Thunderbirds and Stingray from Hornby in 2024!
Thunderbirds and Stingray from Hornby in 2024!
2023 has only just started, but Hornby already have an eye on making Anderson fans happy in 2024 – with two exciting announcements this week!
Now available for pre-order (for 2024 release) is a 1:32 scale replica of Lady Penelope’s famous pink Rolls Royce FAB 1 from Thunderbirds, for their Scalextric slot-car racing range. This release will feature working lights, and Parker himself in the…
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Hornby TT:120
I don’t see anybody talking about this here over on Tumblr, so I figure I might as well. As you may or may not know, a number of british model railroad companies have recently started announcing things in TT scale (that is 1:120 scale, 12mm track), first Peco and recently most importantly Hornby, who have announced a full range of about a dozen different locomotives, coaches, freight cars, tracks, buildings and sets.
TT (short for table top) isn’t that well known internationally. While it was developed in the US and briefly existed in the UK in the 1960s, the main place where it thrived and survived was East Germany. Since reunification, the market has grown, but so far it’s been essentially just continental European. To see the british get into this, and with such force, is quite a surprise. For context, I used to model in TT scale back in the 1990s and early 2000s, before I switched over to N because there’s more stuff available there. My father still uses TT, so I still keep an eye on the developments there. So let’s discuss some stuff about these announcements.
Is TT a good scale? I think so, yes. The detailing is better than N scale, and working on trains for any purpose is easier, those are just facts. But at the same time, it’s not as gigantic as H0 gauge (or OO gauge, the british equivalent. Yes, they use the letter O, while continental europe uses the number 0. Don’t think too hard about it).
The decisions they made all seem very reasonable. The most important one is that they’re using 1:120 scale, which matches the 12 mm gauge. That’s actually something new to the british rail market. Both OO and british N gauge actually use trains that are a bit too large for the rail gauge, because back when those were developed, the motors didn’t fit in the smaller british trains otherwise. This is no longer necessary, and it’s good that it’ll disappear here.
This will screw over the existing 3mm modelers. 3mm scale is what the old 1960s british TT was called. It also used 12mm gauge, but a scale of 1 inch to 3 mm, which works out to roughly 1:100. As a result it got the same mismatch of train and track size as OO and british N. There is still a small 3mm community who build basically everything from scratch. The new TT:120, as Peco and Hornby call it, is not going to help them at all, and will probably hurt them as anyone who ever produced anything in 3mm commercially will certainly switch to 1:120.
That sucks for them, but 1:120 scale is still absolutely the right choice, both because it’s just more correct, and because it allows for proper international railway modelling. Hornby’s german branch Arnold already sells a TT gauge ferry car (a dedicated freight car for ferry service between the UK and continental Europe before the Channel Tunnel), and they can just reuse that. While there aren’t a lot of things that work on both sides of the channel, there are some, including modern freight cars, the Eurostar, and the class 66 diesel locomotive which Hornby has already announced.
They are using the modern Tillig TT coupler, which is the right choice. I don’t think there were many other choices anyway. Perhaps a Kadee-style knuckle coupler, which looks better, but doesn’t allow for close-distance coupling of passenger cars because you can’t use it with the special mechanics for that. The modern TT coupler works well, and of course Hornby is already producing them for Arnold anyway.
What does this mean for global TT modellers? Well, a lot of them seem delighted, and I’ve seen a lot of TT modellers in Germany who have preordered a lot of british trains already. In the longer term, having more options is always nice. I know there are always people who want to model the station of Klingenberg-Colmnitz on exactly December 4th, 1986 or something and aren’t interested in anything else, but I also know a lot of people who are happy to have a lot of different colourful trains from all over. Adding to the supply here is great.
What I find funny is that Hornby keeps talking about TT in the US as if that was a thing. There is certainly a small community of enthusiasts and small-scale producers (most of whom seem to sit in Europe anyway), but TT is largely unknown and irrelevant there. I would hope that some US manufacturer sees what Hornby is doing and starts considering the same, but I don’t even know who has the size and economic weight to pull that off. Anyway, for now, my theory is that Hornby keeps mentioning the US origins of TT scale to hide the fact that TT is, beyond any doubt, the most communist rail gauge in existence. I’m barely even joking, this is a clear fact (even though it means absolutely nothing in practice).
The main question for me in this thing is economic. Will that work out for Hornby? I have no clue. I don’t think a lot of british model railroaders are looking to change scales, and Hornby is explicitly trying to target people new to the hobby. That’s interesting, but are there enough of them? Especially considering that the UK’s overall economic position isn’t doing that great, and a lot of people don’t have a lot of disposable income.
I have to give them props for making all the trains relatively cheap, though, that’s really surprising. In the videos I’ve seen they’ve apologised for the prices of some things, but compared to Europe? They’re selling a Pacific steam locomotive like Mallard or similar for about €160, which is between €100-140 less than Tillig charges for a german Pacific. That’s a good price no matter which way you turn.
(An aside: There’s no Thomas the Tank Engine. Personally, I’m very happy about that. I never knew they existed until I was like 14 years old, and given the way they look, I’ve not developed any interest in that franchise since. But clearly this Sonic the Hedgehog of train fans is very popular, so I fear they’ll add this at some point anyway.)
Overall verdict: Very interesting, I don’t see any major missteps, but this is also a very risky business move. It’ll be fascinating to see how this looks five or ten years from now.
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