ColinB

Remind me how much is her husband worth? £2.9m loss is pretty significant loss. Trouble is currently because of their production situation in China they are just not making enough new models to sell. I mean we all moan about a lot of the 2021 catalogue items being released from Hornby's point of view they cannot make any money from them.

Yes DarkRedCape I am pretty sure it does. As I said in my previous post it is connected between the two power inputs on the loco not dcc controlled as the DCC decoder is in the tender. It is basically a couple of normal diodes to get dc and then a flickering led. Yes threelink it probably won't flicker in real life and would be nowhere near as bright. Hornby probably added it as other manufacturers do, the only difference in those locos because they want it controllable by dcc, they move the dcc decoder back to the loco. It is a Hornby bodge, but having said that, I quite like having it on the locos, I even retro fitted it so of my earlier locos. If you want to do it properly on a Hornby loco fit a function decoder to the loco to just control it.

The "new Duchess" is quite old at least over 4 years old, so I suspect the old tooling got binned when the new one came out. Hornby don't make a Railroad version of this model so it has to be the same chassis as the current model. Now they may have cost reduced it by cheapening up the valve gear and body and possibly putting the DCC decoder back in the loco, but I suspect that would cost more to implement. I am with the mistake theory.

The "new Duchess" is quite old at least over 4 years old, so I suspect the old tooling got binned when the new one came out. Hornby don't make a Railroad version of this model so it has to be the same chassis as the current model. Now they may have cost reduced it by cheapening up the valve gear and body and possibly putting the DCC decoder back in the loco, but I suspect that would cost more to implement. I am with the mistake theory.

No wonder it is out of stock, that is an incredibly cheap price. So why was it not set at the same price as the Queen Elizabeth 2?

That is incredibly cheap for a Princess Coronation even adding on the £30 Hornby Club fee.

Next 18 decoders seem to be a pretty standard size. I have used the LaisDCC and Zimo ones. Bachmann tend to use them in all their tank locos, I think Dapol do as well. I found the LaisDCC one was as good as any of the other brands. I don't know about the rest of the brands but YouChoos list the dimensions of their decoders.

I was comparing a modern loco with my old ringfield powered ones. I did get the ringfield ones to work a bit better but you always have the issue of the traction tyres. You cannot pickup power from a wheel with a traction tyre on.

To be fair to Hornby threelink their museum quality locos run substantially better than a lot of their old ones mainly because of the better pickups and that there are more of them. Trouble is they throw in that excuse for quite often their lack of quality checks on poor motors. My layout is not completely level and the new Evening Star by Hornby runs brilliantly at both high and low speed. Now the Fell I bought definitely needs straight and level track but again that is because it isn't designed properly

Yes the British Enterprise is the one I have. I am sure Hornby have slightly changed the chassis on the newer one. One day when I am feeling brave I will take that one and the rebuilt one apart and see if there is a difference in the chassis, Hornby say they are the same.

TT if it becomes popular could be the future for Hornby. As most of its sales base is the older generation, most of them already have a large array of oo models. If you read the thread on 9Fs many people are saying "why buy a new one when I already have one" so the market for new locos is not huge. That is why Hornby develops new locos like the Hush Hush. Trouble is they are not appealing to the younger generation and the price of the locos themselves puts off new starters. So TT might be popular for a while until Hornby hikes the price as it tries to cover increased costs. From what I heard they are already messed up the first batch by making a "schoolboy" error.

Well at least I was right about the price. I suppose though it does mean they will make spring 2023 rather than a lot later as is the case with many of my preordered models of 2021.

If Hornby released a new class 50 (same model just different colour/name) I suspect it would be well over £200, so if you want one this represents good value for money. The Hornby one is good, I have 3 that I bought for under £100 each although a couple are missing buffers. I must admit I am more interested in how they run rather than the last rivet position. I prefer the Hornby to the Lima mainly because of the better chassis and no traction tyres. I wonder why Accurascale are doing one? From what I have seen recently with the class 66 and 6 wheel coaches, does that mean Hornby will rush around to release their one again.

Sorry Will Hay about not replying earlier, it got mixed up in all the other posts. Any of the rebuilt Hush Hush locos are perfect as is the latest unbuilt one with twin funnels (I don't have one but Sam reviewed it and said it was a great improvement). Avoid the very early one which is the one with the big bulbous boiler and a single funnel.

Hornby won't do a civil case, they are still recovering from their last one. I remember years ago when Hornby transferred their production to China they boasted how good their QA was. Somewhere along the line that QA got dropped, probably to save money, so they deserve the criticism they get.

Well it appears my one is not suffering from torque issues. I needed to test a Hornby standard class 4 loco so uncoupled the Evening Star and attached the Standard class 4. Did it struggle with the 5 mk1 coaches that Evening Star was pulling whereas when I reattached the Evening Star it pulled away effortlessly. So I suspect Sam just got one with a duff motor. Hornby are not off the hook though, if they did a decent quality review then they should have picked it up and Sam won't have cause to complain. If you ever watch his review of the rebuilt Hush Hush he actually gives it a good review, so he is not totally biased. Just for info I have just had to send back my dynamometer car because of a fault in the led circuit. Now as an retired electronic engineer I really want to know how you can mess up a LED circuit, subcontractors fault or not, that has got to be the easiest design to make. So it appears we all make mistakes.

Yes I would agree with you Brew Man try fitting that into the body of a loco. The thing that fascinates me is I used to work in electronics for an incredibly long time. When I started ordering a PCB with "plated thro holes" and double sided pcb was very expensive but now with modern techniques and getting them made in China they are incredibly cheap. So why is it all the boards I see have those horrible pads that enlarge the board by 50%, and why is it they very rarely have decent mounting holes. There was a guy in Gloucester that sold some really decent ones for not much more than a £1 on EBay, I bought a lot. Sadly he isn't selling them anymore. The latest version of PCB by Hornby is very good part number X9084T, double sided easy to solder to, the P version also looks reasonable although I have never used them. I found New Modellers seem to do the best ones.

I don't think forward planning is high on Hornby's list of priorities. Now people like me just go and buy a decoder off anyone, well in my case a decent supplier. A lot of people on this site only buy Hornby, so having a loco with a 21 pin DCC socket but no decoder to fit it is a bit of an issue. The move to 21 pin is a good idea, but why now? Most of the steam locos don't have lots of functions so there is no need for the additional functions 21 pin gives you, the only advantage for Hornby is packaging.

Forget that post about the 21 pin TTS decoder. I have just seen when the ordinary 21 pin decoder becomes available. If it takes them until Autumn 2023 to make an ordinary decoder who knows when the 21 pin TTS ones will become available.

Probably something to do with TT. It could be a new range of 21 pin TTS decoders. Who knows?

I must admit David he is, but there again for Hornby to sue him they have got to prove it is a new motor which looking at his evidence it is not. If they sued him he would just do a "crowd fund" from all his watchers to pay the fees and Hornby would be crucified in the press for picking on a "little guy". The thing I cannot understand is if it is the same motor why use it, it has given the company grief previously. Do you remember that batch of locos Hattons sold off cheap that all had dodgy motors, Hornby would not admit there was an issue. Surely as a company they must know by now that he would pull the motor apart, for all his faults he is very thorough. Hornby are "old school", I will say no more.

I must admit I find Peters Spares postage a bit steep for small items, but to give them credit I can see why. I must admit though generally I use the other spares suppliers, they are generally cheaper for postage and usually for the spares themselves. The trouble is there are certain items that only Peters Spares holds so you are forced to go to them.

Actually Topcat the Hush Hush bogie problem is nothing to do with the difference between the model and prototype, I doubt on the real loco it hung from a piece of plastic. When I analysed the design the bogie sits too low, meaning the boss it sits on is too proud so the bogie cannot travel far enough. I suspect on the subsequent designs they machined off about 1 mm from the boss so that the bogie sits higher. That was the question I asked Hornby, but they came back with the answer that they have not changed the chassis. I have never had the nerve to strip my original Hush Hush and rebuilt ones down to measure the boss, but that is what I suspect they did and of course they tell me that they both use the same chassis. There again they do, a new modified one that is why on the the new Hush Hush there are no issues.

I agree with you SMR248, I too find Sam very irritating at times but generally he is right. I was initially very cynical of Sam's initial video, I mean why would a company put a suspect motor into a brand new design of loco, with a price tag to match, that is just asking for trouble. I then watched his second video where he stripped the two motors down. Now it could be that Hornby played with the magnetism, changed the number of windings or subtly changed the brush design. Without a thorough analysis it is a bit difficult to say, I do know that they don't make motors and don't order enough to make the supplier completely change their design. I do know Hornby are very careful with the truth as I know from a response I got about whether they changed the design of the initial Hush Hush chassis when they produced the subsequent rebuilt versions (on the initial version, the bogie sits too low). I suppose only time will tell.

I revisited the initial review by Sam on the 9f and the live chat where he analysed the motor further. I must admit the evidence he puts forward is hard to dismiss whether you like him or not. The response from Hornby is also a bit questionable, soon as someone mentions uneven track you begin to worry about whether they know what they are talking about. That is one of the reasons you have pickups in the tender. My track is uneven due to the baseboard sagging but the only effect it has on running is with the pickups. It seems like when an 8 pin decoder doesn't work the person asks if you have turned the header around when everyone knows an upside down header only effects the lights and direction of travel. Obviously my 9F has a good motor in it, Sam's obviously doesn't.