Why did you leave this in then Dad-1? "Until our political parties recognise that too much money is being frittered on state benefits to 'buy' votes"
If you're going to remove political comments then you should remove them all.
Hornby Shares.
Re: Hornby Shares.
to be fair they did as well as i thaught they would when i first saw the range !! and given the financial climate ,
the mascots looked like male private parts , so who on earth would want one the designers tryed to be japanese and did a poor job
the logo looked like it was designed by an eppeleptic dyslexic ( hope i spelt that right during my shakes )
the subjects were done on the cheap with what they had lying around ( why not do somthing totaly new ) yes a big risk but surely one decent item well designed and thaught out at a premium price would have been better than a load of tat no one wanted
for instance the olympic liveried trains ( i'm not too well up on if they were genuine liveries , if not genuine liveries it has very limmited appeal to prototype modellers and is too expensive for non modellers that probably collected the stamps
taxis have been done to death and prices were astronomicaly stupid especialy with todays budgets
the best things to sell would have been figures of the athletes but the problem is knowing who will qualify for the olympics in time for china to make them and export them to us ready for the shops
and therein lies a huge problem production in china is fine for tightwads that want to see maximum proffit for shareholders but it is useless and flawed with problems for quick turnaround speeds
so in effect hornby in some ways has reaped what it sowed ,, it was an unimaginative cheap and ugly unatached range that no one in thier right mind wated to pay top dollar for
top this with the diamond jubilee range a locomotive supplied with carriages it never hauled and running gear in gold when silver would be more fitting
in some ways i feel there is a university whiz kid in charge that knows everything about business appart from the product he is selling !!
the mascots looked like male private parts , so who on earth would want one the designers tryed to be japanese and did a poor job
the logo looked like it was designed by an eppeleptic dyslexic ( hope i spelt that right during my shakes )
the subjects were done on the cheap with what they had lying around ( why not do somthing totaly new ) yes a big risk but surely one decent item well designed and thaught out at a premium price would have been better than a load of tat no one wanted
for instance the olympic liveried trains ( i'm not too well up on if they were genuine liveries , if not genuine liveries it has very limmited appeal to prototype modellers and is too expensive for non modellers that probably collected the stamps
taxis have been done to death and prices were astronomicaly stupid especialy with todays budgets
the best things to sell would have been figures of the athletes but the problem is knowing who will qualify for the olympics in time for china to make them and export them to us ready for the shops
and therein lies a huge problem production in china is fine for tightwads that want to see maximum proffit for shareholders but it is useless and flawed with problems for quick turnaround speeds
so in effect hornby in some ways has reaped what it sowed ,, it was an unimaginative cheap and ugly unatached range that no one in thier right mind wated to pay top dollar for
top this with the diamond jubilee range a locomotive supplied with carriages it never hauled and running gear in gold when silver would be more fitting
in some ways i feel there is a university whiz kid in charge that knows everything about business appart from the product he is selling !!
Re: Hornby Shares.
Hornby should get its act together. It is all very well taking over all ailing maufacturers production at knock down prices to increase market share , but taking say Lima which had some nice diesel bodies it is ridiculous that years after the takeover stock is still being produced with huge couplings that are barely compatible with small tension locks and with no NMRA pockets so you can't easily change them. It is a pity that the same effort that is put into the standardisation of DCC is not put into the standardation of couplings. It is a pity that there seems to be no consultation between the trade generally and modellers generally. I wonder how much Hornby made on their foray into the live steam in 00. As wonderful as these models are they could not have been successful or they would not have been discontinued. They were very much a niche market item IMO and possibly Hornby hoped that they would be more universally accepted product but 00 is just too small for live steam and young children could not use them without adult supervision. I can't see there was a ready demand for live steam as its introduction was a surprise to all of us. Bachmann's Underground Ernie was a gimmick that was discontiued following the demise of the kid's TV series. It would have been better IMO to have produced some scale LU stock in 00 which would be a steady seller particularly before the Olympics. Hornby of course is hamstrung because it is perceived by the public to be a purveyor of train sets. In my opinion it will be seen in the future that there will be an overcapacity in model railway production and these models are not cheap made in China and quality control is not 100% IMO. It may well be that Bachmann & Hornby will have to pull their production back from China and produce it in the county the stock represents. If a sound DCC equipped Duchess costs £250 now & it has to go up to £500 produced here then market forces will bring the prices down eventually. Sorry if this is a little off topic but at least my rant is railway related and not political. As a retired accountant who did not go to "Uni" I am probably prejudiced against the college kids who probably run Hornby Bachmann and the real TOC's and Network Rail!
I think the contributors 's point above about not knowing which Olympic atheletes to model as they did not know who would qualify in time for production in China is a real gem.
I think the contributors 's point above about not knowing which Olympic atheletes to model as they did not know who would qualify in time for production in China is a real gem.
Re: Hornby Shares.
thing is trading with china to produce things for us to a schedule must be an absolute nightmare ......... those that remember the first mitsubishis from japan will no doubt remmember a car called the starrion ( should have been stallion ) but language barriers saw it with its cocked up name
hornby are now paying the price for being greedy and trying to make huge proffits for doing the minimum possible work and outlay
to some degree i have no sympathy whatsoever as they sold british workers down the river to make a percieved killing overseas
and now it has gone wrong and shareholders can't draw their dividend so what !!
this is the problem in the uk no one does a job because they believe in a product , enjoy the work , or are remotely knowledgeable
they are there to draw a wage at the end of the month
also staff with knowledge cost money so companies no longer spend on staff prefering a fast turnover of younger staff
the whole british business ethic is wrong and has been for many years i find no suprise that it is now turning round and biting itself in the ass !!
hornby are now paying the price for being greedy and trying to make huge proffits for doing the minimum possible work and outlay
to some degree i have no sympathy whatsoever as they sold british workers down the river to make a percieved killing overseas
and now it has gone wrong and shareholders can't draw their dividend so what !!
this is the problem in the uk no one does a job because they believe in a product , enjoy the work , or are remotely knowledgeable
they are there to draw a wage at the end of the month
also staff with knowledge cost money so companies no longer spend on staff prefering a fast turnover of younger staff
the whole british business ethic is wrong and has been for many years i find no suprise that it is now turning round and biting itself in the ass !!
Re: Hornby Shares.
I'm sorry to have to point out the obvious but the only reason they went abroad to make the stuff is because their customers (mainly over here) wouldn't pay the extra money it would have cost if they'd used British workers and factories to make it, there's plenty of evidence of people's attitudes to what they feel are "high" prices in other threads (and I use the quotation marks deliberately!)... Perhaps if people would pay that little bit more for stuff they wouldn't have to manufacture abroad... It's interesting to note that on my travels in the rest of Europe I notice that there are very few cheap shops (of the Pound/99p variety) yet over here you can't move for them - and we wonder why we don't make as much as we used to any more... 
Re: Hornby Shares.
the problem with the british public is , they want it now and expect it without having to do such things as save !! that runs into every aspect of life most couples getting married now expect their first house to be fully kitted out with every gizmo without the hard work associated with setting up as a couple
the result is items have to be cheap to cater for unrealistic attitudes i remember buying a radio cassette ( european manufactured ) in 1984 you can buy a simmilar thing now for less than i paid back then
model railways in reality the prices have raised very little in decades whilst production and living costs have sky rocketted
when i was younger i saved for decent items , now i can afford them more readily but realise it is tat that wont stand the test of time !!
as a country we need to decide whether we want to buy one item to last a period or three half priced items to last the same amount of time
the result is items have to be cheap to cater for unrealistic attitudes i remember buying a radio cassette ( european manufactured ) in 1984 you can buy a simmilar thing now for less than i paid back then
model railways in reality the prices have raised very little in decades whilst production and living costs have sky rocketted
when i was younger i saved for decent items , now i can afford them more readily but realise it is tat that wont stand the test of time !!
as a country we need to decide whether we want to buy one item to last a period or three half priced items to last the same amount of time
Re: Hornby Shares.
I can't help thinking that reliance on another country (China) to produce 90% of your goods will lead to trouble sooner or later. They could hold us to ransom if they wanted to. Digressing from the topic of Hornby Shares but to keep my post railway related I have just booked online tickets (rail and entrance) For the Warley show at the NEC Birmingham on 24/25/11/2012 As I am travelling from Blackpool, there and back in the day it should be a great day out.
Re: Hornby Shares.
They are only doing what we did in the 19th and early 20th C! It can be turned round but people have to be more realistic about how much they will have to pay for goods and not want something for (next to) nothing. Their labour costs will rise as well over time giving us the chance to manufacture model railways again, in fact that's starting to happen now...