Copy Cat Hornby!

[Cronan]

Hornby you are copy cats with your battery operated toy trains you even got them as 1/87 scale!

Every time I see this set ( saw a picture at a toy fair ) I think Marklin, I thight it was a good idea at first but not if you are going to copy someone else or you gonna get taken over by Marklin Because its very similar to Marklin My World Range! Your Junior Range that is.

[walkingthedog]

🤔

You don't suppose the same scale is used so they are compatible do you. Do you also think Bachmann etc., are 'copy cats' (your words) for using the same scale as Hornby.  Other companies make wooden trains that are compatible with Brio. It's the sensible thing to do. It's daft to make something in a unique scale.  What if Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol etc., all used slightly different scales? 

[Cronan]

Hornby are using the same art work as My World trains by M*rkin and the one at the toy fair looks very similar to ICE2 but they have it as a pendolino if you don't believe me have a look at rmweb forum where there is a picture advertising Hornby Start Junior then look at My World by Marklin then you will see what I mean Here's on link to My World http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JBUJ4V6?keywords=marklin%20my%20world&qid=1453821985&ref_=sr_1_8&sr=8-8

And here is another link http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107536-hornby-at-london-toy-fair/

Not Much difference eh?

[walkingthedog]

So what's the problem. In the early 1900's Marklin bought out something similar to Mecanno. 

 

If as you say the packaging is the same then they haven't copied them have they. They have obviously joined Marklin in marketing the product. Jolly good idea, keeps costs down. Hornby in the UK, Marklin in Europe, sound business idea to me. 

 

Do you really think Hornby could get away with pinching another companies packaging? 

[Buz]

 Hi WTD

No they did not the spelling and pronunciation is different 🤐 then there is the American version.

That I think the moral police computor program would pick up and junk the post if I used its real name.

I am sure there are many toy and model products where the yell hey you copied that could go up.

But we must not forget that mysterious business beast made under licence it worked for the real trains.

Some of them have the fraise made under licence of who ever the company was on the builders plates.

I bet that get's used a lot more than we might think.

I think I prefer the lets make it compatible and same scale but still compete version of life.

Isn't that what the euro standards are suposed to do??

To the classic I can think of marketing ploys "it is standard gauge" when in fact it was anything but as the Brits and European nations had already nuted out the by then standard toy train gauges 0 1,2 and 3 gauges and probably others

Besides the Hornby HST shed kit is another example I don't know who actually designed the orriginal product. 

I have seen that in many different brand name boxes the same kit now that has to be a case of Made For By or Made Under Licence.

Like you say in this day and age no respectable company would dare pirate or poach what ever you wish to call it a product

regards John

[JeremiahBunyan]

Hornby you are copy cats with your battery operated toy trains you even got them as 1/87 scale!

Every time I see this set (saw a picture at a toy fair) I think Marklin, I thought it was a good idea at first but not if you are going to copy someone else or are you gonna get taken over by Marklin Because its very similar to Marklin My World Range! Your Junior Range that is.

I dont know copy cats?

 

Hornby are using the same art work as My World trains by M*rkin and the one at the toy fair looks very similar to ICE2 but they have it as a pendolino if you don't believe me have a look at rmweb forum where there is a picture advertising Hornby Start Junior then look at My World by Marklin. Not Much difference eh?

What an absolutely stupid thing to say!

 

- Hornby are a business, they can do as they please to bring toy/model trains to the market to earn a profit.

- It's not called copying. Have you seen Marklin ones? They all are 4-wheeled trains. Atleast Hornby has stuck to a high-speed look alike that has Bo-Bo bogies, much more realistic.

- So what if they do it in 1:87 scale? Does that really bug you? I never heard of rules that they should be OO.

- It looks nothing like the Marklin one. You just want to rant. I can see a huge difference.

You're just being ridiculous. But your weird logic, Bachmann are copy cats because they are doing British OO, all other companies are copy cats because they all did HO after Marklin introduced it. Just wow! I've got a ton of people around the computer laughing at your post. Please share worthwhile content. So childish, down to the words used in the posts.

[Buz]

 Hi all

Hmm 1/87 and the problem is that sounds like HO scale to me isn't that the strange scale that is world wide that every one except the UK use.

I am not going to bother with the history lesson we all more or less know it and why it came about.

That sounds like a very smart toy marketing move to me and it is a toy train so is it scale as we would recognise it probably not.

But who cares get it into the hands of the children they won't care they will see a train set OOH! its hornby just like daddies and grandpops thats about as far as there caring will go apart from the I want more batteries part 🤐

regards John

[Cronan]

Then why don't Hornby make all there models in HO? after thats the correct scale for 16.5mm track and is the most popular.

[Cronan]

Hornby you are copy cats with your battery operated toy trains you even got them as 1/87 scale!

Every time I see this set (saw a picture at a toy fair) I think Marklin, I thought it was a good idea at first but not if you are going to copy someone else or are you gonna get taken over by Marklin Because its very similar to Marklin My World Range! Your Junior Range that is.

I dont know copy cats?

 

Hornby are using the same art work as My World trains by M*rkin and the one at the toy fair looks very similar to ICE2 but they have it as a pendolino if you don't believe me have a look at rmweb forum where there is a picture advertising Hornby Start Junior then look at My World by Marklin. Not Much difference eh?

What an absolutely stupid thing to say!

 

- Hornby are a business, they can do as they please to bring toy/model trains to the market to earn a profit.

- It's not called copying. Have you seen Marklin ones? They all are 4-wheeled trains. Atleast Hornby has stuck to a high-speed look alike that has Bo-Bo bogies, much more realistic.

- So what if they do it in 1:87 scale? Does that really bug you? I never heard of rules that they should be OO.

- It looks nothing like the Marklin one. You just want to rant. I can see a huge difference.

You're just being ridiculous. But your weird logic, Bachmann are copy cats because they are doing British OO, all other companies are copy cats because they all did HO after Marklin introduced it. Just wow! I've got a ton of people around the computer laughing at your post. Please share worthwhile content. So childish, down to the words used in the posts.

You've totally missed the point  are the people around your computer mentally challenged also to say 'it looks nothing like the Marklin one' suggest you need your eyes tested.

[Cronan]

Now back to my Question.Why don't Hornby do all their models in HO? It's the correct scale for the track and is the most popular.

[chelskisupporter]

I think you'll find that this junior set is a direct port from Lima's original set (hence the 1:87 scale), and from what i can see just looks like it has been rebranded and repainted for the different regions e.g. Electrotren - Spain, Lima - Italy, Jouef - France and Hornby - UK.

If you search for the Nuremberg toy fair that is going on at the moment, there are more images from all the different brands. 

 

I'm an avid reader of the forums, never had the need to make an account, but when reading this just felt as if this person needed to be put straight!! 

[walkingthedog]

😀

Easy answer. British locos were/are far smaller in the real world that USA and European locos. If UK locos had been produced in HO scale the electric motors of the day would not have fitted inside a majority of them, so it was decided to make the locos 1/76 OO instead of 1/87 HO, but use the HO track gauge so UK locos could be run on foreign layouts and vice versa. 

 

How happy would you be now if Hornby suddenly decided to change all there models to HO fit in with the rest if the world.?

 

I for one only have about 100 locos and would be well pleased to have to get rid of them. Who'd want them, they'd look daft with the new HO products.  

QED 

 

p.s. When's the last time you heard the phrase Copy Cat?  😀

[81F]

Now back to my Question.Why don't Hornby do all their models in HO? It's the correct scale for the track and is the most popular.

I think the OO market is so ingrained into British railway Modelling that the odd HO model (even with coaches) would be a flop as in the past. I remember the LIMA 33 a friend of mine had with it's Mark II coaches and seeing a Riverossi Royal Scot in the 1970s. Both were very nice locos at the time and far superior in detail that anything in the Hornby (ex Triang) range. But because of the amount of OO equipment about and the lack of British HO people just didn't take them up.

Introducing an entire range of locos in HO would also be a huge risk in a scale so close to OO.

Just out of interest does anyone know the demention between the OUTER faces of a full sized railway wheel when compared with a scaled up OO wheel as i wouldn't be supprised if the overscale thickness of the OO wheel, particularly with valvegear, means the outside dimension is probably closer to the prototype dimension than the track gauge is.

[walkingthedog]

I reckon you're dead right 81F. Just imagine the uproar if the main producers said as from 2017 all UK model railway products will be HO. 

 

Any company going down that route might as well shut down before they started.  

[LCDR]

 The dimension over prototype wheel faces is 5 ft 3 1/2 in. or in 4mm scale 21.22mm. 

(Full sized back to back is 53.5 inches, and wheel back to face is 5 inches so 53.5 + 5 +5 = 63.5 inches, to convert to 4mm scale - 63.5 x 25.4 = 1612.9, divide by 76 = 21.222 mm)

 

BRSMB face to face in OO is 19.5 mm.

(back to back is 14.5 and wheel back to face is  2.5 mm so 14.5 + (2.5 x 2) = 19.5 mm)

Note that ultra finescale OO will have narrower wheel tread. (2mm, or more accurately 1.67 mm )

 

[walkingthedog]

Just measured my Jinty and the wheel face measurement is a hairs breadth short of a scale 5 ft, so OO is a scale 3 1/2 inches too narrow, that's 0.046th of an OO inch thats 1.1684mm. If you can see that you've got better eyes than me. 

[LCDR]

 Change to UK HO could succeed if carried out slowly and progressively. The best route would be initially to only produce HO models of contemporary (Modern) trains,  for example Eurostar, IEP express, CrossRail stock, class 66 & 70 locos, HTA and HIA hopper wagons, Biomass wagons, various container flat wagons, etc.

 

That way people with heritage type model railways (steam, green & blue diesels and early privatisation) are less likely to buy the ultra modern stuff, and modellers of the current scene are less likely to buy the old stuff so they could co-exist. As us oldies fall off our perches, we leave the way clear for modern modellers to dominate the hobby. A few heritage type items in HO could appear (Tornado perhaps and Flying Scotsman) but nothing else.

[walkingthedog]

Would take a long long time LC. 

[Postman Prat]

Hi WTD 

Quote :   When's the last time you heard the phrase Copy Cat?

 

In the playground, I don't think any comment is necessary, do you? 

[JeremiahBunyan]

You've totally missed the point  are the people around your computer mentally challenged also to say 'it looks nothing like the Marklin one' suggest you need your eyes tested.

 

Now back to my Question.Why don't Hornby do all their models in HO? It's the correct scale for the track and is the most popular.

 

For obvious reasons you continue to prove how childish and immature you are. I am sorry, I come from a family of artists, I'm sure we don't need out eyes tested. We know what lies in details. So I'm sorry, thanks for calling us all mentally challenged, but your immature behaviour itself probably points a finger at you!

 

Hornby doesn't do HO because at the time the models were introduced in the early 1900's they didn't have motors small enough. Please do read up more often rather than comment uselessly on a forum without any knowledge and with childish intention.

[JeremiahBunyan]

I'm an avid reader of the forums, never had the need to make an account, but when reading this just felt as if this person needed to be put straight!! 

 

Good luck mate...He only seems to be an adamant and childish Hornby basher! You can provide him with proof and reasoning but he won't budge.

[JeremiahBunyan]

P.S. When's the last time you heard the phrase Copy Cat?  😀

OOoooo.... Ummm..! in 2001 when I was a little boy in the 1st grade in school (5.5 years of age)! Then we realized we were too grown up for that phrase.

[LCDR]

 I am trying not to enter into this exchange but there are some similarities AND contrasts between this posting and one a few months back concerning the VSOE.

 

The basis of this forum should be a positive and reasoned discussions on model railways, and it must not degenerate into name calling. Just because someone doesn't agree, it does not make them a lesser person, and to infer that to be the case, is rude, and should be shown the 'red card'.

 

This thread , ironically,  contrast with the VSOE argument  that Hornby should make a mainland European train in OO, whereas this poster wants Hornby to make everything in HO !! 

 

Whatever anyone thinks Hornby will make its decisions based upon commercial considerations. Where these are compatible with the general view of the hobby all well and good, but there will be times when there will be aspects of the market which are not necessarily parallel with mainstream opinion. 'Serious' modellers may like or dislike Thomas, or Toy Story, or RailRoad, and now this new one, but if Market Research says it will produce profit, then it would be unwise for Hornby to ignore it. What we as individuals think is much less important.

 

There will always be minority views, and in fact in our hobby there is greater scope for these than in nearly any other hobby.

 

Oh and by the way WTD, yes this should take a long ........... time, at least I hope so!

[Buz]

Now back to my Question.Why don't Hornby do all their models in HO? It's the correct scale for the track and is the most popular.

Is it the correct scale for the track scale and gauge are two different things I thought it was Sn3 1/2 scale track for West Australian trains

Any way the short version of the story is that 1930's or there abouts electric and clockwork mechanisams, Would not fit inside HO scale UK trains the trains where to small to get them into.

The European and American trains are much bigger so those motors etc would fit in side them

So to get round that problem they made them a little bit bigger to get motors in

thats how OO came to be.

It is now to late for modern manufacturers to make HO UK trains and it would be posible today with the miniturisation that is now possible.

To make that change the manufacturers would go bust and we would have nothing the re tooling alone would cost millions and millions of pounds

They would then be unable to sell it as it would not be compatable with anything that people have it is us that is the market and we have OO we would not want the smaller HO because its not compatable.

regards John