‘Mr. Hornby’ spills on post-Hornby plans
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- The public face of one of the UK's best-loved toy brands, prepares for pastures new - Howard Smith speaks with Hornby's Marketing and Product Development Director, Simon Kohler to discuss future plans. Read more here: www.world-of-railways.co.uk/N...
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Simon, you have done so much for the hobby and for Hornby, all the best for the future.
What Simon Kholer didn't mention was that Hornby need to improve their Customer Support especially when it comes to providing spares for locomotives currently in production after the Warranty period has run out. Spares availability at the time of writing is shambolic and all you need to do is to look at one of Hornby's major competitors to see how it should be done. I submitted a complaint email to the new CEO a few months ago regarding this matter and he did acknowledge my concerns. More enthusiasts who run their Hornby models and having difficulty repairing them or having difficulty getting them repaired through their local model shop due to spares unavailability should be consistently complaining about this issue to Hornby Customer Care.
might be an idea for them to get their house in order rather than try to resurrect an old scale that triang binned in the 60's and N guage has stolen a 50year march on in terms of technology and appearance, their after sales is atrocious!
Thanks for your service Simon 🙂. God bless you buddy 😊.
Very nice to see Simon Kohler & all I can say is all the best for his future & Hornbies
Very strange situation. Just cannot see this as an unenforced change of direction.
Agreed. When he mentioned the fact that he was sad that he wouldn't be able to oversee the TT120 rollout, it made it clear that this was not what he wanted. Then there is the fact that Hornby hasn't shared news of his departure via the blog on their website, there has been no UA-cam video released about it, and that they haven't even bothered to put out a Tweet congratulating him on his decades of service. It's a bad look on the part of Hornby.
I think the answer is right there in the title. "Mr Hornby". Behind the scenes someone feels that Simon's brand has got bigger than the Hornby brand and has decided (probably rather too late) to do something about it - and/or Simon feels that his brand is worth more money/influence in the company than he is getting and has been refused. I think it will be one of those two things.
I will stay with N scale but I will have the odd Cavalex 60 and ACS class 92.
Big loses this year apparently
@@alanmusicman3385 You may be correct - one way or the other. But I can only see it as a failure of Hornby that he is leaving.
Good luck Simon, a change is as good as a rest. I wish you well😊💜✌️👍
As enthusiastic as Kohler has been, I can only hope people have not forgotten the flaws of the company, given Hornby’s scandals in recent years. I bring this up because Kohler mentioned things that Hornby has to improve upon, but didn’t mention much of the company’s main issues. It’s been well known that Hornby recently have announced stuff that was already announced by other manufacturers, their treatment of retailers, the quality of their models, and the surprising “Trains on Film” debacle last year in which the company thought they could get away with copyright infringement.
I’m aware that not all of this entirely goes back to Simon, but it’s still something everyone has to consider
Thanks Simon, so very much appreciated your time within the industry and lifestyle
Super chap. All the best SK
It is a slap in the face to all model railway retail shops to only sell your new TT range direct on line. A successful model shop needs to stock al the ranges of as they can afford. I am not a retailer but if I were I would immediately ceased buying from Hornby.
The problem is that consumer ranges are now configured to sell online. A cyclists cafe near me had an old catalogue from a local bike shop from the 1970's on the wall. The entirety of what components they sold could be printed on 3 sheets of A4 paper. A small model shop cannot possibly stock everything these days.
I can only hope that they find someone as reactive and enthusiastic for TT:120 as Simon. He and his team literally solved an order placement issue I was having with the website from France overnight.
Good luck to him in his future endeavours!
I hopie so too, otherwise TT will be dead on arrival :(
YOU WERE LUCKY! I sent an email to customer after sales, regarding the fracturing that was prevalent on the class 31 chassis and why they did not have a part number to replace it! 2 years down the road and STILL no reply!
let see what happens to tt120 without SK's drive behind it, personally with all the issues it is suffering due to poor quality control and other things, I will wait 5 years to see where it is.
I do like the scale, but it needs so much more available as well as other companies on board with things of that scale.
Quality control isn't poor.
@@LNER985 then tell those whose bought tt 120 and have had to send it back several times, you only have to see the issues starting up on the shunter people recently received.
TT120 is a sound scale, and I was looking forward to it, instead of doing another n gauge layout, but I keep getting reminders now of the issues people are dealing with, so yes their quality control is terrible, because if it was good/great, these simple issues would not be showing up.
Not only that their decoders are bigger than what they should be, yet state they are properly specced, now you cannot run them on a dc layout where the box tells you that you can, hence people blowing their decoders, as I said wait 5 years before investing into TT, because a company may sell all of its products and show its doing well, but if half of those products get returned for failures, that is what will get TT shut down.
Hornby are a business, and their business is to make money, if a product line costs them money, then do not be surprised if that product line comes to an end.
SK's drive has been admirable, but it will be the compaines financials that will determine on what stays or goes.
Sorting out the shipping to Australia. I hope so as the importer ups the prices here by 60-80%. And that makes it unviable here, and because they are the sole importer, there is no competition unlike every other scale
What will happen to Airfix.
Well I hope this company the best please don't let it go the way of Meccano.
You did lot for hoddy at horndy thanks lee
Good bye Mr Hornby and Good luck to you Sir
I really hope that TT carries on, even without SK there.
You think they would pull the plug this early after a massive investment ?
@@shauntaylor9251 might slow down investment. It was his brainchild after all.
Thank you Simon you’ve help my wallet loose weight 😂😂
Best comment
Hmmm 🤔
Same old, same old. And who the heck gets into the office at 05:40. Now...can you do an interview with his replacement...Montana?
I'd take a guess that Montana won't be long with Hornby now......
@@kellypaws Blimey...😮
@@mrbluesky2050 Really - I thought she was being tee'd up for that position. Needs a bit of focus whoever comes in...
I used to start work at 05.30 and end at 22.00 hrs regularly but then, that was back in BR days. There was never enough staff then 35 years ago but the railway ran on overtime and rest day working. The “modern” railway didn’t recruit more staff and they won’t do the silly overtime, we did it because overtime pay made it very worthwhile.
Obviously not you.
So many armchair experts here. Personal fantasies/opinions stated as fact by people most of whom have never run anything bigger than a paper round. Seems puerile spite and loud-mouthing are the currency of the internet. Character assassination by envious little keyboard warriors who actually think their opinions matter. Like him or loath him, Simon Kohler has done more for the model railway business than almost any of those typing insulting and purely speculative theories about what is or isn't going on at Hornby. A lot of growing up required methinks.
OK, bring on the vitriol...lol...
To be honest with you mate. Simon is the reason why we have Hornby still around. Personally I hope Hornby gets rid of Montana as only the prices have gone through the roof since she's been there. Quality has also gone kaput too. I wish Simon well on his ventures and thanks to him for propelling Hornby through the best years of my life. He will be missed.
@@BritishRail60062 Montana has nothing to do with the price increases. Its to with the increasing shipping cost, worker's wages and the cost of manufacturing. The quality hasn't gone down. Just modellers like you ignoring the other manufactures and acting like the Accurascale class 55s didn't arrive with bits fallen off.
I Think Hornby have benefitted from a number of things. Simon's public profile is one of them. Another is the renaissance of real railways in the UK and the resulting increase in interest - and the degree to which futuristic looking shiny new trains as well as novelty trains on preserved railways have been able to fire the imagination of the young. Add to that the Harry Potter link with trains and the Thomas the Tank Engine generation getting their own kids and of course the master stroke of getting a TV series or two made about Hornby. Simon had a hand to a greater or lesser extent in some of those things and he deserves credit for that - but the revitalisation of model railways is due to a lot of things (though of course it's not - and probably never will be - as big a hobby as it was in 'the old days").
All those things add up - it's not just old guys building endless GWR layouts to show in village halls any more - it's moving on now. Look at the second hand prices of modern image items as compared to steam era models for evidence of that.
@@muppetrowlf1473 There's certainly no hope for you. You really have no idea how to communicate in polite society do you? Just because Hornby expect to make a pre-tax loss this period doesn't negate everything Kohler has done in the past. I'm assuming you've many years of experience running multi-nationals from the supreme authority with which you deride others' comments. On the other hand you're probably sat there in your underpants fondling yourself. Yeah, that's definitely more like it. I'd crawl back under your rock if I were you...
Has there been much vitriol? My impression is he's held in high regard.
Itll be hard replacing him.
I don’t understand that interview!