Hornby looking for ideas for more British N

[red_death]

Trying to "take out Dapol" (or Farish) is a sure fire way to ruin your business. Monoplies might appear attractive but for something like model railways where you need a substantial range then taking out the others is much more likely to just end up with a much smaller customer base as your customers go to alternative scales.

Manufacturers need to produce things that people want to buy.

Cheers, Mike

[gc4946]

In order to provide a balance of different types of motive power and to signal their intentions to compete in the N scale market, I suspect their next announcements will be a steam loco and carriages, with possibly a reintroduction of their former Lyddle End range of buildings.

[joe cassidy]

Trying to "take out Dapol" (or Farish) is a sure fire way to ruin your business.


Monoplies might appear attractive but for something like model railways where you need a substantial range then taking out the others is much more likely to just end up with a much smaller customer base as your customers go to alternative scales.




Manufacturers need to produce things that people want to buy.

Hornby do not have any business in UK N Gauge (except for the Brighton Pullman) so there is no business to ruin ?

There is no monopoly in UK N Gauge - there are now at least 3 suppliers of RTR locos/coaches.

I want to buy an A3, an A4, a V2, and a 9F but I have not bought them because what is currently on offer leaves something to be desired as per what I have heard/read on fora such as this.

Hornby, go for it ! (No connection other than an enthusiastic potential customer).

Best regards,


Joe

[joe cassidy]

Mr. Red Death,

Further to my previous e-mail I find it somewhat hypocritical of you to critizise my encouragement of Hornby, a traditional supplier of model railways in the UK, to enter the UK N gauge market whereas you yourself are promoting the products of a foreign company who have no doubt similar objetives to those of Hornby ?

Regards,

Joe Cassidy

[Ben A]

Hello Joe,

I am working with Mike on bringing the Pendolino to market, but our involvement is widely known and I don't consider either of us hypocrites for airing views here since neither of us is discouraging Hornby from entering British N; just urging them to pick their models carefully.

I think the point about monopolies is that in your post you suggested Hornby "take out" Dapol - that language implies an aggressive attempt to remove them from the market.  I accept that may not be what you meant but it could be misunderstood to mean that in your view Hornby's strategy should be aimed at leaving themselves the lone supplier in N....

My opinion is that Hornby and their shareholders would be best served by a strategy that maximises their impact and potential sales and minimises their research costs and risks - and this is most simply achieved by looking at their OO range and producing items that aren't yet available in N.

I also agree with a previous poster who pointed out that Hornby are arguably half a decade too late, as many of their most suitable models have already been produced by Dapol who were understandably seeking to avoid anything Bachmann might shrink and so, by default, ended up mirroring some of Hornby's range.

cheers

Ben A.

[zwilnik]

I don't think any UK N gauge manufacturer has to be a monopoly to succeed in the long term. That would imply that the market is saturated and already has the maximum number of customers possible, which I don't think is the case.

Hornby are ideally placed to grow the UK N Gauge market and user base, so don't really have to worry too much about what Dapol and Bachmann are doing. From their point of view they've got the current market of N gaugers they can sell to and a potentially untapped market of people who would previously only have bought a Hornby OO gauge train set as that's all they knew about. They just need to have a section in the new catalogue that says "Hey, here's some of our trains in a size you can fit on your coffee table" and they've got a lot of new interest that previously weren't noticing N.

[red_death]

Further to my previous e-mail I find it somewhat hypocritical of you to critizise my encouragement of Hornby, a traditional supplier of model railways in the UK, to enter the UK N gauge market whereas you yourself are promoting the products of a foreign company who have no doubt similar objetives to those of Hornby ?

Sorry Joe, but that is completely out of order. You were the person suggesting Hornby should try to "take out" Dapol.

There is no secret that what Ben and I are trying to do is grow the N gauge market not remove competitors.

As for the idea that we are promoting a more "foreign" company than any of the other manufacturers that just isn't true - for the time being the vast majority of our models (Revolution, Hornby, Bachmann etc) are all manufactured in the far east. Some of the R&D is inevitably best done in the UK and that is true for Revolution as for Bachmann/Hornby etc.

Mike

[mark100]

Hornby have entered the market with an EMU and it looks great,

maybe they should go for 3 new products

1) Modern image loco whether it be a Diesel or Electric
2) A steam engine of some sort
3) A DMU set, they have tooling for the Hornby 110 and the Lima 117 which could be scaled down to fit an Arnold chassis.

That way they have covered all variations of motive power and can expand from there.

Modern image coaching stock has been covered by Bachmann Farish and Dapol, but I did read that P Fagg suggested the early wooden type Pullmans that do look attractive and not currently available and even though we are new to this scale, it has not taken us long to see who does what, but I believe Hornby would clean up with those coaches.
There use to be a MK2 version type of Pullman coach that ran from London to Manchester and Liverpool, they carried 2 liveries whilst in BR service and have carried various liveries whilst under private ownership and its another idea to be considered before someone else decides to do it.

I had a Hornby APT when I was younger, It was my favorite train on my layout and I am totally surprised that no one has factory produced it in N gauge, I would work overtime just be able to buy a 10 car set..

There is lots and lots of gaps to be filled and with Revolution N and Hornby asking for ideas, sometime soon there will be announcements and some people will be dissapointed that their suggestion was not considered this time round, but there is always next time round.

My Son and I are just waiting to see what new stuff is to be announced and if it does not suit us then we will make do with what other stuff is available until something that we do want does crop up. We are watching the APT/P development on Shapeways with interest, but its going to be a bugger to build and paint though, but i'm sure we will crack it.



Mark.

[ScottyStitch]

If I was Hornby my strategy would be to take out Dapol before competing directly with Farish.

So I would bring out Hornby versions of :

the Britannia class
the 9F
the A3
the A4

without the well-documented faults of the Dapol models.

Best regards,


Joe
P.S. I might also bring out a V2 without the well-documented faults of the Farish version.

An unfortunate choice of words. It's difficult to see how that would serve anyone well. In addition to that, regardless of any models that may or may not have the bad press you perceive (and I would argue that the huge majority have A3s, A4s, Britts that they are more than happy with), what about all the very very good models they produce like the 22, 26, 27, 52, etc, etc, that don't get bad press?

Personally, I do not see any reason why Hornby should be trying to 'Take out' Dapol or 'Compete diractly' with Farish

The reason is that Hornby is a business quoted on the stock exchange that has to make profit to keep its shareholders happy in the short term and also ensure its survival in the short/medium/long term.

Bachmann and Hornby have to answer to shareholders unlike the "cottage industries" for whom pandering to our desires is either a vocation or a hobby or a combination of both.

Best regards,


Joe

This would suggest that the only kind of company you view worthy, is one listed on teh stock exchange and with shareholders? A rather bizarre attitude......

Mr. Red Death,

Further to my previous e-mail I find it somewhat hypocritical of you to critizise my encouragement of Hornby, a traditional supplier of model railways in the UK, to enter the UK N gauge market whereas you yourself are promoting the products of a foreign company who have no doubt similar objetives to those of Hornby ?

Regards,

Joe Cassidy

Revolution are trying to fill in a gap or gaps in the existing ranges of the major manufacturers, models that Bachman or Farish are reluctant to build under their normal business model. To compare them and Rapido with your advocation of "taking out" a competitor, is ludicrous.


I mean this most, most sincerely, when I say be careful what you wish for.

[ScottyStitch]

Getting back to the Hornby plans, I wonder if it would perhaps serve them well to continue with their Southern theme? If they were to shrink their "-HAL, 2-BIL, 4-VEP perhaps they would make that region more model-able? Especially if they realeased them all or at least a couple of them at the same time.

This could then be followed/complemented if they shrunk the N class and Schools class?

Scotty

[Karhedron]

I would suggest getting established with some different models than are currently in production, no matter who is making them, once established with a proven track record (pun not intentional - honest!!) then go after the opposition, or at least threaten it to see if the opposition gets the message and sorts out their problems.

People are quick enough to moan about poor performance, but rarely shout about the good ones that probably far outnumber the duff ones.  It would be interesting to know provable figures of failures compared to non failures. Admittedly zero failures would be ideal but we are unlikely to ever see that. I would hope that the figures are  a bit  below 5%

Well said! People are indeed far quicker to complain that to praise. As it happens, I can give you some reall data. A couple of years ago, I enquired with one of the big box shifters what their failure return rate was for Dapol and for N Gauge in general. As it turned out, the return rate for Dapol locos was about 5%. This was the same figure for Farish and also for 00 in general.

While people seem to shout loudest about Dapol, the figures show that their reliability is on par with Farish and with Hornby for that matter. Look at some of the 00 fora and you will see people whinging about reliability of their locos too. It is a myth that N Gauge is significantly worse than 00. A few locos do have well documented and persistent problems (valve gear on the Dapol Prairies, Ivatts and Farish 4MTs for example). However in general, reliability is good, particularly if you are lucky enough to model diesels without complicated spaghetti around the wheels.

I think that Hornby going after prototypes that Dapol has already done would be a bad move. The Dapol Brittania is one of their better steamers and has just had another run with improved blackening on the wheels (I painted my earlier one). How many people would replace their Dapol brits with a Hornby one? I certainly wouldn't.

Hornby are smart enough to know that if they duplicate a well established model, they risk being stuck with models they cannot shift. Look at how quick they were to announce their 00 King and Adam Radial when it turned out competitors were planning them. Nobody would benefit from a head-to-head war between Dapol and Hornby, not even us modellers as we would lose a source of prototypes.

Where Hornby stand a good chance is with items like multiple units where tooling several vehicles would be a substantial chunk of revenue tied up for a smaller firm like Dapol. Hornby can afford to take a longer term view and tool up prototypes that might require a few runs to make their return on. They have deep pockets and can afford to play the long game.

[joe cassidy]

I seemed to have stirred up a hornets net with my posts so I would like to apologise to Red Death and anyone else I offended - yes, I was out of order.

I realise that I should not be selective and encourage all new entrants to the UK N Gauge market.

Best regards,


Joe

[railsquid]

I think that Hornby going after prototypes that Dapol has already done would be a bad move. The Dapol Brittania is one of their better steamers and has just had another run with improved blackening on the wheels (I painted my earlier one). How many people would replace their Dapol brits with a Hornby one? I certainly wouldn't.

Hornby are smart enough to know that if they duplicate a well established model, they risk being stuck with models they cannot shift. Look at how quick they were to announce their 00 King and Adam Radial when it turned out competitors were planning them. Nobody would benefit from a head-to-head war between Dapol and Hornby, not even us modellers as we would lose a source of prototypes.

Here in Japan the market is large enough to support duplication of the more mainstream models over two or three manufacturers (while still leaving space for niche manufacturers to cover the more obscure stuff). For the UK market however I don't see any benefit for any significant overlap; there's certainly enough room to cover items not otherwise available. I wouldn't be in the least interested in say a Hornby 47 even if it was a couple of quid less than the BachFar model; but a 116/117/118 DMU or something with pantograph (preferably in BR blue), to name some random examples from my wishlist would be something I'd sign up for.

[Karhedron]

Here in Japan the market is large enough to support duplication of the more mainstream models over two or three manufacturers (while still leaving space for niche manufacturers to cover the more obscure stuff). For the UK market however I don't see any benefit for any significant overlap; there's certainly enough room to cover items not otherwise available.

I agree. With house sizes steadily dropping, we may reach the situation that exists in Japan where N Gauge is an equivalent market to HO but we have a way to go yet. We have only had a couple of head-to-heads so far between Dapol and Farish (the Voyager and B1, have there been any others?). Both have resulted in Dapol not doing further runs of their model.

Now I have no problem with Darwinian selection when it comes to models. But fewer manufacturers would in general mean fewer prototypes being produced. Competition is good for the market, good for the scale as whole and good for us modellers. Just look at how the entry of Dapol into the N Gauge market has prompted Farish to raise their game.

Neither manufacturer is perfect. Farish seem to have done several "land-grab" announcements recently (they announced the N Gauge Castle almost 2 years ago but last I heard, they have not even started work on it yet). Dapol seem to have made several silly mistakes recently (livery errors on the DVT and GWR coaches, wrong brake 3rd for the Maunsells). However I think that competition rather than duplication is the best way to resolve these problems.

[Newportnobby]

However I think that competition rather than duplication is the best way to resolve these problems.

I agree.
So why DJM and Dapol are going head-to-head on the Class 59 is beyond me