Should Hornby packaging contain a "Hazard to your pocket" warning?

[BobDM]

Last week I finally created a rough layout after many years.

I have been testing a number of loco's which have been on my shelf waiting for the big day.

I have tested over a dozen locos. Only Hornby stuff has caused trouble.

To date I have found bits of foam stuck in hidden places on 2 engines. In one case I managed to remove it without any resulting
damage.

A bit of black foam inserted by Hornby between the tender and cab caused a lot of trouble and has resulted in damage to the pony on their Castle class engine.

I have just tried to remove a 2-HAL from its packaging. I got it out but in the process managed to break the chassis. The driver's cab now looks as if it has had an unfortunate encounter with a saw. A brand new engine, out of its warranty period, wrecked.

To date I have one wrecked and one damaged locos. In both cases it was due to Hornby's packaging.

Bachmann, Rapido and Dapol have managed to do the job properly.

I can't find a Smilies icon which expresses my anger satisfactorily.

[Flashbang]

Poor show from Hornby re packaging.
Consider contacting Hornby Customer Service and explain the issues and they may ask you send broken/damaged items back for repair. Its worth a try at least even if its a No!

Hornby Repair details https://support.hornby.com/hc/en-gb/art ... 99-Repairs or email: customerservices.uk@hornby.com

[Bigmet]

...Consider contacting Hornby Customer Service and explain the issues and they may ask you send broken/damaged items back for repair.

Strongly seconded: but calmly, 'I am sadly disappointed, can you help me?'. Hornby have typically responded well to this approach.

On a general note, no use to you immediately, but in future: unpack and thoroughly test run all new purchases as quickly as possible. Discover any trouble within days of purchase, there's no argument: just purchased, returned for refund or replacement, faulty as received.

And further aspects.
When I re-entered this hobby over twenty years ago, I fairly quickly had three failures with items sold as new: damaged and/or not working; on two of them there was clear enough evidence that the item was actually second hand, as in handled by another customer: finger prints all over one, and the previous owner's note explaining the reason for return within the packaging on another! All were returned, two retailers tried to bluster their way out of it, one freely acknowledged their error. That last the only one I made future purchases with, no trouble with the very few returns that have been necessary since. (I don't mind anyone telling me I have a nasty suspicious mind, poor attitude, whatever, toward 'the trade'; that's my own experience talking. One of 'the blusterers' - it subsequently emerged once the internet forums got going from about 2005 - was a consistent offender at palming off s/h as new, he's not in the model railway business any more thankfully.)

On the general 'quality as received' front, my perception derived from hundreds of Bachmann and Hornby purchases over the past 22 years is that both have been on an improving trend, and are pretty much equal. The only other brand I have bought enough from to make a realistic comparison - but only over the past 10 years - is Heljan, one minor fault which was so simple I chose to rectify it myself. The several other brands from which I have made one or two purchases are no good basis for comparison, couple of design faults which I fixed, one minor damage from packaging deformation which was rectified by 'pushing back in place'.

[D605Eagle]

Odd you should say that Bigmet, I remember a certain retailer getting in trouble for selling retrurned locos as new around that time, they especially sold them on at model trainfairs. No names mentioned mind you!

[Bigmet]

... I remember a certain retailer getting in trouble for selling returned locos as new around that time...

Cannot even remember the clown's name now, best forgot. He wasn't alone in this practise, but it seems to have largely exited the model railway sphere. Probably transferred to something more profitable...

[Bufferstop]

Yes I remember the guy, he got his ads thrown out of the classifieds in the Railway Modeller who actually commented that they couldn't redirect any mail sent for forwarding to him, so obviously relations had been broken off.

[Monday]

I suspect many of you are old enough to remember pre-internet days when mail order really was mail order. I was living in Hong Kong in those days and necessarily working in N gauge. I dealt with a UK dealer by post on the basis of adverts in Railway Modeller. I used to get bits of an order, then finally nothing at all. I confronted the guy in his shop whilst home on leave one time and he swore blind that the order 'must have been lost in the post' on the way to such far flung places. I had to tell him that the post between UK and Hong Kong was far more reliable than within UK itself (3 day transit was typical); in fact my company relied on it for business. I got my money back eventually.
Of course there was no way to tell from the printed adverts whether the seller actually had any stock and I suspect that if he didn't, he simply forgot about it. And unfortunately the post between UK and HK is no longer so efficient.