Hornby announce TT:120

[south_tyne]

16 hours ago, Legend said:

That would then give BR blue modellers some critical mass and enable a lot more layouts to be justified . 

 

I may sounds like a stuck record, but here I go again... That's the problem. There's no critical mass to model any era at the moment. It's all a bit scattergun. If you want a generic trainset then it's not a problem. Anyone wanting a model railway - whether that's 1950s steam, 1970s BR blue, or something from the privatisation years - there's simply not enough out there at present. I would imagine that it will be another five year or more before there is sufficient to make a coherent layout. 

 

15 hours ago, Hobby said:

Personally I think they've done enough diesels with the 31 and 37, rather than go for even more at this stage I'd rather they concentrated on the steam engines they'd announced at the outset. 

 

The lack of a couple of small steam locos is a surprising omission. Although the J50 is coming soon. I'm not a GWR modeller, but I'm surprised there is no Pannier tank on the radar. 

[Hobby]

3 hours ago, south_tyne said:

I would imagine that it will be another five year or more before there is sufficient to make a coherent layout. 

 

I'm not a GWR modeller, but I'm surprised there is no Pannier tank on the radar. 

 

Quite, and most of us who model in the scale have accepted that, we'd all like our own era to be covered but have to accept that's not going to happen soon.

 

I'm surprised the Pannier didn't come first as it was on that original list, the J50 is nice but not very useful for a "body conversion" into anything else whereas the Pannier would have been.

Edited August 3 by Hobby

[moawkwrd]

5 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

The lack of a couple of small steam locos is a surprising omission. Although the J50 is coming soon. I'm not a GWR modeller, but I'm surprised there is no Pannier tank on the radar. 

57XX and J94 have been in the plan since the first catalogue phases - I suspect we’ll hear more on those and/or the as yet other unnamed 0-6-0T that was mentioned later on (although that may have been the J50, not sure) later this year.

Edited August 3 by moawkwrd

[97406]

21 hours ago, Hobby said:

Personally I think they've done enough diesels with the 31 and 37, rather than go for even more at this stage I'd rather they concentrated on the steam engines they'd announced at the outset. 

 

If it were me making the decision, I’d have gone for classes 37 and 47 first,  the latter being due to them having a similar sort of diversity and lifespan as the 37s. I recall posting one thread recently that I didn’t think the 47 was as popular as the 37 as they were so commonplace and the thrash perhaps not as great as the 37s. Then I bought a couple and detailed and resprayed them, saw the light and got a few more and revisited some of my existing models.  They’re a good class to have a few kicking about on the layout like how it used to be on the real railway.

 

I’d follow with the 31 sometime soon in the next batch of releases, though.

[rob D2]

They will not satisfy everyone.

New entrants maybe more than happy to run a steamer with an HST, I’ve seen a few YT layouts as such.

 

I feel lucky as the BR blue period, western region , is my thing . I wish they’d make a HST, class 50, 31 and 47…….ooohh, er ..

[natterjack]

2 hours ago, 97406 said:

If it were me making the decision, I’d have gone for classes 37 and 47 first,

I have a completely unfounded suspicion there may have been an early Heljan effect insofar as the 47 has been one of their specialist subjects in OO and O.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, natterjack said:

I have a completely unfounded suspicion there may have been an early Heljan effect insofar as the 47 has been one of their specialist subjects in OO and O.

Or the Heljan effect of announcing a TT120 class 31 only to see Hornby stake it's claim and Heljan dropped the model.

 

That pushed the class 31 up the order a little bit maybe, and Hornby likely had CADs for it from their OO model, whereas the 37 and 47 they didn't.  The 37 will be more at home with MDO/MDV wagons than a class 47 so the 37 comes first.

[rob D2]

Can somebody tell me - I want a circle of Hornby track to use for running in purposes , radius 3 or greater.

i can’t make head or tail of their track packs , what item no , and how many would make a loop please ?

[MartinRS]

11 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

I may sounds like a stuck record, but here I go again... That's the problem. There's no critical mass to model any era at the moment. It's all a bit scattergun. If you want a generic trainset then it's not a problem. Anyone wanting a model railway - whether that's 1950s steam, 1970s BR blue, or something from the privatisation years - there's simply not enough out there at present. I would imagine that it will be another five year or more before there is sufficient to make a coherent layout. 

 

 

The lack of a couple of small steam locos is a surprising omission. Although the J50 is coming soon. I'm not a GWR modeller, but I'm surprised there is no Pannier tank on the radar. 

 

Repetition eh? You wouldn't last long on Radio Four, sat next to Paul Merton. Now it's my turn. I don't have much new to say but here goes.

 

I deliberately decided to model BR from the days of the transition livery through to the end 1964. It would justify buying a wide variety of RTR locos. I even extended this to the early BR Blue era. The region I wanted to model was an former GCR area of BR. That too was extended to the wider BR(E) and BR(M) regions.

 

It makes sense that Hornby manufactured the Mallard and Flying Scotsman to prevent a competitor taking a segment of the nascent British TT:120 market. What I don't understand is the lack of a mid-range steam locomotive by now, something like a BR Standard Class 5 which might have been bought by steam enthusiasts modelling any of the BR regions. The fetishisation of large steam locos also overlooks the absence of an affordable turntable in TT:120, and I want two of them. Churning out another pacific to keep the LMS enthusiasts happy might extend the appeal of TT:120 though I suspect LMS fans would have been delighted with a Black 5, something which might have fitted on the Peco HOm turntable and attracted the attention of other BR era modellers. The absence of a 16T mineral wagon is also a major problem as far as I am concerned. I know Hornby have produced the 21T version but I don't ever recall seeing one in the (original narrowly defined) area I want to model. I've seen photographs of the 21T version in that area but that is not the same thing. Seeing a 16T unfitted mineral wagon always evokes a memory of that clattering wave of sound as one set of buffers hits the next, and the next, when an unfitted train is brought to a stop. The lack of a  ubiquitous diesel to test is also a problem.

 

I've dipped in and out of the model railway world several times I which means I have some experience of building layouts. Without access to data on how many wagons a particular loco will haul any attempts to create a workable layout, without knowing if (say) a 1 in 50 gradient is feasible would just be guesswork. I find flat layouts boring and they also limit what can be accommodated on a baseboard. The suspension of disbelief most modellers are forced to engage in is much easier if two nearby stations are at different elevations, and I'm not prepared to wait for the Class 37 to test its abilities. I want to build something now.

 

Hornby appear to be making a success of TT:120 from what I have read about their sales figures. Targeting the 'new to model railways' strategy appears to be working and I hope it continues to work though at some point for TT:120 to succeed Hornby has to cater for more committed modellers, those who want to model specific regions and eras. My plan was to have two passenger locos, two mixed traffic locos, two goods locos and three or four shunting locos. One of each in both steam and diesel is what I had in mind as well as a couple of DMUs. I wasn't planning on buying them all at once but over a number of years. This is where an enthusiast differs from the train set buyer. I read somewhere here on RMweb that a model shop owner confided in one of their customers that the average enthusiast spends more over a year than the casual 'once in a lifetime' train-set buyer. I've got more than one of every wagon I want, but not enough wagons. The one wagon I would buy from a local shop every time I had a bit of spare cash, the 16T mineral wagon does not appear in Hornby's planned releases.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to (literally) take stock of the TT:120 products I've bought so far. I find myself looking longingly at the range of N and OO products out there. From what I've read the Dapol coupling can easily be fitted to most N gauge wagons, the one exception being Peco products. I abandoned British outline N gauge in pre-NEM days because of problems with different implementations of the Arnold coupler. The present incoherent Hornby range of locos and rolling stock prevent me from even planning a TT:120 layout. It's not just about aesthetics and preferred liveries. Knowing what can 'get up the hill' determines how long a platform should be or how many wagons the headshunt needs to accommodate. My present circumstances mean I can't build a layout at the moment though I would like to build a terminus station on a sub-baseboard to incorporate in a future plan. I can only do so at the risk of finding that practical limitations mean I have to start again.

 

Please don't misunderstand my overall impression of TT:120. I still think it is the ideal scale, but for my own practical purposes it just doesn't meet my needs. Good luck to all of you enthusiastic TT:120 modellers on RMweb. I won't be making any more contributions to this forum. Apologies if I have pi**ed any of you you off. I had a stressful three years looking after increasingly dependant parents and now an trying to make sense of their affairs. Having read through many of the RMweb forums those featuring TT:120 products do exude a level of enthusiasm not found elsewhere. Enjoy your new scale.

 

[moawkwrd]

14 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Can somebody tell me - I want a circle of Hornby track to use for running in purposes , radius 3 or greater.

i can’t make head or tail of their track packs , what item no , and how many would make a loop please ?

The track packs are designed to add on to the radius 3 loop included in the sets. Without buying a set you’ll need to buy 12x TT8005 radius 3 curves.

[south_tyne]

17 hours ago, moawkwrd said:

57XX and J94 have been in the plan since the first catalogue phases - I suspect we’ll hear more on those and/or the as yet other unnamed 0-6-0T that was mentioned later on (although that may have been the J50, not sure) later this year.

 

That's true. But I'd imagine they will be 3 or 4 years down the line at this stage. 

[south_tyne]

11 hours ago, MartinRS said:

Repetition eh? You wouldn't last long on Radio Four, sat next to Paul Merton. Now it's my turn. I don't have much new to say but here goes.

 

 

Repetition is a problem. As is deviation... I tend to disappear down rabbit holes 😂 

 

11 hours ago, MartinRS said:

It makes sense that Hornby manufactured the Mallard and Flying Scotsman to prevent a competitor taking a segment of the nascent British TT:120 market. What I don't understand is the lack of a mid-range steam locomotive by now, something like a BR Standard Class 5 which might have been bought by steam enthusiasts modelling any of the BR regions. The fetishisation of large steam locos also overlooks the absence of an affordable turntable in TT:120, and I want two of them. Churning out another pacific to keep the LMS enthusiasts happy might extend the appeal of TT:120 though I suspect LMS fans would have been delighted with a Black 5, something which might have fitted on the Peco HOm turntable and attracted the attention of other BR era modellers. The absence of a 16T mineral wagon is also a major problem as far as I am concerned. I know Hornby have produced the 21T version but I don't ever recall seeing one in the (original narrowly defined) area I want to model. I've seen photographs of the 21T version in that area but that is not the same thing. Seeing a 16T unfitted mineral wagon always evokes a memory of that clattering wave of sound as one set of buffers hits the next, and the next, when an unfitted train is brought to a stop. The lack of a  ubiquitous diesel to test is also a problem

 

Completely agree with this. 

 

And to get buzzed out by Paul Merton again, I've said a few times that I'm baffled by the lack of a 16t mineral. If any wagon is ubiquitous, then it's that. A 16 tonner, a planked and/or plywood standard 12t van, and maybe a conflat. Three wagons produced in their thousands that could cover off the 30 years from 1950 or so. That would have been my strategy. But what do I know 😂 

 

11 hours ago, MartinRS said:

Tomorrow I'm going to (literally) take stock of the TT:120 products I've bought so far. I find myself looking longingly at the range of N and OO products out there. From what I've read the Dapol coupling can easily be fitted to most N gauge wagons, the one exception being Peco products. I abandoned British outline N gauge in pre-NEM days because of problems with different implementations of the Arnold coupler. The present incoherent Hornby range of locos and rolling stock prevent me from even planning a TT:120 layout. It's not just about aesthetics and preferred liveries. Knowing what can 'get up the hill' determines how long a platform should be or how many wagons the headshunt needs to accommodate. My present circumstances mean I can't build a layout at the moment though I would like to build a terminus station on a sub-baseboard to incorporate in a future plan. I can only do so at the risk of finding that practical limitations mean I have to start again.

 

Please don't despair... I am predominantly a narrow gauge modeller, but recently decided I wanted to try a very small standard gauge project. I really wanted to go TT:120. Everything about the scale seems perfect. But after a lot of deliberating in the end I've gone N Gauge. In five years time it might be viable. But at the minute it just doesn't really work for me either. That's not to say it doesn't for many people and TT:120 won't be a rip-roaring success. It's something I'll no doubt revisit in a couple of years. 

 

11 hours ago, MartinRS said:

Having read through many of the RMweb forums those featuring TT:120 products do exude a level of enthusiasm not found elsewhere. Enjoy your new scale.

 

 

And that can only be a good thing 😊

 

[Hobby]

18 hours ago, MartinRS said:

without knowing if (say) a 1 in 50 gradient is feasible would just be guesswork.

 

I read somewhere here on RMweb that a model shop owner confided in one of their customers that the average enthusiast spends more over a year than the casual 'once in a lifetime' train-set buyer.

 

Tomorrow I'm going to (literally) take stock of the TT:120 products I've bought so far. I find myself looking longingly at the range of N and OO products out there. 

 

Please don't misunderstand my overall impression of TT:120. I still think it is the ideal scale, but for my own practical purposes it just doesn't meet my needs. Good luck to all of you enthusiastic TT:120 modellers on RMweb. I won't be making any more contributions to this forum. Apologies if I have pi**ed any of you you off. I had a stressful three years looking after increasingly dependant parents and now an trying to make sense of their affairs. Having read through many of the RMweb forums those featuring TT:120 products do exude a level of enthusiasm not found elsewhere. Enjoy your new scale.

 

You need to look beyond RMWeb if you want more detail, like if the locos will pull trains up a 1:50 grade, from what I've seen on FB the answer is yes.

 

Maybe they did, but all "enthusiasts" have to start somewhere and that once in a lifetime buyer can and does become the enthusiast, it all depends on how they are encouraged.

 

If you are "looking longingly" at N and 00 then perhaps you didn't do your homework before buying. We've had this discussion many, many (too many!) times about TT. It's a brand new scale to the UK, it was accepted by those of us who chose to model in it that it would be many years before we got to a reasonable stage, however as someone else pointed out when this was raised before we've already seen more locos in 18 months that even Triang managed in the same timescale with TT3. Trying to compare a scale that's only been launched 18 months ago to ones that have been around decades doesn't really prove anything.

 

Stick your TT stock to one side and go and play with your N or 00, and then come back in 5 or so years time and then see how you feel then, it was always going to be a long road, some of us accept that and just get on with it, others like you need all that RTR, we're all different!

Edited August 4 by Hobby

[montyburns56]

12 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

And to get buzzed out by Paul Merton again, I've said a few times that I'm baffled by the lack of a 16t mineral. If any wagon is ubiquitous, then it's that. A 16 tonner, a planked and/or plywood standard 12t van, and maybe a conflat. Three wagons produced in their thousands that could cover off the 30 years from 1950 or so. That would have been my strategy. But what do I know 😂 

 

 

 

Yes, producing those wagons straight away would be logical, but it would also involve a huge amount of new research and CAD designs. It's pretty obvious that for now Hornby are mostly shrinking items from their OO range to save on the design & research costs, hence they have produced a 21T mineral wagon instead of the more logical choice of a 16T wagon.

[rob D2]

13 hours ago, south_tyne said:

 

Repetition is a problem. As is deviation... I tend to disappear down rabbit holes 😂 

 

 

Completely agree with this. 

 

And to get buzzed out by Paul Merton again, I've said a few times that I'm baffled by the lack of a 16t mineral. If any wagon is ubiquitous, then it's that. A 16 tonner, a planked and/or plywood standard 12t van, and maybe a conflat. Three wagons produced in their thousands that could cover off the 30 years from 1950 or so. That would have been my strategy. But what do I know 😂 

 

 

Please don't despair... I am predominantly a narrow gauge modeller, but recently decided I wanted to try a very small standard gauge project. I really wanted to go TT:120. Everything about the scale seems perfect. But after a lot of deliberating in the end I've gone N Gauge. In five years time it might be viable. But at the minute it just doesn't really work for me either. That's not to say it doesn't for many people and TT:120 won't be a rip-roaring success. It's something I'll no doubt revisit in a couple of years. 

 

 

And that can only be a good thing 😊

 

N gauge is quite mature, but there still is a massive lack of coherent supply . Could I buy a class 50 and a whole train of mk2 air cons to go with it at present ? I’m not sure . It’s 10% of the market they say .

 

Either way , for me it’s too small . With limited hse space I have a plan . TT for longer trains and I’ll keep some OO for detailing locos and MPDs and the like 

 

 

[moawkwrd]

29 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

N gauge is quite mature, but there still is a massive lack of coherent supply . Could I buy a class 50 and a whole train of mk2 air cons to go with it at present ? I’m not sure . It’s 10% of the market they say .

 

Either way , for me it’s too small . With limited hse space I have a plan . TT for longer trains and I’ll keep some OO for detailing locos and MPDs and the like 

 

 

 

This is mainly the reason I didn't go with N (I tried!) - I'd have to spend years hoping to get lucky with eBay to get the rolling stock I want as hardly anything is available new. In this regard I'm better off with TT:120, even if it's not totally coherent or protoypical.

 

It's chicken and egg really. If enough people dip their toes into the scale the range will expand. I think the 37 will really help in this regard.

 

Heck even in OO there's plenty of items no longer available that you'd want/need if you were trying to build a layout from scratch. Again you're at the mercy of eBay/swap meets/etc. The limited runs of the smaller manufacturers don't help in this regard.

Edited August 4 by moawkwrd

[GenericRMWebUsername]

On 02/08/2024 at 07:15, Hobby said:

Personally I think they've done enough diesels with the 31 and 37, rather than go for even more at this stage I'd rather they concentrated on the steam engines they'd announced at the outset. 

I suspect that Hornby has multiple steam engines set for a 2025 release. This year Hornby has released 5 locomotive toolings. It's looking like the Class 37 and Class 31 will arrive in 2025. That's only two known locomotive tooling projects for 2025. That gives ample space for additional steam locomotives to be released. Simon mentioned two "previously unannounced" 0-6-0Ts that entered development together. One of those became the J50, and the other is still unknown. Assuming it wasn't cancelled, that too should arrive in 2025. The Hornby team have warned that we should expect LNER and LMS locomotives for the foreseeable future. That means the Peppercorn A1, Stanier Princess Royal, the Black 5, and the J94 are all likely candidates. It's possible that the BR 9F could be one of the steam engines with a 2025 release, as it was originally supposed be early in the lineup. 

 

There's a good chance the next steam engine to arrive will go on preorder this Autumn at the next range launch. I'm expecting the Class 37 to go on preorder then too. Martyn made clear that the two Class 37 liveries listed in the catalogue are placeholders and that they hadn't decided on the actual liveries yet. We'll learn what those are at the event! A steam locomotive going on preorder with the Class 37 for a Spring release sounds right. 

 

 

[GenericRMWebUsername]

5 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Yes, producing those wagons straight away would be logical, but it would also involve a huge amount of new research and CAD designs. It's pretty obvious that for now Hornby are mostly shrinking items from their OO range to save on the design & research costs, hence they have produced a 21T mineral wagon instead of the more logical choice of a 16T wagon.

My own personal theory is that Peco ended any chance of a Hornby 16 Ton Mineral. Peco is releasing a range of wagons in N Scale that includes the 16 Ton Mineral Wagon. They've already begun the same lineup of wagons in TT with their 7 Plank wagon. Hornby is probably going to stay away from those products Peco is likely to release. They already had the awkward duplication of the 7 Planks. Hornby will steer clear of that now.

 

Peco have said to TT fans they plan to announce new rolling stock before the end of the year. I think the 16 Ton Minerals are the prime candidate. 

[Gresley-4498]

2 hours ago, GenericRMWebUsername said:

 They already had the awkward duplication of the 7 Planks. Hornby will steer clear of that now.

 

I think it'll be ok though - with the 7 planks, it's a relatively inexpensive model to tool (vs a loco or coach) and there is so many liveries that could be produced, they probably won't compete too much. 

[steve1023]

Issue 7 of the TT magazine on Hornby. Apologies if this is already common knowledge. 

[rob D2]

4 hours ago, steve1023 said:

Issue 7 of the TT magazine on Hornby. Apologies if this is already common knowledge. 

What’s that in Steve ? You tube or website , can’t see it . Do you need to be a member ?

[47606odin]

9 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

What’s that in Steve ? You tube or website , can’t see it . Do you need to be a member ?

pits now online only. Just join the TT120 club to get access. It’s free 

[steve1023]

I realise it’s not Hornby but as this is where most of the TT chat is ATD models have released a couple of card kits for TT - a single road diesel depot, 1970s office block and some general sheets. I made the office block in N a few weeks ago and I was really happy with it. I’m nowt to do with ATD, just a consumer. 

[Gresley-4498]

On 20/08/2024 at 21:06, steve1023 said:

I realise it’s not Hornby but as this is where most of the TT chat is ATD models have released a couple of card kits for TT - a single road diesel depot, 1970s office block and some general sheets. I made the office block in N a few weeks ago and I was really happy with it. I’m nowt to do with ATD, just a consumer. 

 

Any pictures of the kit's / results?

[steve1023]

Hi. Sorry, not right now as I am not in the country.

 

Steve