Detailed Review: Olivia’s Hornby R3957 Class 43 / HST 125 LNER Farewell Tour-Drivetrain Flaw and Fix

[@tomsmaerklintrainlayout6742]

You are a much braver man than me. I've capitulated working on sub-par quality junk from Jouef, Rivarossi and Bachmann and am buying older Marklin locomotives that are still made to a quality standard that keeps them running w/o any problems for many years. Most of them can be easily digitalized with all the sounds you want, and are surprisingly well detailed for their age.

[@DoctorHobby]

Haha... I'm an equal-opportunity glutton for punishment. Check out some of my other videos and you'll see i do old and new stuff--whatever I like!

[@tomsmaerklintrainlayout6742]

@@DoctorHobby I understand, but I have my limitations. I like all kinds of trains as well, but don't want to spend days on end trying to fix someone's poor design. For example, Jouef used to have a drive assembly where you would have to take the whole drive bogie apart to change traction tires...

[@officialpennsyjoe]

I understand how you feel about finding which generation of HST to find. It is the same with Jouef too.

[@DoctorHobby]

Yes, it’s very difficult to find out past information for these two manufactures. That’s why I finally just decided to go and get the latest one to be sure. I wish it was easier lol.

[@silkstone]

Useful video. I had the pack on order since Feb 2021 and when it arrived earlier this year, I sent it back. I was concerned with the reviews of paint quality, particularly the bleed on the roof cab. Having visited the National Railway Museum this week [York, just around the corner from you] the exact same loco was on display so, I bought another set yesterday and await its arrival. Hornby are taking a bit of flak recently with QA, I'd be amazed if your unit was the only one with this problem. By the way, your jokes on our currency, forenames and VAT [which we all pay, your 'tax' as you know and nothing to do with the recent, ridiculous Hornby price increases], are hilarious, really funny. Really funny. Sooooooo funny.

[@DoctorHobby]

Thank you for your reply and message. What really irritates me is the fact that I put early money down on this and then I still couldn’t get it until I paid that 50-something extra lambchops (I finally realized that’s what the “L” with the slash through it was) before I could get the thing in my hands. They should’ve at least honored people who paid in full before their price increase. That was extremely obnoxious of them.

[@silkstone]

@@DoctorHobby Hornby prices went up 10% at the end of 2021 and a further 10% after, from memory, mid Jan. My HST set was ordered at 269GBP early 2021, then increased to 296GBP and then 329GBP. I recieved it at 296GBP but, as I said, sent it back as for that price it should be prefect i.e., as Bachmann, Vitrains, Dapol and Heljan products are. Us Brits can't establish whether that's as a result of increased, Chinese production costs, stupid people voting Brexit , Covid, Hornby greed [and trying to recover years and years of losses] at the astonishing increase people have shown in model railways during lockdown [me included, never had a trainset prior to the beginning of 2020] or a combination of all four. I reentry spoke to a small, independent retailer of Hornby products. He told me Hornby are making life very difficult for essential shops such as his. He can't order exactly what he wants and in the number he chooses. For example, he must take ten of something he knows will sell along with ten of something he doesn't want. Similarly, if he places orders up to him credit limit and doesn't receive goods due to long lead times, he can't order more goods. Extremely bad form from Hornby and, coupled with poor quality of various models across the range, isn't going to end well for Hornby when the craze does down and they need support of the many, many retailers who've supported them during tough times. Hornby need to rethink their business model.

[@DENPTrains]

Don't wanna be a nerd here...but I'm gonna😅 The powercars used on "Let's Go Round Again" were W43006 and E43112 whereas at the NRM in York it's W43002 (Sir Kenneth Grange)

[@jeffreyrule8143]

Hey Bruce: You need a model train exorcism preformed by the proper authority. At least your a great trouble shooter. I always get nervous opening up a locomotive. Great video as always. How do you store all your locomotives and rolling stock? I assume your layout is in a basement. We do not have basements in Southern California.

[@DoctorHobby]

It’s in the basement, yes. I lived in the west for a pretty fair amount of time so I know what you mean about basements. That’s one of the few things I like about living in the Midwest I suppose lol. And you’re right, I’m definitely going to need some sort of exorcism or something like that. Maybe I’m just getting the opportunity to show everyone the worst of what could happen so that they don’t feel so alone. I suppose someone has to pay the price and that might as well be me. Lol.

[@Dave_at_Its_My_Model_Railway]

Hi, nice review, but had you purchased it directly from Hornby, they would have honoured the pre-order price, also Hornby's HST TTS decoder pack of 2 Valencia sound decoders and speakers would have only added about $80 not the $300 you paid for ESU ones which albeit better are much more expensive !

[@DoctorHobby]

Oh, that's interesting to know! I've used TTS decoders before and didn't much care for them, though, but maybe they would have been ok in this application.

[@Dave_at_Its_My_Model_Railway]

@@DoctorHobby Yes, I had the APT 7 Car pack on order with Hornby from day 1 as I had a 10% discount voucher, so I only paid £439 rather than the £586 they wanted at the time of release

[@silkstone]

It's laughable to compare the TTS versions to the ESU one. Additionally, as an owner of at least eight TTS decorders, the Valenta [not Valencia] is particularly poor.

[@Dave_at_Its_My_Model_Railway]

@@silkstone Possibly you failed to read by post correctly, I seem to remember saying the ESU was better, but considerably more expensive. Not everyone can afford the additional cost of two ESU decoders and for those the Hornby TTS makes an affordable and acceptable alternative. Thank-you for correcting my error in not correctly calling it a Paxman Valenta, I'm sure that significantly improves the clarity of my post.

[@gkjsooley]

Sam of Sam's Trains is on the warpath with Hornby re: their ridiculous pricing. Bachmann have totally lost the plot as well. CN and CP grain cars that cost me CDN$35-$40 in 2016-17-18 are now over CDN$60!

[@DoctorHobby]

I've seen some of his rants and totally agree--it's a small market we're talking about and it's difficult to understand their pricing structure, especially since it seems like they were in the dumpster until COVID bailed them out. Maybe there needs to be some sort of seismic shift that will rattle the market back into reality.. not sure.. Take care and thank you for watching!

[@gkjsooley]

Consists don't get much more quirky than the one that opens this clip! 😹

[@DoctorHobby]

It’s VERY quirky! kzbin.info/www/bejne/aGPTg31vd9yKqLc

[@YukariAkiyamaTanks]

I'm curious how did you get a marklin controller to work with these beauties?

[@DoctorHobby]

Marklin outputs MFX, MM, and DCC natively! It’s a sick setup!

[@cgee3057]

ᑭᖇOᗰOᔕᗰ ✌️

[@Oorail]

There are two holes in the polystyrene behind each of the HST power cars. Those are for your fingers to push the model out of the packaging from behind so that you don't damage it when removing it from the packaging. It looks like you lost at least three small detailing parts at 6:12. The Mk3 coaches you have are the original Hornby ones, they are actually a good bit too short so that they would run longer trains on 4x8 train set layouts in the 1980s. Hornby released full length ones about a decade ago. The drive shaft problem you have is a common issue with those HSTs. Sometimes you can be lucky and it just wasn't installed properly at the factory. Other times its loose like yours, you can sometimes pickup spares on the Hornby site to fix it.

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

Just when I thought dodging rivetcounters would become a full time job, now enter the Package Police. I had almost come to terms with people who stressed that the bolthead was CLEARLY an A43G53 but it SHOULD BE a B42T45, now we've got people who stress over whether packaging is used properly or not... oh brother! Where does the insanity end????!?!? Also-yeah-I'm sure he still has that setup lying around on his workbench and didn't even bother to look for things that might have fallen off or even saw that happen on a video he posted a month ago. People in model railroading need to seriously learn how to relax and maybe go outside for a bit rather than trying to educate the masses about who-gives-a-crap holes on the back of packaging.. geesh!

[@DoctorHobby]

Well, I'll assume good faith and appreciate the thought, anyhow lol. By its very nature this hobby seems to promote pedantic extremism and I know this drives a lot of people away from it. I'll (perhaps soon) put out a video about this subject as I think it needs addressing. I'm not sure if "Package Police" will make the list (although I've seen people stress over it before so maybe it should) but certainly "Consist Curmudgeons," "Temporal Tyrants," "Speed Trappers," etc. will be.

[@roperdoper7812]

@@DoctorHobby When people ask "what's the best example of model train people being their model trainiest selves"? I'm going to point them back to the original post in this thread as my entry. Either that or the person who bitched about the Bachmann animated stock cars not being accurate and then providing a website that describes what real stock cars were like. Both posts are about as autistic as it gets.

[@francismewton3276]

The hst 125 class 43 started life in 1972 came into passenger service in 1976 and this wonderful locomotive is still running on some livery lines such as Great Western Railway for the South West and Scotland runs their service under scotrail 2+5 as in England it is 2+4 down from 2+7 Including the buffet car, which ran from penzance to London, the class 43 has now stopped 125 services to and from London, it is the fastest diesel locomotive......

[@francismewton3276]

It's kinda funny you guys talking about the price on the Hornby HSTs how it's gone up blah blah blah ( not taking the micky) Hornby are out pricing themselves it's daft, but wait for it, I won't pay stupid prices for a big lump of plastic and a it of metal, I look around every where on ebay a wow and behold I picked up a hst class 43 GWR set 2locos and two coaches at £175, now I'm happy because I already bought 2 standard trailing coaches anyway 😊

[@MikeyJG]

If you've been waiting a long time for a Hornby HST with the most modern drive train available then perhaps you should have waited or purchased one earlier? This model is actually the last of this tooling that's been around for probably a decade so maybe fitting it's based on the Farewell Tour of the units from the ECML. "Pancake" (Ringfield) motors have not been used for some time. The 2022 catalog upcoming 125's (one-two-five) will be all new tooling.

[@fireeatingtrainmaster1523]

Definitely waiting for something is the best idea. Either that or it's definitely best to purchase something in the past. Whatever he did, he shouldn't have bought one when he wanted one because that's just silly. Never buy something at the moment you actually buy it, either wait or buy it in the past.

[@DoctorHobby]

Goodness.. I’ve wasted umpteen an hour trying to predict the future and wishing I could go back in time to change things.. Relationships, investments, etc., you name it, but never once did I apply this futility to model trains. I guess I’m just not that much of a glutton for punishment lol

[@dinglebopsmoothedwithshlee6830]

@@DoctorHobby This is about as derpy as it gets. What has to be remembered is that before you bought them you WERE buying them in the FUTURE and as soon as you bought them you bought them in the PAST. Hopefully that helps people to make sense of Mike's comment (I know it doesn't, nor will anything ever).