Rob60532

Good to hear that Fenwick in Newcastle still stock Hornby. My local branch at Canterbury stopped selling Hornby a few years back. As you say Newcastle is the flagship store and where the company started out. I've visited the store a few times when I've stayed in Newcastle but never thought to check out the toy department. Will certainly have a look next time I'm there. It's so sad that we've lost so many of these big stores in recent years. I try and support these companies where I can. I live quite near the Hornby Visitor Centre / Wonder Works in Margate. They have recently started to award the website reward points on purchases in the shop. Not sure how it works. I'm presuming you give them your account details and they somehow add the points to your balance. Something that could perhaps be extended to Fenwicks and other Hornby concessions? That way you'd get something back and it would bring the RRP prices down to the standard 10% dealer discount and bring back much needed custom to the High Street.

Definitely more variants in the Mk1 coach range. A buffet car sooner than later then hopefully further down the line some Mk1 opens.

I'm eagerly awaiting some of these buildings too. As far as a church is concerned I have the first church in the OO Scaledale range which Hornby produced quite a few years back now. At the time it was criticised for being quite underscale for OO so hopefully that won't look out of place on my upcoming TT layout. Strange that Hornby have gone for a jewellers shop as the first shop in the TT range. I would have thought a village grocers shop or a general store would have been the obvious choice though the model can be easily adapted I suppose.

They appear to be back in stock now. Just ordered two of the tanks and a brake van.

They are now showing up as out of stock. Not sure if that's a temporary blip or they've actually sold out of them already. I didn't put a pre-order in for them because I don't like the way Hornby split pre-orders up into individual items. When I received my rake of Pullmans they all arrived in individual parcels! That reminds me I still need to check that they've not charged me multiple postage rates.

No. I think it would be a good idea though. It would then be possible to construct more prototypical looking curves without having to measure, bend and cut flexi track. Some modelers look down their nose at people who use setrack though. Not that I can see a problem with it. Makes life easier.

Thanks Too Tall. They look great. Ideal for road overbridges too. All being well I'll only be using R2 upwards. Indeed if I have enough space I'll stick to R3 and 4. Thanks again Rob

I'm hoping Hornby will produce some tunnel portals for TT sooner rather than later. Hopefully similar to their equivalent OO portals in the Scaledale range which allow sufficient clearance on setrack curves.

I only noticed this after one of the model railway YouTubers drew my attention to it. I had to use a magnifying glass to spot it with my eyesight. That said it does bug me a bit. It is a shame for an otherwise very good model. I suppose that's the downside when buying first editions of newly released models. You take the chance of getting the teething troubles before they are rectified on later batches of models. It will be interesting to see if the fault is on the sister A4s in the range which are now in stock in the Hornby warehouse. I am frustrated by this and the apparent problems in the setrack curves, not only for myself and the fact that I plan to invest in TT and build a new layout but I also feel a bit for Hornby who are obviously taking a gamble by introducing this new range. I really hope these problems can be resolved and that TT 120 for Hornby will be a success.

I do have a fondness for this series of buildings. They are considered crude by some indeed I dont know what Hornby were thinking of when they released them in bright red! However they can be made to look very realistic and quite amazing with a bit of painting, detailing and weathering.. I've made a few old red R145 signal boxs look quite convincing by just toning down the red and washing over the mortar course. I have a R146 engine shed awaiting the same treatment. My favourite items in this series are the station buildings. A station complex made up from this series looks quite impressive with the clock tower building (which was later used as a single story terminus building) used as a top story over a pair of the ticket office buildings.