Hornby Price Increases Part 2

[jjb1970]

It typically takes about a week for me to receive Hornby orders in Singapore.  Given that shipping is free if I spend £120 I consider their delivery class leading for my admittedly non-typical circumstances. 

[ColinB]

6 minutes ago, jonnyuk said:

who said i was on about rails? With rails i've had two orders from them in the last 4 weeks, both took nearly a week to arrive after order, that is a down grade on service from my previous experiences with them.

in reality we all have good, ok and bad experiences with on line retailers, sometimes even with the same ones, is it luck, is it demand on the retailer at that point, more than likely.

 

As a society we have got used to the Amazon Prime model, order by 11pm and get it the next day, truth is very, very few retailers can support that model and we have to understand that. Amazon has ruined the British retail market.

Well I had a mail from Hornby to say it was ready for DPD to pickup on Saturday of all days, checked this morning still not reached DPD. As to Shipping, I do a lot of mail order and yes Amazon Prime is brilliant, but so are many others. It is interesting with EBay, but an awful lot depends on how the Seller decides to send the parcel, take it down the Post Office and it is much quicker than waiting for them to pick it up. It also depends when they decide to pack it. I buy a lot of spares from Lendons, the guy that runs it is up front, he says on his website that because he is a one man operation he cannot post within one day, I can accept that. He is more than reasonable with his prices and postage costs. Now when it comes to model railways unless someone is doing a deal basically they all charge the same price so Supplier responsiveness (as I call it) decides who gets my order. Some Retailers are really good some are terrible. Now if you are happy waiting forever for a parcel, then who am I to complain unfortunately most of the community is not.

[Pecketts And Panniers]

17 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I had a mail from Hornby to say it was ready for DPD to pickup on Saturday of all days, checked this morning still not reached DPD

I imagine that DPD will pick it up at some point on the next working day after being told it's available, which is today. It's not very surprising that it hadn't been picked up by 12:00. They do the deliveries first, and then they have some empty vans with which to do all the collections later. Doing the collections before the deliveries would be a logistical nightmare.

[ColinB]

15 minutes ago, Pecketts And Panniers said:

I imagine that DPD will pick it up at some point on the next working day after being told it's available, which is today. It's not very surprising that it hadn't been picked up by 12:00. They do the deliveries first, and then they have some empty vans with which to do all the collections later. Doing the collections before the deliveries would be a logistical nightmare.

Yes I would agree. I did once phone Hornby up because is was over a week with no activity from the initial mail going out and a nice lady in Customer Services explained how it worked. She did say they normally pickup at about 4.00 pm, but in the end she had to chase it up. My original point was, which seems to have got glossed over by one individual, is if you want to sell direct to the public you need the info structure to back it up. As I have said some Suppliers I know are slow usually where dealing with the public directly is not their main business, so you accept that.

[Fireline]

On 21/09/2024 at 16:25, ColinB said:

.....Perhaps they just don't like me......

 

With all the Hornby bashing you do, what possible grounds could they have for that....? 😉

[ColinB]

1 hour ago, Fireline said:

 

With all the Hornby bashing you do, what possible grounds could they have for that....? 😉

Actually I don't, I identify where they go wrong, If you read my posts you will find I frequently praise their 9F loco and many more. Their  Princess Royal class loco is well engineered as is their latest Unrebuilt Merchant Navy. As to my relationship with Hornby it is as it has always been helpful, if you read my posts I frequently help people out with how to fix things and what replacement parts will work when you can't get the right one. Perhaps you just don't read those posts. I am also probably one of their best customers I spend a significant amount of money with them every year. I particularly like their mechanisms but they do get things wrong and I feel it is fair to point it out to other users. 

[Fireline]

1 hour ago, ColinB said:

Actually I don't, I identify where they go wrong, If you read my posts you will find I frequently praise their 9F loco and many more. Their  Princess Royal class loco is well engineered as is their latest Unrebuilt Merchant Navy. As to my relationship with Hornby it is as it has always been helpful, if you read my posts I frequently help people out with how to fix things and what replacement parts will work when you can't get the right one. Perhaps you just don't read those posts. I am also probably one of their best customers I spend a significant amount of money with them every year. I particularly like their mechanisms but they do get things wrong and I feel it is fair to point it out to other users. 

 

All I had to read was your earlier, swiftly locked, thread about the S&DJR Fowler. It wasn't pointing out "things wrong". It was a proper bashing, and viewed by the Mods as such. You might believe that you are giving constructive criticism, but you really aren't. From the outside, it looks like bashing, it smells like bashing, and it's obvious in numerous threads. 

[Dunsignalling]

2 hours ago, Fireline said:

 

All I had to read was your earlier, swiftly locked, thread about the S&DJR Fowler. It wasn't pointing out "things wrong". It was a proper bashing, and viewed by the Mods as such. You might believe that you are giving constructive criticism, but you really aren't. From the outside, it looks like bashing, it smells like bashing, and it's obvious in numerous threads. 

To be frank, aside from moving the motor to the loco, fitting finer handrails, and giving it a better paint job, the origins of the 4F lie in the Airfix-GMR range of 1977.

 

Unsurprisingly, while Airfix stuff was better than most at the time (including Triang-Hornby), It's nowhere near the standard we expect from Hornby nowadays.

 

Edited September 25 by Dunsignalling

[Phil Parker]

19 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Unsurprisingly, while Airfix stuff was better than most at the time (including Triang-Hornby), It's nowhere near the standard we expect from Hornby nowadays.

 

From the MAIN range nowadays, but this isn't main range, it's sort of Railroad+, presumably because of the impressive paint job.

[ColinB]

13 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

To be frank, aside from moving the motor to the loco, fitting finer handrails, and giving it a better paint job, the origins of the 4F lie in the Airfix-GMR range of 1977.

 

Unsurprisingly, while Airfix stuff was better than most at the time (including Triang-Hornby), It's nowhere near the standard we expect from Hornby nowadays.

 

Actually it was the traction tyres that threw me, the rest I wasn't even bothered about. I just couldn't understand why they still had them when they had deleted them on all their other 0-6-0 locos and it didn't mention them in the original catalogue listing. If that is what they want to do who am I to complain, I am sure I wasn't the only one disappointed.

There again we are moving off subject so I will leave it at that.

[Dunsignalling]

29 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

From the MAIN range nowadays, but this isn't main range, it's sort of Railroad+, presumably because of the impressive paint job.

As if they hadn't muddied the waters enough with old main range stuff going into Railroad, they have to confuse us further by bunging another level in between.....🙃

[Going Spare]

But this is the whole point - neither the 4F or the 2P are flagged up in the catalogue or on the website as being part of the Railroad/Railroad Plus range (and that also goes for other locos such as the class 66) so, by default, the unknowing potential customer expects them to be main-range-quality products.  The price is perhaps the only indicator of a lesser standard.

[Phil Parker]

The whole Railroad/Railroad+/Main range discussion has been had several time on here in the past. You'd hope that Hornby would sort it out, but to date, they haven't. To be fair, the confusion has been around from long before the current team.

[ColinB]

2 minutes ago, Going Spare said:

But this is the whole point - neither the 4F or the 2P are flagged up in the catalogue or on the website as being part of the Railroad/Railroad Plus range (and that also goes for other locos such as the class 66) so, by default, the unknowing potential customer expects them to be main-range-quality products.  The price is perhaps the only indicator of a lesser standard.

Thank you Going Spare, admittedly I didn't pay current RRP but they are currently listed for about £154 which puts them outside both Railroad ranges. So I assume the 2P is exactly the same as the one I bought about 6 or so years ago, just with different numbers. Now I know that has traction tyres because without them it wouldn't run at all. 

[Phil Parker]

14 minutes ago, ColinB said:

but they are currently listed for about £154 which puts them outside both Railroad ranges

 

Is there an official price point for Railroad then? My rough understanding is that Railroad+ generally covers models with complicated paint jobs. Yes, it would be better if the box was branded this way, but it isn't.

 

15 minutes ago, ColinB said:

Now I know that has traction tyres because without them it wouldn't run at all.

 

You know the 2P has traction tyres because the listing says "The models driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres increasing the tractive effort of the model allowing for more wagons to be hauled." and the 4F "The models driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres increasing the tractive effort of the model allowing for more wagons to be hauled."

[ColinB]

7 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Is there an official price point for Railroad then? My rough understanding is that Railroad+ generally covers models with complicated paint jobs. Yes, it would be better if the box was branded this way, but it isn't.

 

 

You know the 2P has traction tyres because the listing says "The models driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres increasing the tractive effort of the model allowing for more wagons to be hauled." and the 4F "The models driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres increasing the tractive effort of the model allowing for more wagons to be hauled."

No, I know the 2P has traction tyres because  as I said in my post I have that model and similar ones and yes I have tried it without them. This model hasn't got the weight to work without them, 0-6-0 because of the smaller wheel size doesn't need them so much and yes I have tried that too with a Jinty. I have a Bachmann 4-4-0 where I think it came with both, but then that model is a lot heavier so if the load is light you can get away with no traction tyres. 

I don't know about an official price for Railroad models , but generally looking at the prices  it is less than £130, of course once they add sound then the price goes above this figure. Even then it is for a Pacific model which generally are more expensive.

[Phil Parker]

9 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I don't know about an official price for Railroad models , but generally looking at the prices  it is less than £130, of course once they add sound then the price goes above this figure. Even then it is for a Pacific model which generally are more expensive.

 

and yet you say

 

44 minutes ago, ColinB said:

I didn't pay current RRP but they are currently listed for about £154 which puts them outside both Railroad ranges.

 

If there isn't "an official price for Railroad models" then how can £154 put them outside both Railroad ranges?

 

I'm afraid that the only option is to read the full description and then decide if you want the model. Maybe they will sort out the branding one day, but until then, it's up the buyers to check they are getting what they want.

[ColinB]

35 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

and yet you say

 

 

If there isn't "an official price for Railroad models" then how can £154 put them outside both Railroad ranges?

 

I'm afraid that the only option is to read the full description and then decide if you want the model. Maybe they will sort out the branding one day, but until then, it's up the buyers to check they are getting what they want.

Unfortunately at the time I only had the catalogue to read, which I am pretty sure didn't mention it but I will check. As to the £154 is concerned that is £24 above the £130 that I said was roughly the upper limit. It doesn't have sound and no way is it a Pacific loco. Yes I should have realised it was a very old model but I don't have one of these, unfortunately I was bought up in an industry where we strived for continual improvement. Fortunately I doubt I will be making that mistake again plus the Hornby website is much more mature than it was then.

Actually the description is on page 74 of the 2024 catalogue, so if you want to check it you can.

As to the loco, well it is ok as I said I will probably fix the wheels, I didn't pay that much for it because I ordered it so long ago. 

Anyway as I said previously we are drifting off subject.

Edited September 25 by ColinB

[jjb1970]

I think it's a fair point that the two S&DJR models could be better separated from the modern high end Hornby models. They're marketed as Hornby main range models. The lower SRP and description are probably enough for keen modellers to get what they are but less experienced modellers may feel disappointed thinking they're getting something to the standards of the 2MT. The description includes:

 

The Hornby 4F is a perfect tender engine for someone who has only ever had tank engines. This model is fitted with a three pole motor and gearing allowing for good slow speed performance. The models driving wheels are fitted with traction tyres increasing the tractive effort of the model allowing for more wagons to be hauled.

 

So I think to also be fair to Hornby they do describe them reasonably, but putting them in the Railroad+ range would be clearer.

 

[Phil Parker]

13 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

The lower SRP and description are probably enough for keen modellers to get what they are but less experienced modellers may feel disappointed thinking they're getting something to the standards of the 2MT.

 

And the photos? Surely anyone buying would look at these too.

[ColinB]

This is the last post on this item on my part, but can you tell the difference? A page from the original catalogue. Oh and read the spec on the motor. I think that is me done.

Edited September 26 by ColinB

[jjb1970]

11 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

And the photos? Surely anyone buying would look at these too.

 

Of course, however I don't think the pic is that helpful in terms of highlighting the difference between this model and newer tooling. If there were several pics from different angles it'd be much clearer. It's not a bad model and although the tooling is ancient it was extremely well done for its time by Airfix so as a good budget model it is still well worth considering if the price is right. However, it's way behind modern Hornby tooling and I do think it'd be a lot better to sell it as a Railroad+ model to make clear it is an older model which has been refreshed, albeit a very good older model.

[Bulleidboy100]

I watched a Pete Waterman video yesterday, where he explained he had been to the opening of a model railway club's new clubroom. He explained the average age was sixty-five to ninety, and they were all moaning about the price of new loco's. In the video his view was that we had just come full circle and that price's were fair and inline with inflation and the general cost of everything today. When we (many of us) started work in the early sixties wages were low (compared with today) - I was on £5 a week in 1962 - a Hornby 3-rail Duchess of Montrose was about £15 - so three weeks wages or thereabout. As we all got older and earnt more the hobby became easier to cope with and we could buy (within reason) whatever we liked. As many of us have now reached retirement age and many may be on a basic state pension - £221 per week - about the price of a new DCC Ready loco - it would appear we have come full circle. I tend to agree with Pete Waterman's view.

Edited September 29 by Bulleidboy100

[spamcan61]

31 minutes ago, Bulleidboy100 said:

I watched a Pete Waterman video yesterday, where he explained he had been to the opening of a model railway club's new clubroom. He explained the average age was sixty-five to ninety, and they were all moaning about the price of new loco's. In the video his view was that we had just come full circle and that price's were fair and inline with inflation and the general cost of everything today. When we (many of us) started work in the early sixties wages were low (compared with today) - I was on £5 a week in 1962 - a Hornby 3-rail Duchess of Montrose was about £15 - so three weeks wages or thereabout. As we all got older and earnt more the hobby became easier to cope with and we could buy (within reason) whatever we liked. As many of us have now reached retirement age and many may be on a basic state pension - £221 per week - about the price of a new DCC Ready loco - it would appear we have come full circle. I tend to agree with Pete Waterman's view.

Personally I think it's the relative cost of toy trains compared with other ways of frittering away my disposable income that's the Issue. I recently bought a new TV for the first time in 20 years, 230 quid for a respectable spec. telly. About the same as a non sound loco at list price - to me that's the price issue.

[Capel]

As a young person I'd say the prices have always been on the higher end since I started, but its perfectly possible to wait for bargains that fit your interest or modify stock accordingly... it's not a race after all 🙂

 

In fact, I've managed to get quite a bit of Hornby's (and others) recent releases for very good prices, if one keeps an eye out for them (e.g. got the 2MT for ~ £145, which is really one of the best they've made. Quality, smooth running and very detailed)!

 

Range differentation is definitely a longstanding topic, and their branding confusion does not help. At least the recent models have a good level of feature consistency. Reviews/RRP are the only way for me to differentiate them, not having a physical model shop to go to and purchase from. QC inevitably becomes a bugbear the higher prices go. The A2/3 I bought was notorious for shedding parts the moment I opened the box... (vis-à-vis the 2MT which was perfect).

 

On the other hand I feel that some of Bachmann's steam offerings are less price competitive than Hornby's given their age, but at least there is a good consistency in QC!

 

Having built kits myself I could never match the RTR finishes either, but again its different strokes for different folks. Competing entertainment sources means that it'll inevitably take a smaller slice of the pie of one's expenditure, and be reliant on enthusiasts. At the end of the day, I do wish Hornby well, they have the data to turnaround their business.