British HO

Some of the early Lima was HO until they saw the error of their ways. Trix was approaching HO in some of their stuff. Rivaossia (sp) Royal Scot and coaches were HO

Paul

There are whitemetal/brass kit locos, mostly for the Dutch market. Roco does a big sliding side wagon. There are various European ferry wagons.

There were several Lima and Rivarossi models which might return.

Wasn't the last example a wierd scale of something like 3.8mm/ft, in a desperate attempt to annoy equally the HO and OO modellers ?

- Nigel

Beowulf wrote:-

There's a complete list here with details:-

(kim)

Trix did that for a long time, and Rivarossi's beautiful models were around

1:82 scale

Roco also did, and may well still do, a very nice NS English Electric

0-6-0 shunter, which can of course be modified to represent the British Class 08 and predecessors. Does anyone still offer an HO Eurostar?

David E. Belcher

David E. Belcher wrote:-

Apparently not. Can't see Hornby resurrecting it in competition with their own either.

Select 'electric' from the left hand column.

(kim)

Why ever not? Their plans are to provide for the European market e.g. France and Belgium, perhaps under the Jouef name which they may well plan to revive.

Dave W.

"David E. Belcher" wrote

The original Hornby HO-scale Eurostar was produced in conjuction with Joueff - now part of the Lima/Rivarossi group, and therefore likely to come under Hornby's umbrella when their bid to take over Lima is finally completed.

The downside to that is that the HO (and the more recent OO-scale) Eurostar models have such naff mechanisms that they would be unlikely to secure much of a market share in Europe where modellers are much more sensitive about quality than seems the case here.

As a result I can't see Horby going out of its way to release the 3.5mm:1 foot version.

John.

I forgot that one :-( It's been upgraded and re-released for 2004.

I got the impression that both Mehano (Hornby) and Jouef/Lima produced molds for the HO Eurostar, or did the original mold get moved and upgraded from Mehano to Lima?

Regards, Greg.P.

John Turner wrote:-

If anyone bothered to click on the link I posted

would see that Jouef did once produce a version with twin flywheels and cardan shaft drive to both bogies.

(kim)

AFAIK the single ended drive version was only produced for Hornby.

Mehano were contracted by Jouef to produce the tooling for the HO Eurostar. The tooling was transfered to France and then to Italy, and now will presumably go to China.

Martin Wykes

Thanks. I read a review in one of the British mags, "Trains" perhaps, that reviewed the HO Lima Eurostar and claimied that it was far superior to the original Hornby offering. The improvements, from the text, appeared to include the molding so I had to assume it was a completely new molding.

Regards, Greg.P.

Interesting that you should mention that. I have all the various "issues" of the HO Eurostar and there are some differences in the mouldings. I can't say that they are completely different. It's as if some of the mouldings have had items added or removed. I don't know whether these differences were designed into the original tooling, or whether Jouef/Lima made the changes later.

The various "issues" have their quirks. The best paint finish is on one of the cheaper Lima train sets, although one of the other sets must have been made when things were getting difficult at the factory, because the same numbers are used on both coaches!

The biggest mystery is why Lima didn't make any intermediate coaches for the Eurostar like they did for all their other TGVs. At a Nuremberg show where Lima had their last big trade stand, they had all their TGVs on display. Mostly they stretched off into the distance, but the Eurostar looked silly next to them with its mere four units.

MW

Martin Wykes wrote:-

I get the impression Eurostar is not very popular in continental Europe. I had an argument on line with a fellow Dutchman (of part French descent) over what he said was a TGV which could do 200kph everywhere else in Europe but only

20kph in the UK. I pointed out to him that Eurostar was not a TGV and got my own back when icing on the overhead section in France caused it to grind to a halt there altogether :o)

(kim)

But it is a TGV, Kim- my wife's former colleagues at SNCF used to nickname it TGV-GB. On the couple of occassions when we've taken Tonbridge West to France, it's been normal, after the mayor has officially opened the exhibition, for the kids from local schools to be allowed in for an hour before the paying public. Inevitably, the sight of a E* towed by a 37 causes much hilarity amongst the youngsters, and after a few minutes one of them will be pushed forward to ask 'Can we see it again, mister?' Brian

Considering the fact that the prototype is common there shouldn't be too many differences between models!

I'm sure I remember a review of extension sets from _Mehano_ and even an ad from Kittle Hobby - my British HO modelling is of an earlier era so I didn't take too much notice. It would have been about the time when Kittle were offering three Rivarossi LMS coaches at a rounded down price, if that helps.

Regards, Greg.P.

It can't be all that unpopular - didn't the Thalys subsequently use a lot of Eurostar design features (certainly, when seen side by side at Gare du Nord, the power cars look vaguely similar)?

David E. Belcher