roxyguy

That's an extraordinary find. Wonderful. Recently read a nice piece in Pat Hammond's Triang book about the Hornby lad's coming over to look at Fry's smoke unit for trains which they later developed themselves.

Love the ould Jouef advert. Nice find indeed.

Love it Dave. Those Lima 08's, do the rods look much finer than what was actually produced??

Gonna put these on the bay but said I'd through them up here first. 2 Marklin starter sets. One complete, one without track or controller. Never ran. €150 the lot.

I know these have seen mileage but I always despair when I see stuff like this. The amount of resources, technology, research and material that went into building such a thing and now is all but worthless. In fairness 20 years or more is decent, I'm just speaking generally about the wasteful approach we see everywhere. What winds up on the scrap heap or in landfill is really frightening.

I'm no expert on any of this. Given the lack of Irish RTR in the scale and the issues mentioned I'll probably buy some Roco European stuff and run that, I like the look of it. My layout is just a big train set, not a faithful reproduction of anything. Also installing the line means I can run some n gauge stuff that's been gathering dust. All that being said, I love the old wild west look of this.

Indeed, I was actually looking at some of the Roco 009 stuff, looks great and not overpriced.

Certainly, it's a space safer if you wanted a compact layout. Plenty of scope for interesting things also. This WW1 trench layout is cool.

Perhaps, just a bit of fun. It was a sneaky way of putting in another line in an already overcrowded layout.

Cobbled together an 009 loop for the layout. Cheap body shell and old N gauge stuff repurposed. Faux Irish livery. Anyone dabble with this scale?

Still making good money? This is from December.

Love it Dave, especially the Super train ploughing through continental Europe. Oh the nostalgia.

That's the very point I'm making. That's a lima accessory from the 1970's, the tooling might be 40 years old. That's before you look at some of the triang tooling they are using which is 60 years old. €10 would be enough for that yoke. My strategy would be to gather all of the old tooling up and create a new budget brand. The fact that they re-released this as 'super detail' says a lot about the company in general. Im not slating hornby, I just wish they'd get smart.

When I was a lad it was an expensive pastime also. Ebay really has democratised the hobby, you can decide on a budget and stick to it. That doesn't really solve the problem I've mentioned. There is old Triang and Lima tooling which has more than paid for itself. If you look at the cost of a train set vs the sum of its parts sold separately its obvious they could sell locos and wagons much cheaper. I'm just ranting now, but perhaps there is a lack of interest or marketing know-how at hornby. The recent battery powered junior train set seems a bit daft, why not just retail a basic electric set at that price??

A young fella (11 years old) came to the house to see my layout, he's into model trains and has a few hornby starter sets. Starter sets range between €80-150, which means he has to wait for birthdays/christmas before he can add to his own layout. I could tell he was frustrated, he can't fish for bargains on ebay the way we can. If basic wagons in blister packs were widely and cheaply available (€5-10), basic 0-4-0's €20, A bo-bo €30 - they could be bought with pocket money by young fellas on a weekly/monthly basis - which keeps the interest in the hobby going. Hornby recently sold a continental lima shunter for £25 and a bo-bo for £30 and they sold out, which means there is a demand for cheap entry level products. The high fidelity stuff is amazing but without entry level stuff there will be no hobby in the future.