With regard to Hornby spare parts hopefully the following might clarify the situation,- as this subject is often the cause of confusion.
Body detailing parts such as cab glazing and battery boxes are
not available as spare parts from Hornby,they usually only offer 'consumable' items,-ie those parts that are subject to wear and tear through running the loco.
Basically they are in business to sell ready-to-run items in red boxes,
not supply detailing parts for scratch building/conversions,..they leave that to the aftermarket suppliers.
If you want glazing for an old Britannia,you'll have to make your own from clear perspex,or suchlike..
If you go to Hornby's website you can download their loco service sheets and from them you can see what parts are available,note that the bodies [and usually chassis blocks] have no part numbers attached,-they are not supplied as spare parts to service dealers by the Hornby service department.
BUT! -If you look at the adverts in the modelling press from East Kent Models and Modelspares you'll see them advertising loco/coach/wagon bodies and numerous other parts that don't appear on the service sheets....HOW
This is how it
works:-
When Hornby production was in Margate, from time to time the finance department would issue an "excess stock list" to those dealers which expressed an interest.This listed already manufactured parts that weren't required by the factory for future production and weren't needed by the service department,which could then be sold on to recoup some money on items that were sitting in the factory doing nothing except taking up space and gathering dust [lots of it in some cases!]
Quantities and state of the items varied considerably,-from a handful of one item to thousands of another.
It seems the factory wasn't always very efficient and often over-produced some components,-far more than would be needed to make into finished goods...
From the dealers point of view,some of these were of interest and therefore saleable to the public
bit many items weren't,-and these almost certainly ended up in a landfill site somewhere [Richborough before it closed]
In most cases the purchaser would have to take the whole amount of an item that was offered,-only if there was a vast quantity of an expensive item,or more than one party was interested,would the amount be divided down.
This is how some dealers can still offer spares that were manufactured several years ago,and this is the source of items such as partly finished/fitted or unpainted bodies etc.and some small fittings.
This applies to
Margate prodution only and I understand that their building[no longer a factory] there has now been cleared of all this stock.
With the switch of production to China things are very different..
Hornby don't own their production facility,and the Sanda Kan factory will only supply finished goods,if spare parts for them are required they have to be ordered at the same time,-they are only made when the item is on the production line.
This is why some items will not always be available to the service department.
Now, you will notice from their advert that East Kent Models are offering China -made loco bodies,these are from production from about 3 years ago,and it came about because when producing the locos Hornby ordered some extra bodies to cover warranty repairs/breakages in transit etc. After 2 years when the locos were no longer covered by the warranty period these bodies effectively became "excess stock" and were offered to this dealer,but I understand this could have been a 'one-off' occurance.
The other way spare bodies appear is if the dealer splits up complete locos and sells the major components seperately, this usually only happens,in the case of steam locos,if there is a sale of the chassis first as demand for bodies is nearly always more than that for the chassis[due,of course, to people putting these bodies on scale chassis,-mainly in EM and P4 gauges].This happens on an ad-hoc basis so these bodies don't appear in the adverts.
Some dealers will occasionally be offered boxes of 'scrap',considered beyond economic repair by Hornby,-and this can be a source of parts,-but often bodies will be in a marked or damaged state,-but I understand this also may no longer be made available by Hornby,concerned that some sub-standard models are finding their way onto the market described as new,rather than second-hand.
Now,if I had a quid for every time I had to explain that,-I'd be a very rich man indeed!
Modelspares' web address has already been posted,East Kent Models don't have a website,but they can be contacted
at:-
EAST KENT MODELS,
89 HIGH STREET,
WHITSTABLE,
KENT.
CT5 1AY
Tel.01227 770777
To obtain their comprehensive spares list send two loose first-class stamps and a stamped,self-addressed envelope to the above address.
After typing all that out I hope it's of some help...
