Hornby's TT:120 - Tragic, Sad, Pish
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- This is a re-issue.
Hornby's TT:120 has been out for over a year now. But, what were they thinking? This new model railway track gauge seems like a vanity project rather than something people actually want. Here's my views on why I think Hornby TT:120 should be abandoned right now, and what would be a better option for Hornby Model Railways.
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I’m pleased with my TT layout. Scale is just right for my limited space and clumsy fingers.
Sadly, you are way off the mark on TT:120. I like it, and the obvious reason Hornby did not to go with N gauge is the existing competition in that market. TT:120 is already the most profitable part of Hornby Corporation. Sets and locos have sold out, while the 00 gauge faces stiff competition, especially from Accurascale.
I haven't switched exclusively to TT:120 because I am heavily invested in the 00 gauge with over 182 locos in my collection. However, I am adding TT:120 to my collection. Size matters, and setting up a layout with a 1:120 scale makes more sense to me than expanding my existing 00 gauge range.
The main issue with TT120 as you say is the limited availability of locos, with just 26 different models available to buy and receive today and over 20 more coming soon. But this is far more of a range than what Hornby had in their 00 range in the 1970s when they dominated the market, and model railways were more common. But....what do I know.
Focus your attention on that, Sad Sam. You'll gain more traction on that rather than just focusing on Hornby.
There's a lot of competition in N scale, but it's a growing market with a lot of existing customers and has been getting more and more popular among railway modelers. Instead Hornby is trying to create a new ecosystem in what's historically been a very niche scale, which is an uphill battle and not helped by their paltry offerings in the scale.
Maybe it's working out for them now, but I think for it to work in the long term they need to build beyond the 'train set' phase so their initial customers can come back to upgrade their layouts: more new models, scenery, complex track pieces, etc... and since it's a niche scale Hornby has to do it all themselves instead of being able to rely on third parties to flesh out the ecosystem.
Don't get me wrong, I think TT is a great size compromise, but it's a hard sell against the more popular scales that people already use. It's never caught on before *precisely because* there was so much competition (read: models available) in N and OO.
Do you have any evidence that Hornby's TT range is their most profitable? Selling out is NO indication that the sales have made a profit.
@@andrewhotston983 this is a statement from the annual financial report.
"Initially launched with 6 models, a further 8 have been added to broaden the scope of interest by era and region. By the end of March 2024, over 4,000 TT:120 sets had been sold, with an additional 8,000 locomotives and a staggering 30,000 coaches and wagons, reflecting the appetite for a new scale in the hobby.
TT:120 sets sales have surpassed our forecasts resulting in 3 re-orders on key product lines and the TT:120 Scotsman set has become the best-selling trainset, in value terms, from the entire Hornby catalogue over the last 18 months."
@@GwionRhysDavies Interesting, but the costs of tooling and promotion for a whole new scale must be substantial, so shifting stock doesn't necessarily equal making a big profit. It may well be that the profit margin was low, in order to keep the retail price lower and tempt people to take a step into the unknown.
What an ignorant ill informed video. It ignores the latest Hornby financial statement, where TT120 is doing well. It ignores the fact that Revolution Trains are now stepping into the scale. It ignores the fact that the scale is bringing in fresh people to the hobby, like myself, who won't touch 00 or n. It ignores the manufacturers who make accessories for all scales, who report TT is growing fast. But, if being negative is your thing, enjoy it.
Yet:
Hornby Revenue: £56.2m (up 2.1% from FY 2023).
Net loss: £12.1m (loss widened by 104% from FY 2023).
£0.071 loss per share (further deteriorated from £0.035 loss in FY 2023)
...good luck Hornby
@@LocomotionMotion Which shows how important TT120 is to the recovery. Their best selling set across both scales is the TT Scotsman. Sales they need.
I have a ton of the Triang TT, it was very cheap when i got into it. It does allow you to fit a whole lot more into a smaller space, and the servicing is quite easy. Storage of rolling stock takes up far less space as well. For those put off by the fiddlyness of N gauge, this is a good option. I hope Hornby sticks with this scale.
Hornby tt120 maybe the same gauge as your older Triang tt, but it's a different scale as Triang was tt100. They look very odd being ran together!
@julianshaw3776 But you wouldn't run them together unless you wanted to. I haven't bought any Hornby 120 yet. But I also collect Tillig as well. It's the gauge that is advantageous, it allows so much more in limited space.
I love TT120, I have a 8x5 board that I was going to use for OO. With TT I can run longer trains as well as having a longer running line. The level of detail on TT is brilliant. It is a fantastic scale.
00 needs an 8x4 board. TT for the same needs 6x4. Houses are smaller. N gauge is too small. TT is spot on and has the benefit of not running on narrow gauge. I hope it succeeds.
Narrow guage runs on N guage because N guage was made before narrow guage got popular
Love TT120, I use both 120 and oo on my layout. If I was starting again , I would go 120.
The irony is a Hornby community post advertising TT:120 was under this video lmao
Hey wait a second. Thats my E7! The thing didn't work right rill recently. Now freshly oiled up she is better than some current locos
N Gauge is far too fiddly for some (including myself & those of advancing years), TT will find a market where space contraits are an issue (especially with new build housing) & OO a non-starter.
UK N is already covered by others - Hornby probably see TT as a market to themselves.
Time will tell.
It more likely it will crash and burn if they don't get another company to help.
TT is is only 20% larger than N scale, 20% larger than tiny doesn't seem like a major difference to justify choosing an ecosystem that's so sparse. Hornby crowds out competitors by announcing models of the same units announced by others. But hey it's not my money.
@@gamerfan8445 - TT is more than active elsewhere in the world. Railway modelling does not end at the shores of the UK.
@@JeffDM - that 20% makes a huge difference to some, there are plenty of other manufacturers of TT apart from Hornby.
I’ve modelled in OO since I was a kid. I’ll never have the time or space to build something big enough for mainline . So I use OO for detailing, shunting puzzles and MPDs. I’ve brought a TT 50 and coaches and will have space enough to make something with a mainline feel
Agree 100%. As a newbie to N gauge some more range and more competition would be welcome.
You are allowed to your opinion of course, personally I think TT-120 is an excellent idea. 00 is fat too big for many of us and N gauge too small, so please stop criticising and allow us to enjoy. is stop being so selfish
Shameless click bate, way off the mark I’m afraid.
I've always wondered Hornby didn't go N scale . Love Tomix and Kato.
Very popular in Japan.
Too many competitors like Graham Farish and Peco to make N scale viable.
@@joshuagoodfellow1719 And Dapol.
Did produce Hornby Minitrix in partnership with Trix I think
Theres already an existing market of good quality product for British N gauge covering a wide range of models, but it's nowhere near as large as say 00 (and an order or magnitude smaller market than Japan), it doesn't need to be further thinned out among yet more producers plus what's left that hasn't already been made by the other firms?
Don't forget Hornby collaborated with Minitrix back in the 70swith good reliable locos and stock, but ultimately those models were compromised designs to fit the German chassis and didn't keep up with the improvements of the European Minitrix models, instead continuing to make locos based on late 60s and early 70 chassis tooling.
Hornby Lyddle End was an effort to get a share of the market for pre-made N gauge buildings, some were quite good but ultimately the range was discontinued.
Hornby group includes the Arnold brand, top quality European N and TT gauge and they did release N gauge Brighton Belle units, but again limited market size and some sets didn't sell well. There has been a second batch produced though.
N scale is cool (I’ve got a layout next to me) but it’s too fiddly and small for the general market.
I reckon they’ve made the right choice and so far it seems like it’s selling enough that people agree.
I absolutely agree with you, i found TT 120 looks too close to N gauge and i would have preferred too see hornby start n gauge, years ago they made resin buildings in n gauge for some reason but never anything else. Hornby N gauge would be brilliant and im glad too see someone talking about it considering the big players on TH-cam not mentioning names have ether not mentioned it or kinda slaged n gauge off by buying old dapol locos and not going for better manufacturers with a good name making n gauge look bad. Enough of my tangent.
Glad too see you back locomotion motion and hope too see more of your content soon.
[Dont sniff to much humbrol polly cement ;D ]
If I can throw a few thoughts into the pot - HP Models were crude by our standards, but were pretty sharp by those of 80 years ago, and they were pioneering a new gauge/scale combo. Simply finding motors small enough to fit back then was an achievement. (Sadly, TT is now virtually dead over in the US - a forgotten scale, as dead as American OO scale, with 19mm gauge track)
TT3 (3mm to a foot) was a necessary compromise, again to get available motors into British outline models in the late 60's - TT120 is 2.5mm to a foot linear scale. German engines generally were and are bigger than British ones - so at that time it came down to practicalities. Now TT120, the original and correct scale is the European standard and it makes more sense to use their scales.
I'm quite happy with the original Hornby, and Berlinnerbahn/Tillig, incidentally; I can get the mechs very cheaply from the 3mm Society, usually with damaged bodies, and scratchbuild narrow gauge OO and HO scale upperworks on them. The chassis are tough - built like tanks, will take the treatment I give them and run reliably. Which is precisely what I want from model trains.
You may be right, But I'm in ,I'm 65 received my first tri-ang set at age 3, ( night mail) by the time I was 28 I had everything Tri- ang and Hornby Railways had made, in OO, met ( the Girl of my dreams ) that year She bought my my first G guage, and we started collecting that, Now as a boy I wanted the TT tri-ang sets , but those where Lean years, I did start collecting Marklin Z Guage, that was lounge/ bedroom layouts, so two and a half years ago, the daughter and two young teenagers, moved in with me, my 10×5 foot layout had to go and the Hornby stuff, Now I only have the Lounge room, my son's taken the last spare bedroom, So I'm buying the Hornby tt Stuff, also have some Tilling, Roco, ( F'ing) fanastic fantastic quality) and Arnold, the Chinese are making stuff, And here in Australia a guy is making coach lights, for hornby, I have a great guy in Germany who is a TT specialist, So if you don't mind I'll fiddle if Rome burns, ( never made a Fiddle yard before,) I will buy everything Hornby makes in TT. I'm excited by trains again, that's a big thing at 65 years old, There are things to criticize about Hornby, always has been, but I owe Hornby a dept I can never repay,
truly agree with you. i model in N gauge due to size and that it works. The range overall though could do with a British style overhaul away from farish and the Europeans. Hornby could of massively filled this void, and added value and stability to this scale, pushing it into the mainstream like OO and HO scale. FFS if the Americans and Japanese can do it, Hornby could have done it for even less. They could of even still maintained their creation of sub-standards models with all sorts of reliability issues. I, for one, would have once again started buying Hornby products for starters.
This is of course a re-issue of a video posted earlier in the year but at the moment hasnt recieved quite the level of attack it did from new TT fans first time around. Im in a very interesting situation,i have never brought Hornby stuff for a place of my own before,so TT is certainly an option,as is N gauge. It was always OO gauge in the family because that's what Dad had in the late 1960s before i was born. But Dad's Triang Midland Pullman & Class 31 Diesel didnt work. You could put them on the track and the 1960s transformer would make a terrible growl noise as if it was short circuiting. And Dad bieng an electrical engineer always made his own controller block,with massive capacitors and resistors all exposed at the back of a metal plate.Touch one of the capacitors and suddenly Kneller Hall,Evening Star or Lima Class 50 Eagle would zoom around and derail on the inner radius curve,sending the odd assortment of LMS & Great Western coaches on their side "YOU COULDNT LEAVE IT ALONE COULD YOU?" shouts Dad,clipping me round the ear. Well...i seem to have drifted a bit,but now that money is not so much an issue for me,rather ironically i still want to save money where i can on rolling stock and OO still allows me to do that,either by just going onto my local market and haggle or look at attending Railway Model Exhibitions. Im not sure there is a market for Hornby TT in second hand at the moment so that is not a buying factor for the starter sets. Im also not technically minded at fixing motor problems or identifying them and in this sense the less fiddly OO trumps both TT and of course N gauge. The advantage of the 9mm N gauge idea is of course more variety of track layout and units running,providing i can somehow pick up Bachman items cheap and get into maintaining the motors. Much to think about,this is an exciting time for railway modeling but i think i need to give TT another 5-10 years to see how it progresses.
Have developed my 00 layout over the last 50yrs currently fills my garage plus a lean to shed and its more or less dormant for 4/5 months of the year due to temperature so have started a small exhibition layout i can work on during the winter indoors , needs to be small cos there's no 2nd hand stuff avail but being new should be reliable and target for show sept next yr - wish me luck
IMO, the TT120 USP is the correct scale/gauge ratio. It just looks better. Yes, Hornby could have done better (why launch just with express passenger locomotives/trains?), but they are starting to fill out the options.
Most people love it ...
Everyone seems to be missing the point....while a few people will go from HO to TT to save space...I think the bigger crowd is from the folk who have tried N Guage and found the scale too small! So this seems like a masterstroke from Hornby and with them being the first mover here...beginner sets will ensure that folk will stick with Hornby even if other brands step in!
TT has Peco. It will also have Revolution trains soon.
If you think that's good, you'll love checking out what TILLIG Modellbahnen offers
Don't know how it will pan out in the end but I've bought into TT. I've not had a train set since being a kid so I'm a new customer to the hobby. I have limited space in my house and I'll be setting up a 8x4 board. I've seen too many OO gauge layouts on similar sized boards where they are just simple loops and rather boring, so I would never have bought into OO gauge. I can see that TT gives me much more scope for making an interesting layout.
Spot on my friend 👏 👌 keep up the great work 👍
I’m here in the states and I’ve tried different scales. I always come back to HO. The problem I see is after market accessory support. I do believe that might be the downfall of TT:120. I don’t follow the scale that closely, but at some point, you’re gonna want to add more to your layout other than trains.
Please can you make an entire video dedicated to roasting the he'll our of my chanel and feel free to use any of my content in that video I won't pull a bachmann on you don't worry I just want to have a video I can watch and laugh at. At my experience
From continental TT scale entusiast perspective I wonder if they chose TT instead of N from the same reason OO was initially used instead of HO: with slim british locomotives N scale would require oversacale (like Triang 1:100 TT back in the day) to fit reasonably affordable motors inside, so instead they went for TT 1:120 in which they could have remained „in scale”.
Hornby did venture into N gauge via Skaledale, but that was a complete flop, due to everything being the wrong scale maybe due to moulding materials not fine enough to get decent depth of detail and the use of latex type moulds. Couple that with Bachmann acquiring Graham Farish and then releasing there superior Scenecraft range using the same type of production methods. Hornby gave up after a couple years, giving the stock at a massive discount to any trade account holder. What I’ve seen of TT120 locally is nice, but the lack of choices is a big, “Walk away and get something else”. For my N gauge project or save and get another O gauge item.
Perhaps Hornby should have gone into ‘O’ Gauge ! I have that as well as my ‘OO’ if you ain’t got room for that then I would suggest that you get an outside room for it. I run both gauges in my out side workshop and it’s brilliant ***** regards from Ron 👍😃✔️🚂
I have to agree - TT120 is a poor direction for Hornby to have taken - well we'll see if it's still around (other than 2nd hand at carboots) in 5 years time.
Excellent video and sums Hornby TT:120 up in a nutshell. It was a pet project for Simon Kohler who subsequently left leaving Hornby with an untried and untested scale. Perhaps Hornby would have been better going with N gauge or perhaps even explored Z gauge though not fully committing themselves as they have done with TT:120.
Hornby quality control & Z gauge - don't make me laugh please !
TT's awesome! If you're keen on the German scene anyway....
Just an FYI the US HP products gave the size a scale, however they were but one of a few manufacturers at roughly the time time. HP's catalogue was '46, the same sized wesa was '45, lytax '45, Mignon which was more N sized was '45 or '46, and there are examples still around of prewar tt, before it was known as tt.
I completely understand why hornby didn't go down the N Scale route, for exactly the same reasons as märklin never went to N, preferring to invent Z scale.
Doing N scale would've been more of a waste. Flying off shelves with popularity? Don't think so. British N is but a tiny fraction of the market. All hornby would've done is just add another manufacturer making the same to a very limited market.
Where hornby may have visited was to revisit the 0 range, or even reinvestigate delving into S scale again. Now, that could'v been interes
Now, on a more intriguing note, The Lines' observed at a show the new Rokal tt line, and Richard Lines was absolutely taken by it and the word went through tri-and HQ: this is what we're going to make.
Now, this was only a couple of very short years from the purchase of Rovex and other companies. About the same time as the shift from London to Margate.
Now tri-ang 00 was still coming together as a range, with various production issues etc.
Imagine what today might’ve been like if tri-ang had taken the plunge and ditched the still getting it together 00 line, and went hugely into the new tt scale.
Royals scale, like wesa, was basically 1:110. Lytax had an absolutely incredible multi control idea: using variable Hz
I do share the same worry that Hornby are stretching themselves too thinly. Also from a personal point of view, i will never move from OO to TT. And do not like to see precious pages of the magazines taken up with stories and news that i do not read.
I hope you're not correct. It would appear that models of UK prototypes are still flying off the shelves even for non-Hornby manufacturers. As for N-Gauge it is another "out of gauge" scale, it doesn't run all that well (especially steam outline) and Hornby would be very late to the parade. I believe they chose TT because there is (was) no competition, it is true to scale (and the only RTR scale in UK outline that is), it's small enough to fit in any house and they would have a clear head start over all competition.
The "new modeller" isn't (for the most part) the seven year old. It is the seven year old's father, and the once seven year old nearing retirement and looking at the hobby again. These people (I count myself among them) would struggle with N gauge. I chose OO because of the strong second hand market and there wasn't any TT when I (re) started. If I was looking at entering the hobby now I would probably choose TT120.
I suspect that you chose your point of view mostly because it is contrarian and likely to get clicks and views, not because you have any data or solid reasons to back your theory.
Hornby Revenue: £56.2m (up 2.1% from FY 2023).
Net loss: £12.1m (loss widened by 104% from FY 2023).
£0.071 loss per share (further deteriorated from £0.035 loss in FY 2023)
RISK ANALYSIS
Has less than 1 year of cash runway
Earnings have declined by 25.2% per year over past 5 years
Does not have a meaningful market cap (£34M)
@@LocomotionMotion These figures are to be expected with tooling up new models, ie: more revenue but less profit.) What would be more indicative would be breakdown by scale, bu even that would be premature at this stage.
Someone like you did say this when 00 was introduced LOL
Yes I agree. They should have gone to N gauge.
Should have, could have, gone HO SCALE WITH BRIT models using Rivarossi or Lima. No brainer. Just look at Trix and their success with Flying Scotsman. Don’t forget Roco has also entered the TT 120 gauge. Check out the track selection. Cheers!
Roco & Rowa before them always produced a limited range of TT models.
One problem is that Rivarossi and Lima don't have British models in HO scale. However, both have European and American designs that can open more markets.
@@gamerfan8445 - Lima used to have UK outline in HO, but the opportunbity for UK models to be produced in a correct scale/gauge ratio & loose their "narrow gauge" look has long gone.
Wow. Is locomotion Motion making serious videos now?
More a re-upload of an older video before Sam sent his fans after him.
Hornby should have went G scale
It's "Scale-ex-tric". Have another go.
Skol-ux-track?
Hornby Minitrix was a thing
PIKO TT SCALE
I think they could have ventured into now at biggest oo9 market instead