ColinB

I know exactly the issue, I spent months trying to find decent wire. A lot of people use PTFE wire because it is quite thin but you can't bend it. On EBay some people do "wire wrapping" wire but it is single core and not very robust. I eventually bought some from Eileen's Emporium which for me was perfect, I think it was 10/0.1. YouChoos also do coloured wire, but to me it seemed a bit thin, but if for lights perfectly ok.

Yes, Brew Man but at the new price of £326 Hattons would normally charge 10% less so that makes it £294 not £270. It is a reasonable device but not worth that sort of money. There are better ones around for not much more and some even less. There is the other point Hornby has an arrangement with their retailers that they are not supposed to offer discounts above 10% so £250 completely blows a hole in that.

Peters Spares has got them at nearly the same price. Someone on EBay has a new one even cheaper.

I have a few of the previous version, they tend to go for reasonable prices on EBay. I found that the later front bogie works better, so as you used to be able to get them as a spare part I replaced it. On all of mine except for the weathered one, I have put the decoder into the tender, the weathered one I had difficulty getting a later weathered tender base.

I can now understand why Hattons cancelled your order. If you ordered it at £250 and the current price is £326, then that £76 is probably their profit. It will interesting to see if Hornby make any more.

I have just looked up the price of an Elite it is £326.75, I just assumed it was about £270. That price is amazing, I will say no more.

I haven't got an eLink 96RAF, I was just suggesting a way forward. I just suggested BlueTooth as it is easier to set up. I have an Elite, DigiKeijs and a Fleishmann Twin Track (replaced by the DigiKeijs). The Elite is great for programming locos but the DigiKeijs is perfect for running trains. The only thing wrong with the DigiKeijs is the missed opportunities in the user interface. As an ex Windows programmer I think there is a lot more that they could do with the user interface to improve it, whether or not they do, remains to be seen.

@Brew Man my lattitude laptop is not much bigger than the Elite admittedly you also need the DigiKeijs but that can be screwed anywhere. The only disadvantage is the lack of the rotary encoder. The big advantage for me is I can run about 6 trains on my layout and I can see each one on the screen and just select which one I want to change. I must admit the software is a bit lacking they could improve it an awful lot, but decent software costs a lot of money.

I assumed he would do, I was just pointing out that there are other versions available. Hornby might be better off developing the ELink with a simple front end that runs on a PC, rather than using Railmaster. Better still add wireless or BlueTooth to the Elink and write an app that works on a smart device. They have the technology already on the Scalextric platform.

I use black tack all the time for holding wires and speakers in place. I got my last lot from Road and Rails. As someone said it is not permanent but still pretty strong. On my Rails Railcar I even used it to hold the thin speaker to the underside of the roof. Not that it is applicable for this application but when I use it to hold wires down, I cover it with tape to stop it attaching itself to the loco body.

You definitely don't want to get the Dremel out on this one, just in case you ever want to sell it. The speaker is not an issue as it is like all other Hornby latest level models in that it has a defined space for it. The bigger issue is the DCC socket is 21 pin so to use TTS you will need a 21 pin to 8 pin converter, so the height with the adapter might be an issue. If it is, but I don't think it will be, you can buy a 21 pin header from EBay and rewire the TTS. I just used an ordinary decoder so I don't know. I also usually bin the TTS speaker and buy one of the Road and Rails thin bass reflex speakers. They are about 5 mm thick and sound much better than the original speaker.

Do a web search on coach wheels. There was a guy in Gloucester than was doing them in pairs. Try mailing Lendons of Cardiff, that guy is usually quite helpful.

Generally I drill the hole with a 1.6 mm drill so it is deeper and then tap the hole with a m2.0 tap, then use an m2 longer screw. It is a dumb idea to use a self tapping screw on a critical piece of the mechanism, I think on later Hornby models, they realised their mistake and did the same.

The tier system only works if the demand for models exceeds those available. I notice Hattons are selling the new Evening Star along with everyone else. Given Hornby's market is to the mature market most people will already have one wand ill not always want to bin their existing one for the new design. Now the Hush Hush W1 is a different matter. I suppose the Hornby Dublo versions may be the same. To me the whole philosophy of preordering something you don't know how good it is, is wrong. I recently ordered the Fell loco, I had to return it because it doesn't work properly. It was a big disappointment and I doubt I will order any more models from that company just in case the next one is as bad. Then there was the Hush Hush, I gather the newer version is much better. Trouble is at the moment if you want a particular model you have to pre order it.

I must admit I find those sugar cube speakers a nightmare. They are a pain to solder to, difficult to insulate and they never seem loud enough. I have used them on some tank engines where there literally is no room. I found the ice cube ones from YouChoos better, but they don't always fit in some locos.

Actually AndyMac I do know how much it costs to manufacture something admittedly it is in automotive but I have to admit I was surprised when I was in meetings costing up parts actually how much things cost. They were a lot less than what I expected. Generally in development we would pay a fortune for parts. Costs come down with volume which is where Hornby lose as the tooling is split between less units. Also your admin feeds off how much product you shift, so again if you don't make many then costs rise. Either way there is nothing I can do about it, but the thing that is interesting even Hornby are doing bargain basement on some of their models. I noticed yesterday when I was looking that a Princess Elizabeth was about 40% off on their site and that is a really decent model. An easy way to look at costs is to look at a similar product and see what they charge. As I said there is nothing I can do about it but the worrying point is that Hornby are selling to a diminishing market so when they bring out a new model like Evening Star most of their small customer base probably already has one, so the market is smaller. Without new customers you get into a spiral of increased prices with less and less volume. That is probably the reason that they are going into TT full blast. It will be very interesting to see how many Hornby Dublo Flying Scotsman they sell.

Actually guys where have you been, the pound hasn't been £1.64 for a very long time last time I went to Florida 3 years ago it was £1.25 and I am pretty sure it was worth even less than that 2 years previous to that. When you design something generally all the design costs are recouped in the first two years, so on a 10 year old design you are just paying for production costs and materials. Of course a 10 year designed loco will be more expensive now than it was when it first got designed, but it shouldn't be the same same price and a newly tooled one. Generally with most things if you buy the old model it is cheaper that the new one. Either way it is not going to change.

I am with you Yelrow on this one, Sam of Sam's Trains sums it up quite well. On some you can possibly justify it like the new Hornby Evening Star, because of the new tooling but then there are other models in Hornby's range that are over 10 years old. So those models definitely don't justify the high prices.

@DarkRedCape from what I am reading you already have a Select. Not having a Select, I cannot speak from experience but I gather with the Select you are limited with what you can do. So why not use the Select for programming and buy something like a DigiKeijs to use on your layout. It all depends on whether you are happy with using a PC, but with it you get the ability to control more than 2 trains by just using "Windows" pop up boxes. The DigiKeijs is cheaper than the Elite and has the ability to connect to a SmartPhone or Pad wirelessly or if you want to, you can buy a Roco hand held device instead to do the same thing. The Elite has the advantage that its menus make it easy for the programming but as far as I am concerned that is all and currently you don't know when Hornby will produce anymore.

It is interesting about the views on this site when I was complaining about the price of locos there were several on this site that implied that they were good value for money even trying to justify the price of a loco now against one in the 60s using the average wage (really dumb comparison). Funny thing is, the set JJ was complaining about is actually good value for money at today's prices if you can afford it (loco £320+, + 2 coaches at £50 + track), although I am not buying one. I did buy the Elizabeth II loco eventually even though for months I moaned about the price. Hornby were still doing then for their original price while on EBay they were £400 plus, so it sort of prompted me into buying it. Surprisingly other than the purple colour and the 21 pin DCC socket, it is no different to the original model but as she died, I suppose that is why it is worth so much and why I bought it. The interesting thing is the supposed prices for TT locos, now most of the cost of a loco seems to be labour, motors and moulding costs should be roughly the same, difference in amount of plastic not that significant. So how come that they are substantially cheaper than an OO gauge model?

I bought one of the last off the Hornby website surprisingly. The things that I found interesting, the packaging was nowhere near the quality of that on the new Evening Star and the other was on the Evening Star the tender not only contained the 21 pin socket but also a bass enclosure for the speaker. The Elizabeth II had the 21 pin socket but no bass enclosure.

It could be just the speaker. To only blow up the sound stage sounds like you have shorted out the speaker outputs. Generally if you short anything else out, the whole decoder doesn't work anymore. It could be that the speaker is duff, the only other thing to check next time is if you use the sugar cube speakers they have spring connections that stick up either side for the speaker, it is incredibly easy to accidentally have these touch some piece of metal and short out. That is why I use Iphone or the bass reflex speakers as they have less bits of metal sticking out. Trouble is they are too big for fitting in the loco. YouChoos do an ICE cube speaker that has better connections.

Previously Hornby sold out of its new locos very quickly, so they can do what they like. We are now heading into a recession and Hornby locos are considerably more expensive, so it could be interesting for the next year to see if they stick by the tier system.

Great thanks.

Well it says it in the title. Does the Hornby GWR diesel railcar have working lights?