Hornby TT:120

11754 Views 62 Replies 16 Participants Last post by kristopher1805, 1 mo ago

34C

Discussion Starter · 8 mo ago

Hornby go for it with a TT:120 range announcement. Not available in your friendly local model shop. This fits with an intent to engage completely new customers in my opinion. I will be interested to see if this is extended - logically - to no engagement with the dead tree model railway press. (Want to review it? We'll sell you one.)

Reactions: 1

21 - 40 of 63 Posts

kiwionrails

· #21 · 7 mo ago

34C said:
...
Whereas TT:120 is a well established product in Europe, originating from East Germany, there's a fair amount of RTR mainland European prototype support. So this is potentially an attempt to have UK product to a common standard with an existing European standard.

Will be interesting to see if they are actually compatible with the European systems...... (also would help to show the diminutive nature of UK prototypes in comparison to their international counterparts!)

Graham Plowman

· #22 · 7 mo ago

I must admit that with the way this is structured, I'm finding it challenging to work out who TT:120 is actually aimed at.

We have been told that:

- TT:120 is intended to grow the hobby and bring more people in
Is creating a whole-new very small scale the way to achieve that ?
If a small scale was the answer, why hasn't N taken over ? Could it be that N is too small ?
Is OO really too large ? Why not focus on OO ? Because the market is now saturated with products ? This is a bit of a give-away: doesn't it seem strange that a fully serviced scale doesn't seem to be 'growing the hobby' ? Why not ? Maybe this isn't the issue. Could it be that OO isn't growing Hornby's share of the market due to competition ? What's the best way to deal with that ? : create a whole new market and new scale!
While TT:120 is correct scale (ref track to trains ), are the scale discrepancies of N and OO really a concern of 'non serious' modellers ?
Perhaps the idea might be to get a whole load of people running with TT:120 and then the serious modellers will follow once they realise the correct scale ?

- TT:120 will only be available directly from Hornby.
We have been told that this enables cost reductions - which, rightly or wrongly, it probably does.
It also cuts out all retailers which in turn means that no-one visiting retailers is going to see and casually purchase.

- Advertising is going to be done in the mainstream media, not the model railway press
That cuts out all 'serious' modellers who purchase magazines. They simply won't see it.
One wonders whether TT:120 will be advertised in Hornby Magazine ?
Also depends on what 'mainstream media' means. It probably includes internet advertising which could be a very large audience. Don't forget that 'serious modellers' are also subject to 'mainstream media'.

- In years past, Railway Modeller and similar mags reputedly had readerships in the 30,000's.
I would suggest that anyone purchasing such magazines might be considered a 'more serious' modeller than most, therefore, those 30,000's would be completely missed. I'd suggest today, the figure is somewhat lower. Someone somewhere could probably locate the actual readership figures.

- I was once told that 'serious modellers' are only about 5% of the overall hobby/market
If we take a 'leap of faith' and make a 'guesstimate' that 5% is 30,000 (almost certainly a lot less), then that might make the potential hobby size around 600,000. We'll ignore the complexities of scales, countries, age groups etc for now.
With this figure, I think it is fairly obvious why Hornby are not addressing 'serious modellers'.
The question is: how will they make contact with 580,000 ? Will mainstream achieve it ? Do they know where those people are to be found etc ?

We live in interesting times!

See less See more

Reactions: 1

Julian2011

· #23 · 7 mo ago

I think you are spot-on with the sales outlets, Graham. What puzzles me is that they have already gone through the Maths on the sales outlet proportions and found that the Dealers make far more profit than direct sales, by a long chalk. Those calculations caused a very rapid about turn, at the time.

I can see that the figures would get temporally skewed during the cautious Covid times, but that is of much less influence in more recent times. Perhaps there is someone with a bee-in-the-bonnet about internet sales and is using the Covid time figures to recover their composure from the last rebuff.

Hobby sales come from producing an interest in a product, which people then decide if they can afford it. The initial, "Wow" often comes from youngsters [some Mums and Dads, too, if they would admit it

], passing a shop window, with something working; who may grow into modellers later. The internet is more for looking for something you may be already interested in. I can't see why Mums, Dads of kids might suddenly have an urge to search online for model rail TT scale, or single it out from a more general search for "model train sets". How many times have we heard "I might just have something, over here, which might be of interest to you." The internet isn't good at assessing the audience and giving guidance, either.

It will be interesting to see where it all ends up, maybe they're right... umm, maybe...

J

See less See more

Reactions: 1

34C

Discussion Starter · #24 · 7 mo ago

Julian2011 said:
...Perhaps there is someone with a bee-in-the-bonnet about internet sales and is using the Covid time figures to recover their composure from the last rebuff...

One potential explanation.

But according to a friend with a career in direct retail marketing, principally using the internet, this is the fastest growing retail sector with the best customer group: have money and no aversion to spending it; and is fully international, so this isn't just the UK that's the selling opportunity. Something I found interesting was the comment that in this environment, signal to noise ratio is very high. There's rapid information that this is a winner or a flop. (So if heaps of HornbyTT:120 appears at the box shifters toward the end of 2023 = Christmas turkey.)

I perceive this as a roll of the dice, and given the scale of the announcement; a 'let's go all in' move, the classic 'success assumption' that was inherent to all the successful businesses that have employed me. Whether this works for this type of hobby purchase, I really don't know. I am just sitting in the stands with my binos to watch what happens...

Reactions: 1

dwb

· #25 · 7 mo ago

Graham Plowman said:
- TT:120 will only be available directly from Hornby.

This the reason Gaugemaster provided for pulling their proposed range of TT.

David

Reactions: 1

Julian2011

· #26 · 7 mo ago (Edited)

34C said:
One potential explanation.

But according to a friend with a career in direct retail marketing, principally using the internet, this is the fastest growing retail sector with the best customer group: have money and no aversion to spending it; and is fully international,....

...... so this isn't just the UK that's the selling opportunity. Something I found interesting was the comment that in this environment, signal to noise ratio is very high. There's rapid information that this is a winner or a flop. (So if heaps of HornbyTT:120 appears at the box shifters toward the end of 2023 = Christmas turkey.)

...

Yep, your friend is quite right, that's just the assumption that was driving the first Hornby attempt..... whilst that works very well for the majority of the market, because the "Names" have their logos on their products and are paraded around the streets, or worn by those arrogant enough to walk the red carpets in front of the national press, or driven around the streets, used to communicate... the list goes on - that doesn't always apply to every category of product, which might, therefore, not include fishing hooks, spanners and model trains.

It seems to me like one of those "horses for courses" principles and people who buy model railway items are not very likely to behave in a way that places their purchases in way of popular public viewing media. That being the case, denying the public of items on display in local shops would also seem to deny a large number of viewing [advertising opportunities], which are neither going to be in the forefront of public internet viewing.

Also, in view of the second part of your post, I certainly, am not dashing down to the Bookies, to place £1,000 on the success of their current TT sales policy. On the other hand, I might go down and place the amount on heaps of Christmas turkey opportunities.

J

See less See more

TT120

· #27 · 7 mo ago

Just watched the introduction on youtube, will definitely give this a go, early xmas present to myseld of one of the train sets.

Currently model in 00, far too big to run prototype length trains, accommodate crossovers etc. Gave N a go, too fiddly.

Lets see, if the train set is good on detail, (have no reason to believe it won't be) I'll certainly be expanding in the new year!

Reactions: 1

34C

Discussion Starter · #28 · 7 mo ago

Welcome! You have won the post of TT:120 correspondent.

Reactions: 2

TT120

· #29 · 7 mo ago

34C said:
Welcome! You have won the post of TT:120 correspondent.

Ha ha, I'll keep you posted

Reactions: 1

34C

Discussion Starter · #30 · 7 mo ago

Now seen some pictures from a weekend show of pre-production samples.
1.The product shown looks overall very good indeed.
2. My qualms about finescale wheel standards dismissed, Hornby are definitely aiming at that.
3. If the running performance is good, it will be powerful competition for UK N gauge.

Reactions: 1

kimballthurlow

· #31 · 7 mo ago

peterarmond2 said:
An interesting development and if it had been available when I returned to model railways 23 years ago, I would have gone for TT120. Now I have an extensive OO railway and at 78 I am too old to change.
Does anyone know if the track gauge is correct for 3mm scale?

Hello Peter,
3mm to the foot scale (or 1:100 scale) was used by Tri-ang for the TT3 models back in the 1960s/70s and ran on 12mm gauge track.
The TT at 1:120 scale uses also the 12mm gauge.

Kimball

Julian2011

· #32 · 7 mo ago

kimballthurlow said:
Hello Peter,
3mm to the foot scale (or 1:100 scale) was used by Tri-ang for the TT3 models back in the 1960s/70s and ran on 12mm gauge track.
The TT at 1:120 scale uses also the 12mm gauge.

Kimball

That's interesting, although it didn't come to my notice in the same way as OO did. Have you any information on what happened in the intervening years?

Julian

kimballthurlow

· #33 · 7 mo ago

Hello Julian,
After Tri-ang discontinued the line at 1:100 for reasons unkown to me, there were a few die-hard modellers who continued with that scale and the 12mm gauge.
But as others mentioned the TT gauge was very popular in Europe with a scale of 1:120 and continued popularity to this day.
The European models were/are made to the scale 1:120 where 1435mm track standard gauge reduces exactly to 11.95mm (12mm).

Kimball

Julian2011

· #34 · 7 mo ago

Thank you Kimball.
That very much fits with the singular experience I had with TT, when a friend had bought a table top type layout back from an RAF posting in Germany, in 1979. At the time, I liked what I saw, but hadn't seen any of the scale available in the UK. Perhaps an opportunity passed, as you say the idea wasn't continued in th e UK?

Julian

kimballthurlow

· #35 · 7 mo ago

Julian2011 said:
Thank you Kimball.
That very much fits with the singular experience I had with TT, when a friend had bought a table top type layout back from an RAF posting in Germany, in 1979. At the time, I liked what I saw, but hadn't seen any of the scale available in the UK. Perhaps an opportunity passed, as you say the idea wasn't continued in th e UK?

Julian

The new Hornby TT120 (which means it cannot be confused with the TT3 of Tri-ang) will be presumably totally compatible with anything produced for the European market.
Does that mean we can pull German trains with English engines and vice versa?
I guess so if your modelling takes you in that direction.

Kimball

Reactions: 1

kristopher1805

· #36 · 7 mo ago

I have looked into this now and TT120 avoids the narrow track of the OO product and is set to be compatible with some foreign product, that said its a huge investment but not cutting in the retailers is hardly going to help push the product and may turn off some Hornby OO sales in a fit of pique, more worrying is the effort being used up on this project from a firm never financially in the best condition of recent years and this is going to negatively impact the OO product making way for the newcomers to elbow their way into the market, neither is the product cheap, small does not mean cheap at all and there is no secondhand product to fall back on, it is a really frightening gamble and could cost Hornby everything, I think the timing sucks so although it may be a good size and prove of interest to many for the established enthusiast it's a non starter - might work for downsizers looking for a cheaper home BUT...... if it fails good by Simon Kohler and maybe good bye Hornby.

Reactions: 2

TT120

· #37 · 7 mo ago

kristopher1805 said:
I have looked into this now and TT120 avoids the narrow track of the OO product and is set to be compatible with some foreign product, that said its a huge investment but not cutting in the retailers is hardly going to help push the product and may turn off some Hornby OO sales in a fit of pique, more worrying is the effort being used up on this project from a firm never financially in the best condition of recent years and this is going to negatively impact the OO product making way for the newcomers to elbow their way into the market, neither is the product cheap, small does not mean cheap at all and there is no secondhand product to fall back on, it is a really frightening gamble and could cost Hornby everything, I think the timing sucks so although it may be a good size and prove of interest to many for the established enthusiast it's a non starter - might work for downsizers looking for a cheaper home BUT...... if it fails good by Simon Kohler and maybe good bye Hornby.

It is an interesting point, the commercial viability of the new TT120 range.
If it is to be successful, the roll out needs to be smooth. The 00 2022 range seems very far behind, page after page of products in the 2022 catalogue still not released and there are less than 2 months left Of the year!
If they are as slow rolling out TT, then it can only end in tears.

Reactions: 2

34C

Discussion Starter · #38 · 7 mo ago

TT120 said:
It is an interesting point, the commercial viability of the new TT120 range.
If it is to be successful, the roll out needs to be smooth. The 00 2022 range seems very far behind, page after page of products in the 2022 catalogue still not released and there are less than 2 months left Of the year!
If they are as slow rolling out TT, then it can only end in tears.

Smooth roll out is a necessity with the 'direct sales' for TT120. Put it out there as available, and you have to fulfill smartly; and cover any problems your customers may have, as there is no intermediary to provide support. After the years spent in development, it is to be hoped that the planning covers all this adequately. Whether there is sufficient capacity to deal with the side effects of current economic disruption, will be a whole other question.

The RTR OO picture is something of an 'omnishambles'. Name an active brand, and it will have significantly delayed product. With all the players in much the same position, none are losing reputation relative to each other on this aspect. (Hornby is probably doing quite well overall, with more new introductions arriving after some delays, than the sum of output from two of the larger players. I haven't done any arithmetic, that's just my perception; business analysts feel free to put up the 'scores on the doors'*.)

*Is this term still current? Forty years ago it was the expression for what had been physically shipped out of the 'factory door' onto a vehicle which had left the site for a customer destination. We had to put that last piece in to cope with a production managment that had access to a nearby large derelict area, on which trailers could be parked 'off our site, out of sight'.

See less See more

Reactions: 1

TT120

· #39 · 7 mo ago

34C said:
Smooth roll out is a necessity with the 'direct sales' for TT120. Put it out there as available, and you have to fulfill smartly; and cover any problems your customers may have, as there is no intermediary to provide support. After the years spent in development, it is to be hoped that the planning covers all this adequately. Whether there is sufficient capacity to deal with the side effects of current economic disruption, will be a whole other question.

The RTR OO picture is something of an 'omnishambles'. Name an active brand, and it will have significantly delayed product. With all the players in much the same position, none are losing reputation relative to each other on this aspect. (Hornby is probably doing quite well overall, with more new introductions arriving after some delays, than the sum of output from two of the larger players. I haven't done any arithmetic, that's just my perception; business analysts feel free to put up the 'scores on the doors'*.)

*Is this term still current? Forty years ago it was the expression for what had been physically shipped out of the 'factory door' onto a vehicle which had left the site for a customer destination. We had to put that last piece in to cope with a production managment that had access to a nearby large derelict area, on which trailers could be parked 'off our site, out of sight'.

They don't seem to be able to achieve a smooth roll out of the membership packs. Recieved an email this morning saying the membership packs could take up to "two months to reach you".
What hope for the actual products, which we were told are in the warehouse, ready to go out?
Not a good start

Reactions: 1

34C

Discussion Starter · #40 · 7 mo ago

TT120 said:
...Not a good start

Hornby have had a most extraordinary track record over these last twenty some years since I started buying RTR OO, (after giving up on it from the mid 1960s, instead kit and scratchbuilding in order to get reasonably accurate models, and subjects which were totally ignored in RTR). They have several times devised methods for shooting themselves (in the foot, groin, head, no intentional target or precision in aim...) such that I have thought 'surely this will sink the ship?'; but not so, they find a path to sufficient recovery until another wild lunge in an inadvisable direction is irresistably attractive.

But what do I know? - Only been employed in some of the more sober disciplines required within large scale multinational operations management, rather than the 'every day is fun time' of the toy sector - what I do know of Hornby is that there is a loyal customer base for their major brands who regard buying something from the many competitors as a 'grudge purchase'; even if the item is demonstrably superior, and would prefer to fill their boots exclusively with Red Box products...

But Hornby are somewhat distancing themselves from the loyalist party with TT120. Hmmm.

(And despite the above, I have a heap of Hornby's superior product; especially that released over the past dozen years, which is both useful and some of it amongst the best RTR OO available. But they rank second - whether measured in volume or spend - to Bachmann; whose sustained emphasis on 'the common items required in quantity for realistic modelling' has overall done rather more to impress me.)

See less See more

21 - 40 of 63 Posts