultimate way to make things would be using the best of modern materials and methods, coupled with a design philosophy that focused on repairability, maintainability, durability etc, and modern cars do get fairly close to that, especially EVs, but for many products it would, as 33C says, be completely against the interests of the suppliers, so they make "cheap tat" instead, and we all rush out and buy it (just vist your local recycling centre to watch us all throwing away vast quantities of such stuff).

[Legend]

Hornby are certainly getting things wrong . QC is a big one that needs addressing but I think their image is also tarnished for not producing the same value for money goods as the old Tri-ang Hornby , and through really ridiculous stunts as the Titfield saga , Tiers , cutting off Hattons , poor support for retail . So this is very much not the company of Richard Lines . See a Service Dealer anywhere ?

 

That said , I dont think comparison of goods 1972 to 2022 is really valid .  I love the  Tri-ang and Wrenn locos of the 60s and 70s and still run them  but you just need to look at my cherished 1971 Princess Elizabeth and compare it to my 2002 (I think) Princess Marie Rose  . The 1972 one is most definitely a toy by comparison , and of course there are later variants that are even more detailed .  I still enjoy running it , mainly for the memories of who gave me it and the joy of coming down on Christmas morning and finding it there, but it is a toy.  37s with dummy centre wheels and actually the same bogies as a 31. I dare anyone to announce that today (although Hornby come close with flangeless pony wheels !). How about a sort of 08 diesel shunter . Too tall , no outside frames .  On the other hand there was more of a system approach with full overhead catenary . The range is very ad - hoc these days and of course things quickly go out of stock. 

 

It is also true that we are a much more affluent disposable community . Things are not built to last the same way because we tend to want to replace them in 5-10 years instead of holding onto them for life . 

 

So Hornby are not the company it was . Actually that is literally true . Its only the "Hornby" part of the name thats the same , I think we've moved from Rovex  to DCM to management buy out  and the current Pheonix Capital . 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Legend

[Metropolitan H]

I'm a bit surprised that no one has yet mentioned the shining example of spares supply and compatibility practiced by General Motors Electro-Motive Divison (GM-EMD) on their diesel locomotives. You can still by a set of replacement engine components - or other loco parts to maintain the earliest of their locomotives. The parts such as pistons might not be identical to the old ones, but they will fit (and in most cases improve the performance) both the latest engines and the earliest, but you will need to buy a complete matched set. Perhaps why GM-EMD have become one of - if not THE - most successful diesel locomotive suppliers the world over.

 

Regarding r-t-r model trains, a lot of modern Hornby / Bachmann / Heljan / Dapol etc. are fantastically detailed - and some even run nicely for a while till the T9 motor mounts crumble or the mazak (Monkey metal) split-frame chassis parts expand / distort / crumble - but they are definitely much too fragile for use by un-supervised youngsters who then get very disappointed and turn-away from the hobby to the ir tablet screens or other latest fads. However, what is now the "Rail-road" range or equivalent are often in garish colours so putting off "the enthusiast", but at least most of them will work for young children - especially if they have a face and there are doors which open etc. - !

 

Now I will go back to fixing the diode lights in one of my Darstaed (modern tinplate) Pullman cars - a previous owner obviously fiddled and connected 12+ vdc to the diodes which should be fed by the 3v dc output of the voltage regulator. Then I will get back to making some of my own models or playing with the modern 3- rail, Coarse scale, "0" gauge trains which work - look good and are relatively child-proof.

 

Regards

Chris H

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, 33C said:

Built in obsolescence is the way things are now. If it don't break, they can't sell you another one. Most stuff that goes to recycling ends up abroad, is repaired cheaper and keeps their economy afloat. 

I doubt whether much of your comments are true. The problem is always going to be the availability of suitable spares. If you can't get them in the western world, they aren't going to be available in the 3rd world either - no matter the labour rates.

Often items become non repairable, because the type of plastic shatters. I have a small LED torch, which still functions, but the casing is stuffed making it useless.

 

Of course it depends on the item. Many 3rd world countries have stopped taking containers of rubbish from the 1st world. Why? Because only a small proportion of the waste had a market - stuff like metals, some plastics and paper. Much of the rest got burnt in the open air, including most of the items of clothing - largely because it is junk. The burning caused all sorts of toxic fumes locally, which is totally unacceptable, not least because many of the 'workers' were young children.

Edited February 23, 2022 by kevinlms
More info

[kevinlms]

15 minutes ago, Metropolitan H said:

I'm a bit surprised that no one has yet mentioned the shining example of spares supply and compatibility practiced by General Motors Electro-Motive Divison (GM-EMD) on their diesel locomotives. You can still by a set of replacement engine components - or other loco parts to maintain the earliest of their locomotives. The parts such as pistons might not be identical to the old ones, but they will fit (and in most cases improve the performance) both the latest engines and the earliest, but you will need to buy a complete matched set. Perhaps why GM-EMD have become one of - if not THE - most successful diesel locomotive suppliers the world over.

 

 

But GM-EMD are relatively expensive, high end products designed for long life and hard work. It would be different if designed to last 5 years.

 

There is no comparison with model trains and the small parts which can really only be modelled in engineering grade plastics. The value of the individual items is so low (fractions of a pound) that you can't store large numbers of spares and have a proper supply chain. (Yes, I know about Peter's Spares - but many of those parts were made years ago and I doubt whether too many parts are available for Chinese made models. But we still have only a small number of such suppliers - the days of a network of service dealers carrying parts, is long gone.)

 

But you can with diesel engine parts, because the product they fit onto is worth so much more.

[AndrewC]

40 years ago I worked an evening a week and performed all the Triang & Hornby repairs for a Canadian retailer / service partner. The so called quality control issues were just as bad then if not worse than today. Every single, and I mean every loco that came in new required an average of an hour of effort to make it fit for sale. Missing motor brushes, mis-gauged wheels, missing parts, jammed or broken gears on ringfield motors, disconnected wiring, etc, etc, etc. Rolling stock wasn't as bad but missing or fallen out wheel sets were common, as were missing coupler hooks. The shop eventually dropped Hornby altogether after being a retailer for more than 20 years as it was costing them more in my time to make them fit to sell than their profit margin. Compared to even crappy US Bachmann (botchman) or basic Athearn they were widely regarded as junk. Maybe the company just didn't give a crap and dumped their quality control failures on the foreign market, knowing full well returning the stock wasn't economically viable for the shops. 

[Robin Brasher]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I too like what you call “RAM-D products”, but I think you are more than a bit off-beam when you criticise the later “not-RAM-D” as being expensive.

 

A very major reason for many of the older style products falling out of favour was that the newer style ones were/are significantly c

 

The “hole” that I observe in this hobby is the absence of RAM-D ready-to-run 00 toy trains. In 0, Ace Trains of London and ETS of Prague provide such things (see my thread if you aren’t familiar), but nobody does in 00, and the modern-Hornby Faux-Dublo doesn’t fit the bill …… the mechanisms certainly don’t look RAM-D. Whether there would be enough customers to justify making such things, I don’t know; there might, but they wouldn’t be cheap, so would generate vast amounts of moaning on RMWeb.
 

 

*Chosen because, by coincidence I have owned both a 1957 Landrover, and some 1957 HD toy trains.
 

** See tediously prolonged discussion of hand drills in my thread!

I have no idea what 'RAM-D' products are but I think that the 00 Works supply the same sort of market in 00 gauge as Ace and ETS provide in 0 gauge.  Despite the comments on this site and from magazine editors I am satisfied with the level of detail in the 00 Works locomotive.  I would rather pay £320 for an 00 Works locomotive that will last a lifetime rather than £180 for a Hornby locomotive that may last five years and possibly cannot be repaired if it goes wrong.  

About 10 years ago I bought a Hornby T9 for around £60.  The gears no longer engage so instead of being a bargain it has turned into an expensive paper weight.

[Nearholmer]

'RAMD' is an acronym used in engineering circles, originating from military systems thinking, which means "Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Durability", i.e. that all of those things have been properly considered during design and manufacture.

 

A things can be perfectly well-designed in RAMD terms, but still have vast numbers of "bells and whistles"; the term doesn't necessarily imply simplicity, although it usually implies that unnecessary functionality has been eliminated, because doing so eliminates possible causes of failure.

 

It would be perfectly possible to have a model train that is very-well designed in RAMD terms, and is bristling with details, it just tends to get rather expensive.