Great update, as usual! I'm quite intrigued by the Hornby/Rapido situation, largely because I heard they had "spoken to" each other to prevent duplication, which I thought was illegal under competition laws (I stand to be corrected!). Selfishly, having branched into British modelling for the first time in decades of Continental HO and N with Hornby's TT:120, I'm hoping other manufacturers will see potential in a new market given the current duplications in OO scale. Wishful thinking, I'm sure, but I'm enjoying what Hornby have been producing as a sideline to my main interests.
I have to be honest on the OO Gauge Class 60 debacle here. 2025 is probably the unofficial name that could be known as "The Year of the Class 60" as technically it is the year of the snake and so was 1989 where the real Class 60's were built from that year to 1992. 60008 was one of the first 30 to be built in 1989 and including DCR 60029 that was also a 1989 built Class 60 as well. However due to no prototype as BR didn't give Brush Traction enough time to work on it as they wanted a new freight locomotive quickly. There was a delay in delivery and 60008 was delivered in December 1989 along with 60029 arriving in January 1990. Then other issues happened which led to the earlier batch of Class 60's going back to Brush for rectification work. So I can see why 2025 is a prime year for the Class 60. As for 3 companies duking it out to get customers. Accurascale has the best model of the Class 60 that is 825g in weight that makes that thing a monster and its prototypical top speed means it won't zoom around like a bullet train like my Hornby Cappagh 60028 does. Speaking of which, I hope for the sake of Hornby that they have considered improving their packaging for the Class 60 as I am interested in 60008 and 60081. The problem is that the current packaging from Hornby on their Class 60 is poor for protection and many of their models end up with their horns being smashed off. I hope this get improved. Thirdly we have Cavalex Models with their range. Their Class 60's although are lighter than the Accurascale model and having C4/A1A drive that will make their model negate more bumpy tracks with a floating axle hence why I call this the C4 drive like BNSF have with their ET44C4 locomotives. The price of these models varies as their base model is £195 DCC ready that is £26 more than the Accurascale one and the sound one being £295 that is on par with Hornby's sound fitted TXS bluetooth models. They are on par pricewise but the tooling on the Hornby model is older. The only real benefit that is in favour of the Hornby model is the Bluetooth capability that is all it has going for those two annoucements. Unless Hornby has a surprise for all of us come March 2025 and they do a new tooled Class 60 like their did with the HST models and there has been a 2 year gap since the 21 pin models came in 2022 that were 60001 and 60002. It will be a hard push for Hornby when we could buy a Hornby TXS sound decoder and shove one into an Accurascale model to really have the best of both worlds if we want wireless Bluetooth control. So what's to stop us having that on our layouts? Interesting times ahead methinks.
Whilst you're right that Hornby is going up against Accurascale with it's Class 60. You're forgetting that Cavalex are also releasing their Class 60 in queue 1 too. Cavalex released arguably the loco of the year in 2024 with their Class 56. Hornby is in for a tough sell with their Class 60 going up against loco makers like Accurascale and Cavalex.
I wish we had a new steam train that never got before in ready to run OO like Z class or a new train pre-1923. As too much duplication in oo scale, so many wants have not been done in OO scale. If we get new steam like to see LT&SR class 79 in green one at Bressingham Steam Museum. or LBSCR I3 or C2 or new tools E2. HR strath in HR yellow.
I really wanted to like the hornby era1 locos but they all have the same wiring problems with the link between the loco and tender and im sick of it so i probably wont bother buying locomotion , its effectively just another £200 static model.
hornby are beyond a joke with those prices, the rapido model is cheaper and will be better, as for the class 60 we all know that the Accurascale model will piss all over Hornbys version and it's cheaper as well. Why would you pay extra to get less.
How can hornby and rappido justify there very high prices, especially with the class 60 just more repaints seems like the railway modellers are getting cond by high prices 😮,
I think it is time to produce British models in HO scale
Great update, as usual!
I'm quite intrigued by the Hornby/Rapido situation, largely because I heard they had "spoken to" each other to prevent duplication, which I thought was illegal under competition laws (I stand to be corrected!).
Selfishly, having branched into British modelling for the first time in decades of Continental HO and N with Hornby's TT:120, I'm hoping other manufacturers will see potential in a new market given the current duplications in OO scale. Wishful thinking, I'm sure, but I'm enjoying what Hornby have been producing as a sideline to my main interests.
Oh yeah I didnt think of the legal aspect of it all. Good shout 👍🏼
Interesting about the J13 Class!!! 🤔🚂🚂🚂
I have to be honest on the OO Gauge Class 60 debacle here. 2025 is probably the unofficial name that could be known as "The Year of the Class 60" as technically it is the year of the snake and so was 1989 where the real Class 60's were built from that year to 1992. 60008 was one of the first 30 to be built in 1989 and including DCR 60029 that was also a 1989 built Class 60 as well. However due to no prototype as BR didn't give Brush Traction enough time to work on it as they wanted a new freight locomotive quickly. There was a delay in delivery and 60008 was delivered in December 1989 along with 60029 arriving in January 1990. Then other issues happened which led to the earlier batch of Class 60's going back to Brush for rectification work. So I can see why 2025 is a prime year for the Class 60.
As for 3 companies duking it out to get customers. Accurascale has the best model of the Class 60 that is 825g in weight that makes that thing a monster and its prototypical top speed means it won't zoom around like a bullet train like my Hornby Cappagh 60028 does. Speaking of which, I hope for the sake of Hornby that they have considered improving their packaging for the Class 60 as I am interested in 60008 and 60081. The problem is that the current packaging from Hornby on their Class 60 is poor for protection and many of their models end up with their horns being smashed off. I hope this get improved.
Thirdly we have Cavalex Models with their range. Their Class 60's although are lighter than the Accurascale model and having C4/A1A drive that will make their model negate more bumpy tracks with a floating axle hence why I call this the C4 drive like BNSF have with their ET44C4 locomotives. The price of these models varies as their base model is £195 DCC ready that is £26 more than the Accurascale one and the sound one being £295 that is on par with Hornby's sound fitted TXS bluetooth models. They are on par pricewise but the tooling on the Hornby model is older. The only real benefit that is in favour of the Hornby model is the Bluetooth capability that is all it has going for those two annoucements.
Unless Hornby has a surprise for all of us come March 2025 and they do a new tooled Class 60 like their did with the HST models and there has been a 2 year gap since the 21 pin models came in 2022 that were 60001 and 60002. It will be a hard push for Hornby when we could buy a Hornby TXS sound decoder and shove one into an Accurascale model to really have the best of both worlds if we want wireless Bluetooth control. So what's to stop us having that on our layouts?
Interesting times ahead methinks.
Whilst you're right that Hornby is going up against Accurascale with it's Class 60. You're forgetting that Cavalex are also releasing their Class 60 in queue 1 too. Cavalex released arguably the loco of the year in 2024 with their Class 56. Hornby is in for a tough sell with their Class 60 going up against loco makers like Accurascale and Cavalex.
Ah yes of course, I did forget about the Cavalex one - thanks for reminding :)
Yes, a tough sell of Class 60s in 2025
Seems both J13s have been in the works foe a long time and beyond cancelling.
I wish we had a new steam train that never got before in ready to run OO like Z class or a new train pre-1923. As too much duplication in oo scale, so many wants have not been done in OO scale. If we get new steam like to see LT&SR class 79 in green one at Bressingham Steam Museum. or LBSCR I3 or C2 or new tools E2. HR strath in HR yellow.
I really wanted to like the hornby era1 locos but they all have the same wiring problems with the link between the loco and tender and im sick of it so i probably wont bother buying locomotion , its effectively just another £200 static model.
No O scale
hornby are beyond a joke with those prices, the rapido model is cheaper and will be better, as for the class 60 we all know that the Accurascale model will piss all over Hornbys version and it's cheaper as well. Why would you pay extra to get less.
How can hornby and rappido justify there very high prices, especially with the class 60 just more repaints seems like the railway modellers are getting cond by high prices 😮,
Asked for an engine for Christmas and was met with “that’s two months of food”
Good point tbh as we only get a small amount of plastic and metal