Hornby announce TT:120

[Dunsignalling]

7 hours ago, fredoxford said:

I don't understand why so many people on here are moaning on here about the launch of TT 120? Are you worried that less models will be produced for OO gauge?

Which may be true if it takes off? Can't you back a British company investing a lot of money?

 

I'm more worried that it might result in no more models being produced by Hornby in OO gauge.

 

I won't be putting any money Hornby's way for this, but I sincerely hope it doesn't flop for the reason expressed in my first sentence.

 

John

[whart57]

10 hours ago, rob D2 said:

Time will tell, but I’m sure they must have had some conversation about which scale to go for. Does this mean Hornby thinks N gauge is dead in the water and unlikely to get much bigger ?

 

It means Hornby see it as a pond with some big fish already swimming around in it.

[Dunsignalling]

8 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

By going the direct sales route Hornby  take the retailers' margin for themselves. That means that they are starting up by an extra 20-50% on revenue, depending on what the retailers markup actually is on Hornby and  how much of it they give away.

 

This is also how the "new boys " can deliver higher spec (and therefore higher cost) models at prices competitive with Hornby and Bachmann I'm sure . They are taking the retailers' markup for themselves

Main reason the new boys can deliver what they are is that they don't have antiquated mid-20th century corporate structures to support. 

 

That's why new Hornby (and Bachmann) stuff has to be more expensive than items from the more recent start-ups, without offering (in most cases) any advantage in quality.

 

Until Hornby address that, I fear the business is only going one way, the only debate being as to how far and how fast. 

 

Instead, they appear to have admitted to themselves that they can't beat the competition and need to go somewhere there isn't any.   

 

John

Edited October 15, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[andythenorth]

23 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

I'm more worried that it might result in no more models being produced by Hornby in OO gauge.

 

I should stop feeding the trolls....(whether it's deliberate or accidental, parts of this thread definitely fit the original meaning of forum trolling - which arose from the fishing job of "putting a line out, and seeing who bites") *

 

But as I have the whole day to waste...

 

You're worried because Hornby might go bankrupt?

Or you're worried they'll abandon investment in OO and just sweat the existing tooling?

Or none of the above?

 

*  the under-the-bridge troll use is a later coincidence as it happens to provide an accurate physical portrait for some of the basement-dwellers who undertake trolling, although some of the most artful trolls in fact look and act rather differently and hide in plain sight.

Edited October 15, 2022 by andythenorth

[whart57]

2 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Yep, which is why my PC builds have to last me 5 years or until they become unusable (but that's down to Microsoft, not the things falling apart).

 

My PCs have had Linux as their main OS for nearly twenty years now. Mandriva at first, then SUSE and now Ubuntu for the last five years or so, Even my wife uses Ubuntu now as she got fed up with all the demands from Microsoft that she pay for upgrades. Now I'm not into PC gaming so I don't need Gatesware for that, but with Open Office providing me with WP, spreadsheet etc, Firefox for browsing and the brilliant Inkscape for drawing then I'm good with Ubuntu. AnyRail will run under WINE, a Windows Emulator, and the only annoyance is that my Silhouette cutter software won't. But I have Win7 running in a virtual environment for that. Most people may not know this but IBM - you know that little IT company - migrated all its staff onto Red Hat Linux a dozen years ago.

[Dunsignalling]

18 minutes ago, andythenorth said:

 

I should stop feeding the trolls (whether it's deliberate or accidental, parts of this thread definitely fit the original meaning of forum trolling, which is the fishing definition of putting a line out, and seeing who bites).  

 

But as I have the whole day to waste...

 

You're worried because Hornby might go bankrupt?

Or you're worried they'll abandon investment in OO and just sweat the existing tooling?

Or none of the above?

 

 

All of the above. and don't call me a troll.

 

I've probably spent twenty times more on Hornby OO than you ever will on Hornby TT:120.

 

This is would have been a very high-risk venture in times of plenty, but all the economic goal posts have moved a country mile since Hornby decided to embark upon it.  

 

Will it thrive? Will it destroy them? In all probability neither, but I am convinced that it will do absolutely nothing to improve their overall position as a business.

 

Thing is, If Hornby cock-up in OO, I have loads of alternatives *. Where are yours? Logic dictates that, unless Hornby succeed (not just survive) in this, there never will be.

 

John

 

* Not to mention enough stuff in the wardrobe that I don't actually need any more.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Dunsignalling

[5944]

Not sure if it's been mentioned anywhere (it probably has but there's only so many threads and pages you can read!) but Hornby have a TT layout on display at King's Cross station this weekend with an A3 and A4 running round. They looked ok from a quick glance this morning after a night shift. The dark green liveries actually looked good for Hornby!

[Hobby]

9 hours ago, JohnR said:

We dont know what the market reaction has been. Because we dont know how many sales have been made by Hornby in the last 4 days. 

 

Judging by the number of people on this forum who have said they have bought a set around the same number on this forum who have expressed their dissatisfaction of the enterprise!

 

9 hours ago, Ravenser said:

I'm a member of another much smaller forum. The reaction there has been more muted , but very largely negative . One member remarked that he thought the hobby was the poorer because of  the existence of Hornby. 

 

So am I and I would say that the reactions haven't been negative except for certain people who don't like Hornby, but more questioning why they've done it and if it will succeed or fail. Rather like here, I'd say.

 

1 hour ago, GWR-fan said:

It is not the willingness to fail,  it is the chosen method of direct selling, 

 

37 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Spot on . Nobody is willing them to fail

 

As we've said, though, the launch of a brand new scale, as we've all admitted, carries a great deal of risk, the use of direct sales actually removes that financial risk from those people who have most to lose, i.e. the small retail shop. So on the flip side to your argument they could also be said to be doing them a favour! If it does take off I'd be surprised if it wasn't run out into the shops, though, to help keep up momentum if nothing else. It's one of those discussion that has equal weight from both sides. Has anyone asked a model shop whether they would stock TT had they been given the chance?

Edited October 15, 2022 by Hobby

[andythenorth]

32 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

All of the above.

On the one hand, the risks you posit are real...but then again, what is life without a little risk in it? 🙂

 

On the other hand, one could argue that Hornby already being in HO, TT and N via Jouef, Electrotren, Rivarossi, Arnold etc also poses a risk to OO.  Or does it? 🧐

 

If Hornby do go bust, the existing business (tooling, intellectual property etc) will be picked up by someone else, maybe at fire-sale prices, and some form of production would resume.

 

Because this is the internet, let me say I'm only replying to try and reduce your worries, I'm not out to try and prove your argument is wrong. 😉

 

It's only toy trains after all. 

Edited October 15, 2022 by andythenorth

[whart57]

1 hour ago, GWR-fan said:

It is not the willingness to fail,  it is the chosen method of direct selling,  cutting out the hobby outlets and in my opinion severely limiting the market possibilities.  The typical "newbie" would either see the product on display in a major store in the lead up to Christmas or see it at a hobby shop where a comparison could be made with other scale/gauges and see the potential of the scale. 

 

For me Rails and Hattons are in the far frozen North, and I don't have my winter thermals to hand, but Gaugemaster could have shown me TT in a display cabinet two years ago before all this started.

 

I do get the feeling though that posters here are still thinking of their own young days in the 1980s or earlier when there were hobby shops in High Streets. I don't know which "hobby shops" people are thinking of in this thread but if you mean that chain that sets up in vast sheds on trading estates then don't expect them to provide any enlightenment for the newbie. I don't blame Hornby for not wanting them as their route to a new market. Nor, given the chin stroking cynicism on show here, does the specialist hobby shop offer a risk free environment.

 

Hornby launching through direct sales seems like a good idea to me, particularly when backed up with a club and a YouTube channel. The generation Hornby are aiming at are, if my granddaughters are anything to go by, very comfortable using tablets or phones to find hobby material and their parents are probably welcoming Amazon to the door on a daily basis. I'm even seeing TV ads for a service that provides you with recipes and then the ingredients you'll need to cook them. Us grey haired old modellers probably recoil from all that but then Hornby isn't pitching TT-120 at us.

 

Trussonomics is going to be a far bigger risk to Hornby's venture than the guys at Rails of Sheffield grumbling they are being cut out. Parents who need to find an extra £300 a month for the mortgage are going to be telling Santa to dial down expectations a bit.

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, GWR-fan said:

The typical "newbie" would either see the product on display in a major store in the lead up to Christmas or see it at a hobby shop where a comparison could be made with other scale/gauges and see the potential of the scale. 

I know we’ve probably done this point earlier in the thread but I’m not sure this is necessarily true anymore; lots of model railway (and other craft/hobby stuff) is only or primarily available online and people still manage to find out about it.

 

7 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

This thread is still moving at light-speed.  I do not understand many of the negative comments, many of which seem to wish or hope that it will fail......why do people feel so invested in it's demise, talk about opinionated, it's almost political!

 

TT, and RTR in any scale does not interest me right now but I do want to see a British initiative succeed as it spins off to the rest of the hobby.

My take on it is similar - I don’t personally want TT now as my main scale is, and will continue to be, 009, and I’m currently committed to a fairly complex 009 project, probably for at least the next 6 months. However, depending on the sort of stock that becomes available later TT could now be a good option should I ever wish to build a standard gauge micro layout. Also, I hope it succeeds as it’s evidently providing another option for other people, some of whom wouldn’t otherwise have space for a layout.

[Dunsignalling]

5 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

For me Rails and Hattons are in the far frozen North, and I don't have my winter thermals to hand, but Gaugemaster could have shown me TT in a display cabinet two years ago before all this started.

 

I do get the feeling though that posters here are still thinking of their own young days in the 1980s or earlier when there were hobby shops in High Streets. I don't know which "hobby shops" people are thinking of in this thread but if you mean that chain that sets up in vast sheds on trading estates then don't expect them to provide any enlightenment for the newbie. I don't blame Hornby for not wanting them as their route to a new market. Nor, given the chin stroking cynicism on show here, does the specialist hobby shop offer a risk free environment.

 

Hornby launching through direct sales seems like a good idea to me, particularly when backed up with a club and a YouTube channel. The generation Hornby are aiming at are, if my granddaughters are anything to go by, very comfortable using tablets or phones to find hobby material and their parents are probably welcoming Amazon to the door on a daily basis. I'm even seeing TV ads for a service that provides you with recipes and then the ingredients you'll need to cook them. Us grey haired old modellers probably recoil from all that but then Hornby isn't pitching TT-120 at us.

 

Trussonomics is going to be a far bigger risk to Hornby's venture than the guys at Rails of Sheffield grumbling they are being cut out. Parents who need to find an extra £300 a month for the mortgage are going to be telling Santa to dial down expectations a bit.

 

Nobody at Rails will give two hoots. They have been doing very nicely without Hornby for quite a while.

 

John

['CHARD]

14 minutes ago, 5944 said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned anywhere (it probably has but there's only so many threads and pages you can read!) but Hornby have a TT layout on display at King's Cross station this weekend with an A3 and A4 running round. They looked ok from a quick glance this morning after a night shift. The dark green liveries actually looked good for Hornby!

 

Yet elsewhere, also at Kings Cross, apparently another Hornby-supported OO layout?????

 

https://londonist.com/london/transport/lner-family-lounge-kings-cross-Hornby-train-set

 

Bewildered of Hogsmeade.

[adb968008]

14 hours ago, RyanN91 said:

I wonder of Hornby will newly tooled from their 00 old and new toolings for TT-120? 

 

Diesel 

Class 06

Class 20 

Class 25 Sulzer Type 2

Class 29

Class 33

Class 35 Hymek

Class 40

Class 42 Warship

Class 52 Western

Class 55

Class 56

Class 58

Class 59

Class 67

 

Electric 

Class 71

Class 81

Class 86

Class 87

Class 91

Class 92

 

DMU

101

110

121 

142 Pacer

153

155

 

EMU

Class 370 APT-P 

Class 373 Eurostar

Class 390 Pendolino

 

 

Add GW railcar, class 37,43,47,50, 60,90, 156, 395, 466, 755,800 and of course class 08.

 

sad that given such rich history of producing the “latest”… in the last decade that is summed up simply as 755 & 800, despite a mass renewal of the railways passenger infrastructure.

 

 

[andythenorth]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I agree though that the difference in size between even H0 and TT is significant but, unlike N scale, models don't appear that much smaller and you seem to relate to them in much the same way.

 

If it helps, here's a picture (these are wildly different prototypes but eh) 🙂

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by andythenorth

[Hobby]

7 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

 

Yet elsewhere, also at Kings Cross, apparently another Hornby-supported OO layout?????

 

https://londonist.com/london/transport/lner-family-lounge-kings-cross-Hornby-train-set

 

Bewildered of Hogsmeade.

 

Why bewildered? It was set up before the launch of TT! If anything it will encourage the youngsters into asking for a set and when they look up Hornby online, which most will do, they'll see TT120...

[Dunsignalling]

1 minute ago, adb968008 said:

Add GW railcar, class 37,43,47,50, 60,90, 156, 395, 466, 755,800 and of course class 08.

 

sad that given such rich history of producing the “latest”… in the last decade that is summed up simply as 755 & 800, despite a mass renewal of the railways passenger infrastructure.

 

 

I'd think the "latest" is something of a minefield for all manufacturers. In the time between signing off a model and it being delivered, it's quite probable that the livery and/or operator will have changed.

 

Perhaps wiser to cut things off by two or three years so you can better define where your model fits in the general scheme of things?

 

John

[whart57]

One thing though, I sincerely hope Hornby don't produce a "Smoky Joe" or that weird 0-4-0T GWR sort of pannier in TT. I can take a modern diesel hauling PO wagons on the club layout but those things make me wince. The old Triang "Nellie" had a sort of charm to it, those things don't.

[009 micro modeller]

35 minutes ago, 5944 said:

Not sure if it's been mentioned anywhere (it probably has but there's only so many threads and pages you can read!) but Hornby have a TT layout on display at King's Cross station this weekend with an A3 and A4 running round. They looked ok from a quick glance this morning after a night shift. The dark green liveries actually looked good for Hornby!

I saw this (and Flying Scotsman) briefly on my way to work this morning but will have a proper look either this evening or tomorrow morning.

[5944]

16 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

 

Yet elsewhere, also at Kings Cross, apparently another Hornby-supported OO layout?????

 

https://londonist.com/london/transport/lner-family-lounge-kings-cross-Hornby-train-set

 

Bewildered of Hogsmeade.

That's a permanent layout in the new lounge, where the ticket office used to be next to Gresley's statue. The TT one is a Hornby promotional one. 

[Dunsignalling]

1 minute ago, Hobby said:

 

Why bewildered? It was set up before the launch of TT! If anything it will encourage the youngsters into asking for a set and when they look up Hornby online, which most will do, they'll see TT120...

I took 'CHARD's post to suggest that, if Hornby want to really "push" their TT:120 range, they need to back-pedal on their promotion of parallel OO products, at least for a while.

 

With all the same stuff produced in both scales, what's good for one is likely to be bad for the other.

 

Hornby are side-stepping their OO rivals, only to come up against the biggest competitor of all, themselves. 

 

John

[jjb1970]

I am 52, which I suppose is neither young nor old but somewhere in between. If I need to buy something now my first thought is to go online and look at web shops and do on-line product research. And that isn't because I live overseas and am less familiar with the retail landscape, it's what I did in England too. I love visiting model shops but it's not the end of the world to go without being able to visit a physical shop. Two of my model railway interests are Chinese and Japanese trains, I do all my product research about what's what and what is available on-line and outside of trips to Japan and HK (which will hopefully re-start soon....) do my shopping on-line. My two teenage kids are much more wedded to online shopping than I am, I am not sure they'd miss physical shops at all. I know lots of people much older than I am who are on-line looking for bargains and shopping. So I really don't think Hornby will lose that many sales because nobody will know anything about this TT range unless they see it in a shop.

I know I've already said this, but here in Singapore shopping malls are rapidly being re-orientated as food and beverage malls and hosting medical clinics, cinemas, childcare providers etc as most shopping migrated to online platforms. Interestingly it doesn't seem the malls have lost any footfall, they've adapted to changes in retail very effectively and re-invented themselves to stay relevant.

[Legend]

10 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

The market for the sort of OO that Hornby wants to make may be saturated but others don't seem to have a problem making stuff people want to buy.

 

I currently have pre-orders for models from Accurascale and Rapido to a value easily five times that which I have in place for Hornby items. 

 

Hornby's declining share of the OO market owes much to their own complacency. I have, for instance, stopped buying their Bulleid Pacifics because they just keep repeating the same few combinations, while ignoring as many tender variations as they have actually made. Instead, I've been buying s/h ones and taking matters into my own hands. They also neglected to update the various GWR siphons they inherited from Lima and Airfix with the result that I will be spending over £150 buying three from Accurascale, and no doubt more if/when they get round to outside framed ones.

 

Hornby has spent the last 2-3 years ramming ugly Thompson Pacifics down our throats, and making so many that most who do appreciate them probably can't afford all they'd like. Lost sales. In the meantime there's been precious little new stuff of interest to the rest of us. More lost sales. Very poor strategic thinking.

 

I'm just waiting for the squeals of outrage from Margate when somebody else does a range of Gresley corridors properly!

 

Just three examples, but I bet almost all of you can think of at least one more and I could come up with a dozen given more time.

 

John

Agree on lack of strategic thinking or vision . It’s a typical Kohlerism to constantly churn out large Pacific’s and Pullmans . He can’t seem to see past that  to a Class 313 as an example . And you can see his hand in the initial choice of locomotives in TT:120 , big Pacific’s . A more coherent choice would have been a 37 or 47 in Phase1/2 to go with both large Pacific’s and HST at other end of time frame . Lots of green/blue/freight liveries for a 37 . A 50 not so flexible , but a Kohler favourite! 
 

However there is a limit to the number of times you can retool an A4,A3,Duchess,Princess or 9F . And there are diminishing returns each time . The 9F is a case in point . I would quite like one but at £250 you think twice . Is it significantly better than my Bachmann 9F or even Railroad ones .so I’ll bet each retool sells less and less . I’d imagine Bachmann are finding the same with their 37/47 , great models but are they £200 better than existing ones which are already very good .
 

In contrast there’s the bright blue sea of a complete new market  that happens to be smaller in scale  and could be attractive enough to get people into the hobby because it’s marketed as Hornby , the name that everyone outside model railways associates with model railways . I really don’t know if it will work . I hope so . 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Legend

[Erichill16]

4 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I am 52, which I suppose is neither young nor old but somewhere in between. If I need to buy something now my first thought is to go online and look at web shops and do on-line product research. And that isn't because I live overseas and am less familiar with the retail landscape, it's what I did in England too. I love visiting model shops but it's not the end of the world to go without being able to visit a physical shop. Two of my model railway interests are Chinese and Japanese trains, I do all my product research about what's what and what is available on-line and outside of trips to Japan and HK (which will hopefully re-start soon....) do my shopping on-line. My two teenage kids are much more wedded to online shopping than I am, I am not sure they'd miss physical shops at all. I know lots of people much older than I am who are on-line looking for bargains and shopping. So I really don't think Hornby will lose that many sales because nobody will know anything about this TT range unless they see it in a shop.

I know I've already said this, but here in Singapore shopping malls are rapidly being re-orientated as food and beverage malls and hosting medical clinics, cinemas, childcare providers etc as most shopping migrated to online platforms. Interestingly it doesn't seem the malls have lost any footfall, they've adapted to changes in retail very effectively and re-invented themselves to stay relevant.

Some models, when seen in real life look so much better than online or in a catalogue. I have bought quite a few models after seeing them in the flesh and therefore may be called an impulse purchase. I do buy online as I primarily model European N gauge but would much rather buy from a shop.  

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, Legend said:

Agree on lack of strategic thinking or vision . It’s a typical Kohlerism to constantly churn out large Pacific’s and Pullmans . He can’t seem to see past that  to a Class 313 as an example . And you can see his hand in the initial choice of locomotives in TT:120 , big Pacific’s . A more coherent choice would have been a 37 or 47 in Phase1/2 to go with both large Pacific’s and HST at other end of time frame . Lots of green/blue/freight liveries for a 37 . A 50 not so flexible , but a Kohler favourite! 
 

However there is a limit to the number of times you can retool an A4,A3,Duchess,Princess or 9F . And there are diminishing returns each time . The 9F is a case in point . I would quite like one but at £250 you think twice . Is it significantly better than my Bachmann 9F or even Railroad ones .so I’ll bet each retool sells less and less . I’d imagine Bachmann are finding the same with their 37/47 , great models but are they £200 better than existing ones .
 

In contrast there’s the bright blue sea of a complete new market  that happens to be smaller and could be attractive enough to get people into the hobby because it’s marketed as Hornby , the name that everyone outside model railways associates with model railways . I really don’t know if it will work . I hope so . 

 

The new (OO) Hornby 9F is brilliant, and decent value for what it offers IMHO. However, when working on a layout I'd be hard-pressed to spot any improvement over my three old Bachmann ones. In this case Hornby is offering me "better" vs "good enough", but I don't "need" better (or more). If I didn't have loads of other stuff clamouring for my cash, I'd have a Tyne Dock one for the display cabinet, but I do, so I won't. Sorry Hornby. If it's any consolation, I won't be buying any more in blue boxes, either! 

 

Super detailing is all very well, many love to spend time admiring it at close quarters, but I'd be more likely to buy a Railroad Plus Crosti for the differences that I'll notice when it's running. In fact, when Hornby get round to doing it in the "de-Crostied" form that is more appropriate for my period (to either standard), I'll definitely be in.   

 

I've always been a little sceptical about the real value of Hornby being the "household name" for toy trains among folk who don't have any. It must surely be tempered by what proportion of "outsiders" ever decide to become "insiders". It presumably does work to Hornby's satisfaction, though or they would have abandoned offering OO sets long ago. The big question (getting back on topic) is what advantage it offers in TT:120, where Hornby is the only name in the frame.

 

I hope their web people are on top of deriving maximum search benefit for the TT:120 range without creating any more cannibalisation of OO sales than is unavoidable.

 

John

Edited October 15, 2022 by Dunsignalling