Hornby 6 wheelers

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steve howe
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Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby steve howe » Sat Mar 06, 2021 11:44 am

I don't know if anyone has seen these new coaches from Hornby, they were vaunted last year, but I wasn't expecting to see them in production so soon. I'm not sure about prototype fidelity as they seem to cover a range of liveries and companies, but from the pictures they look pretty good! :D

https://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/70036/R40073-Hornby-LNWR-6-Wheel-1st-Class-Coach-number-1889-in-LNWR

Steve

Andrew Ullyott
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Andrew Ullyott » Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:18 pm

I know the concept isn’t to everyone’s taste but I think it’s a great idea and have a set of the Southern ones en route from Kernow and am going to re-wheel them.
Don’t panic everyone. They’ll be EM so it’s ok.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

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steve howe
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby steve howe » Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:38 pm

As seems to be the case these days with manufacturers duplicating on new lines, Hattons have a similar project in the pipeline:

https://www.hattons.co.uk/newsdetail.aspx?id=594

Call it healthy competition or just lack of joined up thinking, but it does smack of wasted resources to me :?

Steve

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Neil Smith
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Neil Smith » Sat Mar 06, 2021 3:15 pm

To be fair to Hatton, theirs have been advertised as being in the pipeline for a while now. Hornby apparently took the specialist magazines by surprise when they unveiled their generic rakes at the start of this year. So said Model Rail, which is very much aligned with the RTR side of the hobby.

Would Hattons have bothered had they known Hornby were planning this?

All the best

Neil

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Noel
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Noel » Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:06 pm

Not my period, so no personal interest, but looking at the Kernow link in the original post I was struck by the complete absence of Second Class from the four types shown... :D
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Noel

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Guy Rixon
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Guy Rixon » Sat Mar 06, 2021 4:29 pm

The panelling is not very Wolverton in either range, except for Hornby's full-brake. The drawing of Hattons' "LNWR" coach shows mouldings painted over white to suggest Wolverton panelling, so at least they're trying.

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Jol Wilkinson
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Jol Wilkinson » Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:12 pm

There has been considerable debate on RMweb about these Hornby and Hattons "generic" pre-group coaches. The consensus appears to be that they are closest to the LBSC design.

The carriage lake on the LNWR livery isn't as dark as the PPP colour or the LNWR carriages at the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre and not, in my view, near enough to the real thing. Nor, as Guy has pointed out, is the panelling correct for the LNWR (and probably most other pre-group railways). In some cases it appears that Hornby have used square corner lining on rounded corner panelling in an attempt to achieve a more accurate model.

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Winander
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Winander » Sat Mar 06, 2021 6:10 pm

Speaking of accuracy, the description of all the six wheeled coaches all begin "This four wheeled coach...". If like me you assume this copy originated with Hornby, pretty poor for a major manufacturer.
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Terry Bendall
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Terry Bendall » Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:55 am

Jol Wilkinson wrote: The consensus appears to be that they are closest to the LBSC design


These models have been debated on the Brighton Circle e-mail group and the consensus is that most of the models are fairly close to some of the LBSC diagrams although one appears to be a work of fiction. There are details of things such as window sizes and spacings and ventilators that are not correct. I have not followed the debate in detail since I have a pile of etched brass kits from various suppliers that are in the To Do pile and I would rather have something that is closer to the prototype. My view is that if you are going to go to the trouble of building your own track to 18.83mm then what runs on that track should be closer to the prototype than these models are. From comments amongst the group, some people will make use of them. As always of course up to the person concerned to decide what they want to do.

Terry Bendall

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kelly
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby kelly » Mon Mar 08, 2021 12:32 am

The key thing from hornbys point of view is they have some affordable coaches they can put in packs, especially around the Christmas period and have plenty of affordable coaches for younger and newer entrants to the hobby to expand with. From that perspective they're a good thing.

Modellers wanting more fidelity have a number of alternative options. Realistically iirc, pre grouping designs can be a minefield of variation and making it very difficult for rtr to be viable unlike things like mk1s etc.
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DougN
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby DougN » Mon Mar 08, 2021 2:24 am

I agree with Kelly. These have been produced as generic small coaches. Personally they don't appear to match anything much but they have achieved the aim of being close enough but not matching anything. Saying that there are a lot of 6 wheel coaches around at the turn of the previous century and they all have a certain sameness about them from what I have seen.

As Terry above mentions generally there is a lot of kits form specific companies around thanks to the likes of D&S.

The question is would I buy some, the answer is yes for my OO layout (NBR for my J36) but would I use them in my P4 modelling no. So yes appreciate them for what they are. Build your kits to get closer to the specific coaches! That reminds me I have a collection of unbuilt 6 wheelers in the pile... which I was waiting on getting a closer colour to NER plum... now I have that I could actually get on with them. (Problem is modelling table already has too many projects on the go!)
Doug
Still not doing enough modelling

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Guy Rixon
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Re: Hornby 6 wheelers

Postby Guy Rixon » Mon Mar 08, 2021 9:26 am

Does anybody know if the 6-wheelers run well? Three axles over a ~30' length is not an easy thing to get right, even with big flanges.


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