What are Hornby up to ?

Amazon.co.uk sells the complete Hornby range.

Mark

Amazon is bigger than Hornby. I'm sure they were able to negotiate a deal.

That's kind of my point.

Mark

Eyesight too old for N scale, maybe?

Charlie

He'dspent a lifetime with the real thing.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, Graham Farish made OO railway models. They were more expensive than Hornby, and many diecasts crumbled due to the use of poor quality mazac. They got into the N Scale market in the 1970s.

Grafar was taken over by Kader in 2001 and absorbed by Bachmann Industries, which moved production to China.

I've wondered if a coach I have is one of those. Acquired it years ago when I was still at school. Unpainted black plastic body with a reddish brown tin roof with no detail on it. Diecast Metal bogies and a sort of tension lock coupler that differs from the Tri-ang ones that were on my other coaches. Metal strip on the underside appears to be there for strength or a weight. No corridor connections and no makers name I can see easily either. The diecast bogies seem to have remained intact so far.

G.Harman

Sounds very much like a Graham Farish one to me. They did make a non-corridor coach with a tin roof, ca. 1960, and their couplers were as you describe.

Charlie

Indeed they did. I have (in bad condition) one of their 'Black Fives' with a motor in the tender driving the loco through a flexible shaft. I doubt whether these products could be described as 'high-end' though, although their Pullmans had a good reputation IIRC.

They also made flexible 00 track 'Formoway' which was advertised on the back of magazines. Looked OK, but the points gad huge 'dead frogs.'

Yes - I had some of their first wagons from about 1970, which were undecorated, but you could get a set of dry-print transfers for them.

I've dabbled in N a few times, but never really felt happy with it.

Charlie