TT120: HST

[lyneux]

Regarding the Blue/Grey HST. Why have Hornby made power cars in 1970s condition (without the exhaust baffle that lasted until '79) but the trailer vehicles match a '1980s' rake (e.g. the TGS which I believe came in early 80s)?

 

So baffle-less power cars never almost certainly never ran with a TGS.

 

Also, is it just me or does the ride height of the coaches look lower than the power cars?

 

Guy

Edited March 18 by lyneux

[GenericRMWebUsername]

6 hours ago, lyneux said:

Regarding the Blue/Grey HST. Why have Hornby made power cars in 1970s condition (without the exhaust baffle that lasted until '79) but the trailer vehicles match a '1980s' rake (e.g. the TGS which I believe came in early 80s)?

 

So baffle-less power cars never almost certainly never ran with a TGS.

 

Also, is it just me or does the ride height of the coaches look lower than the power cars?

 

Guy

That does seem to be a mistake. There may have been a few months of overlap where TGS and power cars without an exhaust deflector could have run together, but it would have been a very short window. Oddly, Hornby actually had the correct exhaust deflector in their renderings for the TT:120 HST Yellow Grey in their catalogue. It's still on their website. Hornby also has released the same power cars in OO with the correct exhaust deflector. You can see that here:

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/69478/hornby_class_43_twin_pack_e43062_e43063_in_br_blue_grey_eastern_region/stockdetail

 

This is somewhat frustrating. We know they have the tooling to ship the correct product. At some point they must gotten their wires crossed. It's possible they caught it in time... But we'll find out soon enough. 

[andrewshimmin]

I got an email on Friday saying my Blue Class 43s have arrived and will be despatched soon. Very exciting.

They haven't yet been given to the courier and Hornby haven't taken the money, so I think it will be a few days more before I get them.

No news yet on the blue/grey Mark 3s.

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, GenericRMWebUsername said:

This is somewhat frustrating. We know they have the tooling to ship the correct product. At some point they must gotten their wires crossed. It's possible they caught it in time... But we'll find out soon enough.

 

Has anyone got pictures of the BG MKIIIs yet? Can we confirm those are in "as built" condition without CDL?

[GenericRMWebUsername]

29 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Has anyone got pictures of the BG MKIIIs yet? Can we confirm those are in "as built" condition without CDL?

On this one point I'm willing to sacrifice accuracy. I don't want my TT people to fall out of my High Speed Train!

[Porfuera]

3 hours ago, andrewshimmin said:

No news yet on the blue/grey Mark 3s.

 

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.

Edited March 19 by Porfuera

[Porfuera]

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".

[jonnyuk]

i got an email from Rails yesterday saying the blue ones are in stock

[Porfuera]

10 minutes ago, jonnyuk said:

i got an email from Rails yesterday saying the blue ones are in stock

 

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...

 

Edited March 19 by Porfuera

[andrewshimmin]

4 hours ago, Porfuera said:

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".

 

What we don't know is whether that is just the data someone's entering to get the website to display, or whether it's linked to any actual supply chain delivery data.

Until now it's not been wildly reliable (the LMS carriages were shown as autumn all summer and winter all autumn) so I suspect the former.

[Porfuera]

8 minutes ago, andrewshimmin said:

What we don't know is whether that is just the data someone's entering to get the website to display, or whether it's linked to any actual supply chain delivery data.

Until now it's not been wildly reliable (the LMS carriages were shown as autumn all summer and winter all autumn) so I suspect the former.

 

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!

[andrewshimmin]

Speaking of running it with Pullman's:

 

 

Edited March 21 by andrewshimmin
Link

[Michanglais]

Sort of in line with previous comments about the Blue/Grey power cars not being equipped with exhaust baffles but one of the coaches being a TGS (and only the slight chance these would run together), is it not the case that '254 XXX' sets ran as 8-car sets?

 

Unless I'm miscounting, I can only see 7 different running numbers being offered in the Blue/Grey MK3s.

 

That being said, I may just double up on a TSO to get the more 'correct', non-TGS equipped set, so if I want 8 cars, I could double up on another TSO...

 

 

[Porfuera]

On 19/03/2024 at 11:09, Porfuera said:

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".

 

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.

[PaulRhB]

 

Picked up my power cars today and they look very nice, 

 

1 hour ago, Porfuera said:

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.

Won’t be the first time, we had APT coaches months before the sets to draw them! They’ve managed to get the executive set out only a week or so apart, let’s hope the APT debacle isn’t repeated. 

[Michanglais]

Just wondering whether anyone else was having this problem.

 

My HST has terrible wheel-slip issues hauling a full 8-car set. It just grinds to a halt with the wheels spinning. When I detach the power car from the train, it runs just fine. 

 

I'm wondering whether it wouldn't benefit from a couple of the dreaded traction tyres. 

 

I'd like to hear pointers and opinions.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[GrumpyPenguin]

I'm not familier with the model but could you try adding some weight.

 

Is it pulling or pushing ? - try it the "other way round" & see if that makes any difference.

 

Although not a fan of traction tyres I don't have issues with those that I do have - modellers complain that "they spread crud on the track" when you think about it if the crud was not there to start with (i.e. keep your track & wheels clean) then it cannot be spread about.

Edited March 29 by GrumpyPenguin

[Roy L S]

24 minutes ago, Michanglais said:

Just wondering whether anyone else was having this problem.

 

My HST has terrible wheel-slip issues hauling a full 8-car set. It just grinds to a halt with the wheels spinning. When I detach the power car from the train, it runs just fine. 

 

I'm wondering whether it wouldn't benefit from a couple of the dreaded traction tyres. 

 

I'd like to hear pointers and opinions.

 

Cheers,

Michael

If the coaches and dummy car are all suitably free-running, it does beg the question was the power car designed to run with a full 8 car set? I have only seen videos of these TT120 HSTs running in shorter formations, never as a prototypical full set, and given (we are told) TT120 is intended as a limited space scale, maybe that informed the design brief for the model? I would certainly agree that traction tyres would be a solution, and properly executed it isn't a bad one. If a widespread issue maybe Hornby could be persuaded to provide an alternative wheelset with tyres? 

 

As an aside, it struck me when I received it that my 08 is pretty light and I'd be surprised if it could pull more than 15 wagons comfortably, but perhaps that is all most people would need of it, and again is it a question of where TT120 is intended to "fit" in the model railway world, which could be more (at present anyway) the smaller more trainset oriented options? Just to stress, I am not trying to denigrate Hornby or the scale if this is the case, because I recall right at the outset SK saying it was targeted at a whole new group of modellers with less space.

 

Roy

[Michanglais]

6 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

If the coaches and dummy car are all suitably free-running, it does beg the question was the power car designed to run with a full 8 car set? I have only seen videos of these TT120 HSTs running in shorter formations, never as a prototypical full set, and given (we are told) TT120 is intended as a limited space scale, maybe that informed the design brief for the model? I would certainly agree that traction tyres would be a solution, and properly executed it isn't a bad one. If a widespread issue maybe Hornby could be persuaded to provide an alternative wheelset with tyres? 

 

As an aside, it struck me when I received it that my 08 is pretty light and I'd be surprised if it could pull more than 15 wagons comfortably, but perhaps that is all most people would need of it, and again is it a question of where TT120 is intended to "fit" in the model railway world, which could be more (at present anyway) the smaller more trainset oriented options? Just to stress, I am not trying to denigrate Hornby or the scale if this is the case, because I recall right at the outset SK saying it was targeted at a whole new group of modellers with less space.

 

Roy

 

An interesting take - I've tried the train with 3 coaches - runs fine but if I increase to five, I get the same issue. 

 

I wonder whether the forthcoming Co-Co diesels will fare better.

 

I have to say, I'm kind of losing patience a little. Every TT loco I've bought has had to go back so far. I'd hate to abandon the scale because I think it has so much potential but I'm definitely wavering...

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

[moawkwrd]

15 minutes ago, Michanglais said:

 

An interesting take - I've tried the train with 3 coaches - runs fine but if I increase to five, I get the same issue. 

 

I wonder whether the forthcoming Co-Co diesels will fare better.

 

I have to say, I'm kind of losing patience a little. Every TT loco I've bought has had to go back so far. I'd hate to abandon the scale because I think it has so much potential but I'm definitely wavering...

 

Cheers,

Michael

 

 

You haven't said whether it's DC or DCC, on a gradient or on the flat, round a corner or on a straight - all of those things and more could impact how easily it pulls a rake of coaches.

 

Clearly some combination of the weight, friction and power isn't adding up in your situation. We've got videos in this thread of it pulling 4+ coaches round what look like radius 2 or 3 curves with ease so I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the model itself.

 

 

Edited March 29 by moawkwrd

[Michanglais]

11 minutes ago, moawkwrd said:

 

You haven't said whether it's DC or DCC, on a gradient or on the flat, round a corner or on a straight - all of those things and more could impact how easily it pulls a rake of coaches.

 

Clearly some combination of the weight, friction and power isn't adding up in your situation. We've got videos in this thread of it pulling 4+ coaches round what look like radius 2 or 3 curves with ease so I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the model itself.

 

 

 

It's currently running under DC, I have got some decoders so may try it on DCC. 

 

It's on flat track with R4 curves. Seems to have the same issue when on the straight as taking curves. 

 

I've tried it with a rake of 3 coaches and it runs just fine, but when I increase to 5, same issue.

 

I shall try chipping it to see if that makes any difference...

 

[Roy L S]

23 minutes ago, moawkwrd said:

 

You haven't said whether it's DC or DCC, on a gradient or on the flat, round a corner or on a straight - all of those things and more could impact how easily it pulls a rake of coaches.

 

Clearly some combination of the weight, friction and power isn't adding up in your situation. We've got videos in this thread of it pulling 4+ coaches round what look like radius 2 or 3 curves with ease so I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the model itself.

 

 

I have as far as I can recollect so far only seen the HSTs running with four coaches and a trailing power car (unpowered on the model) which is a long way from the prototypical 2 plus 8 or 9 formations, but if it is designed/intended only to pull  the shorter load then absolutely, nothing inherently wrong at all.

Edited March 29 by Roy L S
grammar

[woodenhead]

3 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

I have as far as I can recollect so far only seen the HSTs running with four coaches and a trailing power car (unpowered on the model) which is a long way from the prototypical 2 plus 8 or 9 formations, but if it is designed/intended only to pull  the shorter load then absolutely, nothing inherently wrong at all.

Apart from the fact OO and N gauge HSTs power cars are all capable of hauling a prototypical rake, so given the selling point of more train in less space with TT compared to OO then it would be ridiculous to make them only capable of hauling 4 trailers.

 

I can have short formed TT or full length N - which do I go for?  Wait, not only can I have a full length HST in N but there are all those other locomotives and units I can buy and all that rolling stock.  No, it would be the end of TT120 if the locos are not capable of prototypical length trains.

[moawkwrd]

10 minutes ago, Roy L S said:

I have as far as I can recollect so far only seen the HSTs running with four coaches and a trailing power car (unpowered on the model) which is a long way from the prototypical 2 plus 8 or 9 formations, but if it is designed/intended only to pull  the shorter load then absolutely, nothing inherently wrong at all.

 

Peachy TT120 posted a video of it pulling 6 coaches with ease on a gradient, IIRC, so another 2/3 coaches really shouldn't be an issue.

Edited March 29 by moawkwrd

[Flying Pig]

20 minutes ago, Michanglais said:

 

It's currently running under DC, I have got some decoders so may try it on DCC. 

 

It's on flat track with R4 curves. Seems to have the same issue when on the straight as taking curves. 

 

I've tried it with a rake of 3 coaches and it runs just fine, but when I increase to 5, same issue.

 

I shall try chipping it to see if that makes any difference...

 

 

Could it be a manufacturing issue with your model?  Are all the wheels sitting on the track and do the bogies have enough flexibility to allow them to stay there?   Are both bogies driving?  Have you cleaned any manufacturing residue of the wheels?