ColinB

I was tempted at first then I saw the price. It is £40 more than the A4 Sir Nigel Gresley. I too have the steam fitted version on pre order so I think I will give this one a miss. There are 4 variants so I doubt they will be one for the "scalpers" on EBay.

I know all about this price thing, when I worked on car radios the cost our firm sold them for was a small fraction of what the aftermarket charged for them. I quite often had to thrift code so that it would fit in a smaller micro because it saved a euro. There again we were making hundreds of thousands so the cost of parts reduces dramatically. I am sure Hornby have done their numbers but they don't have similar volumes so their costs will be higher. I currently have a steam generator Black 5 on the preorder price of £249.99, so assuming that includes a TTS decoder at £50, the loco is about £200 at todays prices, so the steam generator is free. Now I know I am using retail prices, but if you just think about it for a while even if your manufacturing is super efficient, there is got to be a lot less profit than for a normal loco with no steam generator. The Flying Scotsman is about £20 dearer, but even that figure seems a bit cheap.

I was not getting at you Simmo009, just highlighting the over optimistic bubble that Hornby live in, you just asked the question. I know about the cost of that model and one of its big issues was how to fill up the steam generator with water. Anyone that has worked on anything remotely technical knows that the detailed engineering is the thing that makes or breaks projects. There is also the question of cost, as you pointed out the one Jenny demonstrated cost a fortune to modify, so although Hornby get a reduction by designing it upfront rather than a retrofit, I still think my preorder price is difficult for Hornby to achieve.

I know it annoys me, perhaps that is why I have a downer on Hornby, why print a catalogue with it in, if you know you can't deliver it for two to 3 years. Bachmann of late have taken to not announcing new models unless they are due in a couple of months. I know in the car industry Ford lost a lot of sales to the Japanese years ago because the delivery on a Ford was up to 3 to 6 months whereas you could take the Japanese car home immediately. Model Railways is really weird in this respect the manufacturer doesn't even start designing the product until it has enough orders. I suppose it saves them putting design effort into something that won't sell but there again a lot of people buy things when they get released because they like the look of the model. I have bought many models that I probably would never have bought after watching a review by Sam. I would never have bought a Deltic, but after a really good review by Sam I bought one, I was also very lucky in that Rails had a couple left over.

Well Simmo009, Jenny Kirk demonstrated a Tornedo with all that about 6 months ago, the difficult bits are how you fill it up reliably and how it links to the tender. Simon's dates don't add up either, delivery 12-18 months away is not March next year. Sounds like the salesman in him talking.

I must admit find New Modellers and Lendons are more useful, Peters Spares are generally the one everyone goes to so they quickly run out. New Modellers has a system where they mail you if they ever come into stock. Buying a broken loco may be a way but generally these are nearly as expensive as buying a decent second hand one and if by chance there is one that is cheap there are 101 people after it, so bidding gets to ridiculous values. Been there with Royal Scots. One thing I did do was find a loco with the same dimensions of valve gear, buy a set for the loco (if they are reasonable price) and try and fix you existing valve gear with new bits, yes you have to buy new rivets. There again with this it depends what part is broken. Hornby are hopeless, certain models seem to break their valve gear regularly whereas others don't. A3/A4 locos valve gear seems really robust which is probably why you can still get them as spares. Royal Scot/Patriot I think they made the siders out of the same mazak as the duff chassis plus a "ropey" system for connecting the valve gear to the chassis (push fit easy to fall out). The other issue with buying a broken one quite often the Seller doesn't notice the broken bit, so it may be that the bit you are after may well be broken, the Seller always says they never noticed or they are selling it for a friend.

I assume your are looking for X9155 which is the correct part number. As with a lot of Hornby Spares it is not available from the normal spares retailers a quick search shows then as out of stock. I have the same issue with Royal Scot valve gear. What part of the valve gear is broken?

I agree Tony57 but that seems to be the way Hornby works, they announce something by putting it in their catalogue and then if the technology doesn't work or is too costly to build they quietly drop it. Most other company develop the technology in a small volume product, so if it fails, they haven't lost much and then later on put it into their mainstream product. I bought a new carriage off Hornby and it came with some really nice magnetic couplings that looked like the flexible pipes between carriages. Can you get them as a spare part? No not at the moment and sales didn't know when they would be available.

That is the thing I find interesting about Hornby, stretched to the limit with their current range of products, most are late or very late. My Evening Star was in the 2021 catalogue issued in January and I have just received it about 18 months later. So why on earth would you dilute your design effort by branching into TT scale, or is it, they see their OO market disappearing and hope to make money doing something else. From my point of view I have enough difficulty fitting DCC decoders into a lot of their OO scale locos, so TT would an extreme task. Perhaps though, you just use DC on their TT models. As to the steam locos, I really do wonder if we will ever see them.

When I measured the maximum current on my Lima class 66 it was 700 milliamps, which is higher than the maximum current of a TTS decoder. I must admit I wasn't brave enough to actually try one, too many of mine had died without doing anything wrong. It may be that as the class 20 is smaller it draws less current. In the end I bought the later Hornby class 66 chassis and corresponding bogies, which draw far less current, meaning I could use a TTS decoder.

Well 96RAF that will probably be me seeing as I have two of them on pre order with Hornby (Flying Scotsman and Black 5). There are a lot of variables that Hornby need to resolve before they release them, so I don't expect to see them for a very long time, hence the reason I pre ordered them with Hornby. That way hopefully I dodge the price increases.

Yes, I have the same issues, the top level menu doesn't work for me. In fact most of the Hornby drop down menus don't work properly. I could make a joke about Hornby to stop using the local Primary School to write their web interface. I doubt it is the adblocker because I don't have one. One issue I am finding increasingly is that application writers increasingly design their apps to work on pads or mobile phones, so if you use a laptop or desktop you have issues. I have an I4 Dell based desktop running Windows 10 using the Chrome web browser, so if anyone wants to explain why the menus don't work, I am listening. The way I get to my orders is, go to basket (yes, that dropdown works) from there you can get to your "wish list", then once in there you get links that do work, to your orders.

It is all very vague at the moment. Hornby are saying that the decoder will be in the tender, but if they stick with the 4 wire connection between loco and tender there are not enough wires to control the steam generator. It could be it is like the fire box glow, just works off DC or the raw DCC signal, there again it needs the motor input to regulate the smoke and most users would want to switch it on or off. Last time I asked some bright spark said that is why they hay gone to 21 pin decoders but missing the obvious observation that the decoder is in the tender and currently there are only 4 wires going to the loco. Perhaps they are going to use a 6 way connector but who knows. Unfortunately, nobody on this site or the Hornby catalogue has given anymore information. I imagine someone in their tech department knows how it is all going to work but so far they haven't explained it.

I am surprised that the TTS decoder actually works in an old Lima loco, when I was doing tests on my class 66 to measure the motor current to fit a TTS decoder, it was greater than the maximum value for a TTS decoder. I don't know though whether the Lima class 20 uses that old pancake motor that is fitted to the class 66.

Well seeing as they couldn't get the front bogie right on the very first versions, getting the selection of a stepped screw wrong seems not so impossible. One of the issues with Hornby is they don't seem to understand production tolerance, so on some locos that drawbar might be slightly thicker making it a tight fit. I have noticed on a lot of their locos where I replace the drawbar for a newer type I get that issue. On virtually all the locos the stepped part is not long enough, not allowing enough travel if you have slightly uneven track. My new Evening Star seems ok but then they have had enough time between that and the Hush Hush to get it right.

That is interesting. I must admit I have bigger issues with the front bogie not having enough travel. Yes it has travel, must not enough to put it higher than the front driving wheels. I suspect they fixed this on later versions as my "rebuilt" one doesn't have the same issue. On a lot of my other Hornby locos I have replaced that screw you are referring to, to one that has a longer stepped part. You can buy them off EBay "Stainless Stepped Screws", they are bit expensive and come from China but work perfectly.

That is interesting. I must admit I have bigger issues with the front bogie not having enough travel. Yes it has travel, must not enough to put it higher than the front driving wheels. I suspect they fixed this on later versions as my "rebuilt" one doesn't have the same issue. On a lot of my other Hornby locos I have replaced that screw you are referring to, to one that has a longer stepped part. You can buy them off EBay "Stainless Stepped Screws", they are bit expensive and come from China but work perfectly.

That is interesting. I must admit I have bigger issues with the front bogie not having enough travel. Yes it has travel, must not enough to put it higher than the front driving wheels. I suspect they fixed this on later versions as my "rebuilt" one doesn't have the same issue. On a lot of my other Hornby locos I have replaced that screw you are referring to, to one that has a longer stepped part. You can buy them off EBay "Stainless Stepped Screws", they are bit expensive and come from China but work perfectly.

It is probably something about being selected for Flying Scotsman centenary next year. So we will have a limited edition Hornby Dublo Flying Scotsman, which they will underproduce and go for a fortune on EBay. Trouble is they are supposedly producing one of those with steam so perhaps not.

They probably learnt from the "Hush Hush" episode where a lot of locos got damaged. Then there is the fact that their locos are generally more than the likes of Dapol and Accurascale, but these two firms were packaging their locos in more secure packaging.

As I said it is academic they are not going to do it. I am surprised they are WORM, but you know better their hardware than me and they are quite old.

It is cheaper to do it on a production line but then you have the issue of you have to make a lot and I doubt even on the production line they have special equipment to do it as Hornby don't make enough. It is not going to happen so it is an academic argument. I imagine they are reprogrammable as we stopped using one time programmable years ago, although these are old.

Perhaps 98RAF can advise me, but if it as easy as it looked on the Hornby program, perhaps Hornby should be looking to supply them blank to their Retailers and let them program it. Lets face it that is what Zimo and Loksound do. It has got to be a cheap way to make money.

I think I have said this before but why is it that when Hornby put a new loco into their range or upgrade an old one, they don't produce a suitable TTS decoder. We all know that TTS decoders are the same hardware it is just the software that differs with a specific loaded sound map. Yes, I know they have to do a run of so many but it might be a more logical way to market them. I don't think they ever did a Q1 one. The other thing is seeing as they design the mechanism if they did a bit of system engineering they could even get the "chuff rate" right.

Did you not read my post 96RAF. Perhaps I ought to reiterate "ON MOST OF MY LOCOS WITH TTS FITTED I HAVE NO NEED TO ADJUST CV150". Now I don't know if you lot are running a dodgy set of motors, I have not seen the issue. Believe me I would have noticed it, as I saw it immediately of both my Hornby and Bachmann class 66s. I have noticed on most old Hornby locos, the loco driven types the motors draw a lot more power and are not as smooth as new out the box. Generally if the loco is a bit hesitant on DC I change the motor. It is amazing on so many of Hornby locos where they use the same motor and give it a different price (very often a lot lower if it is an obscure one). So for once I agree with Hornby.