Review: Hornby Class 390 Avanti Pendolino R3952 No.390156 4-car Train Pack, Avanti West Coast Livery

[@petermcgarrymusicandflying]

Thanks for the review - really excellent stuff. Still working on my layouts and stock - one can dream !

[@EuviRail]

Keep the faith Peter. Great things can come from small beginnings! Thanks for watching.

[@russellbenton2987]

Well thought out review . Thanks for that . Yes I think Hornby trying to extract max revenue out of what was a basic railroad model . I remember when the Virgin one came out it was described as a train set model and not high fidelity .

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Russell

[@tenterdentown2452]

I have just taken delivery of my Avanti West Coast Pendolino, but I haven't had the time to run it yet because I have been too busy in the garden. I got it out of the box to have a look at it and the same wheels were lose in the box on the same coach as yours! I also noticed that the configuration of the traction tyres has been changed from being on the same axle to opposite sides on each axle. I think this is deliberate and is not a fault. The red Pendolino as supplied in train sets has a tendency to jump off the track when used with the cheap supplied controller. I don't know what is going on with the prices in the model train world - you do have to be extremely careful before placing an order. I got my Avanti West Coast Pendolino for £212 including delivery from Amazon, so I am not feeling as peeved as you! The price originally quoted was £222, but I thought that was too steep, so I waited and it went down by £10, presumably due to lack of sales. I quite like the new livery, but I think the Virgin livery has much more panache. Enjoy your Avanti and beware of the price if you decide to go for the Azuma when it comes out! Thanks for uploading.

[@EuviRail]

Just saw the deal on Amazon. I think that's the sort of price it should be at alright so you've done Ok there. Thanks for sharing.

[@LittleWicketRailway]

Thanks for the review, helped make my decision to leave this one. Too expensive for what you get. Good to hear the 800s are good, Trainbow is on preorder.

[@EuviRail]

Thanks, glad it was useful. I've been well pleased with the 800 so best of luck with the Trainbow when it lands.

[@DeanPark]

Enjoyed and agreed fully. Dave

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Dave

[@grah84mck]

Been round the full layout up in the loft round R2-3 and over exspress and small hornby points all 8 of the coaches are making it around no issues apart from being very slow to take off from a standing start. As we have spoken about in the pre video.

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Graham. My problems on R2 and Peco Express points were all down to the incorrect wheels on my particular model. Hornby are taking my set to review it. Most folks shouldn't see these issues thankfully.

[@grah84mck]

@@EuviRail glad they are sorting it out. I was going to say email them and let them know. My dummy car ended up going back the lights all went off thought it was the chip but no it was a wire issue. Returned it to them and within a week brand new dummy car.

[@paullepine4765]

Thanks for the video - really interesting. I have had two of these packs and both have been returned as faulty as both had the power bogie derail on starting and stopping in all speed ranges except exceptionally slowly. Very disappointing for such an expensive set.

[@EuviRail]

Hi Paul, thanks for sharing and I thought I had a bad time with this set! Sorry to hear. At least you have the cash to spend on a better running model now.

[@revenya9542]

i bought this and i was happy at first until i started looking at it more so if they do a more expensive version like the new class 800 for 502 pounds and it is WORTH IT and WAY better I would buy it

[@EuviRail]

I think a lot of folks wouldn't mind paying a bit more for a better Pendolino model for sure.

[@Coxswain]

I have the Alstom one and considering by budget Erm non anymore It’s not bad Price of the 9 to 11 car set is a joke at above £500 A re tool and new motor ect would be nice And price cuts on a piece of bloody plastic with 4 metal wheels, louder noise than the real thing and the toy like of it But I love the pendolino

[@EuviRail]

I'm a fan myself so it's frustrating that the current model doesn't do it justice. If only Dapol or Kato would do 00 gauge versions of some of their modern image N gauge stuff we'd have some choice.

[@wasted-blaster.]

I love my eurostars they are brilliant a little bit of weathering and you'll never know they are "entry level" as apossed to "premium level" plus I done a few mods directional lighting adding passengers and a driver to name a few.

[@EuviRail]

Cool. Lighting is on my todo list. A great value set.

[@wasted-blaster.]

@@EuviRail to run them as per the actual set you need to two running cars plus 2x8 pin decoders I use my spare dummy car as 373999 the rescue unit at Temple Mills. Though I feel I might need another motorised unit for that role as apposed to an immobile dummy unit? 🤔

[@paulisnotonfire]

I'm actually surprised that it has a 5 pole motor in it, as I swear I read on Hornbys site a while ago it was only a 3 pole. I'll have to give mine a go around my R2 curves to see if I get any derailments now that you've said what issues you were having with yours and see if I have any dodgy wheel sets. Cheers.

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Paul. I had it in my mind that it was a 3-pole but the website is stating 5-pole. The dodgy wheels have a thicker flange to the standard ones. Hornby are taking my set to review.

[@zackkahn6375]

Bought the pride version and had to return two of them, broken bogies, loose wheels and dodgy connectors, the quality is really bad, but managed to get a third one which is fine... Not a great experience...

[@euviga]

Sorry to hear that but thanks for sharing. I'm due to do a traction tyre removal on this in the next few weeks and I also uncovered coupler issue that may have been leading to some derailment issues I had. Will be posting on that once I've done my testing on it. As per your experience, the quality hasn't been great on these and certainly the RRP isn't justified.

[@zackkahn6375]

Look forward to seeing your video

[@chrisj6321]

I preordered the rainbow version, hope they honor the price otherwise I might cancel the order as I ordered all the extra carriages as well

[@EuviRail]

Hi Chris, they are honouring the pre-order prices. I've just received my FGWR HST at the old price.

[@charleymartin9422]

Off Topic Eugene if I may. MM Cravens, I have swopped the Tension Lock couplers over to Kadee No.20’s as all my locos + rolling stock are Kadee Coupler fitted, but No.20’s are not long enough, the jaw end is barely in line with the buffers ! As you are the man in the know about all things to do with Irish Model Railways, have you any suggestions please ?

[@EuviRail]

Hi Charley, I'm no expert on Kadee couplers I'm afraid. I've checked the Irish Railway Modeller Forum and there was a similar (unanswered) question: irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/10418-cravens-kadee-coupler/?tab=comments#comment-159986. Suggest you post your own question and see if any of the folks on there respond. In general, this is a good forum for Irish Model related stuff.

[@charleymartin9422]

@@EuviRail Hi Eugene, that was me that posted the question (Fowler4F) Thanks for trying anyway. Regards. C.

[@georgethepatriot2785]

Great video as usual. I hear from others that its a common occurrence when opening the box for the first time wheels have fallen off. Reminds me of when I opened the Hornby Green FGW 125s the wheels were off at the front. Poor quality control by Hornby again

[@EuviRail]

Thanks George. In my case I got the wrong wheels!

[@danielparrott8339]

Given you can get a Lima Expert HO scale Trenitalia ETR610 Pendolino 4-car base pack for £231, I really think they have got the price way out. The ETR610 has all wheel cardan drive, the drive system is all below the passenger area (meaning full interior is provided in all coaches), there is an add-on pack for roof details, fairly decent pantographs and live couplings throughout the train. It doesn't tilt, but give me the decent mechanism any day. Hornby are missing a trick too, as if they got the price right for the Avanti Pendolino, I am sure they would fly off the shelves (the comments section reads like a catalogue of missed sale opportunities!)- the mechanism is effective enough and the model still looks decent. £150 tops for the basic four car, maybe? Additional coaches £35? The IET isn't cheap, but to be honest, it is everything you could wish for. Similar tech as the Lima Expert ETR, but better finish and internal lights too.....

[@EuviRail]

Thanks for sharing Daniel. I don't think we'd have any complaints paying the current RRP for this model if it did have all-wheel drive and improved interiors per the ETR610. The current spec warrants a lower price point as you've outlined. They really did get it wrong on this one.

[@petergeorge9080]

Hi there. I have a query really. Is the pantograph a working part of the set or is it just for show?

[@EuviRail]

Hi Peter, it's neither mechanised nor servicing as a power source so cosmetic only. It is posable alright.

[@alexwright7589]

Hi, having watched your video on the Hornby R3952 Avanti Pendolino I was wondering who to tell if you have a set with the wrong wheels? Managed to pick up a brand new set for £206.00 so happy with the price paid compared to RRP Alex

[@EuviRail]

That's a good price Alex. The problematic wheels have a softer angle (30-45 degrees) on the flange than the original wheels that had a sharper flange that was less lightly to lead to derailment.

[@LordAndyvaile]

mine derails also do you have link to correct wheels please ?

[@EuviRail]

Hi Andrew, I initially borrowed wheels from my 10 year old Pendolino to allow me to finish my running session. I then swapped back in the ones that came with the model and returned it to Hornby who claimed to have swapped out the wheels for me on the power car. My advice would be to contact Hornby and look to return for repair before forking out any more yourself. I'm not sure what wheels the Hornby repair folks put on I'm afraid. I'll be returning to this model in a couple of months to get the traction tyres off and see what else I can do to get it to run better. I'm not sure if the wheels are the full story either. Out of curiosity what sort of speed level were you at and track radius you were on?

[@LordAndyvaile]

@@EuviRail sometimes on points at slow speed 2nd radius medium and 3rd radius at higher speeds but not all the time

[@LordAndyvaile]

oh and all the time on most bends in reverse

[@LordAndyvaile]

would more weight in it help ?

[@icte92]

Would you consider purchasing the set if it was instead sold for £190? Or would you still consider it as overpriced and not worth the value? Thank you.

[@EuviRail]

Hi Isaac, yes, I think £190 would be a more appropriate price for this model. Either that or Hornby need to deliver an improved model for the new £300 price. I paid £240 for mine hoping to see some improvements but there were none. Then they pushed up the price again.

[@icte92]

@@EuviRail Thanks for the reply! Did you manage to fix the frequent derailment of the Avanti set with hornby?

[@EuviRail]

@@icte92 Hi Isaac, I ended up returning the model to Hornby and they told me they've installed new wheels. I want to do the speed tests on a dedicated test track that will avoid damaging the model if it de-rails so I'm waiting to to get that in place to give it a thorough shakedown. After I baseline what they've sent me back I'm going to remove the traction tyres and add some weight to the power car and re-rest. Will cover this in a dedicated video as I did for the Eurostar. Hope to get to this before the end of march depending on how many new models land before that for review.

[@icte92]

@@EuviRail Looking forward to that video! May I suggest you add in some turnouts in the test track. I suspect they are a significant contributing factor in the derailments.

[@dwaynejohnson4892]

First! Love your vids man!

[@paulgrimshaw2130]

strange about it stalling as I have the hornby 3813 javelin nice looking but stalls a lot my first and last hornby product because of this

[@rousey83]

Hello. I’m new to dcc and the hobby in general. What hornby TTS decoder could I use in this model please. Also great layout 👍

[@EuviRail]

Hi Chris, the bad news is that Hornby don't do a TTS decoder for the Class 390, 395, 373 or 800. You have to purchase a 3rd party DCC Sound decoder. I got mine from www.roads-and-rails.co.uk/.

[@rousey83]

@@EuviRail thank you for replying. Is it compatible with the hornby select controller

[@EuviRail]

@@rousey83 Hi Chris, the R&R modules are all Loksound 5 based and I'm not aware of any incompatibilities. I'd check with the seller first to be sure.

[@jimkeenan7211]

A bit late in the day, but I have to say, how prototypical is it to run this without overhead catenaries?

[@EuviRail]

Hi, my catenary is sitting in a box awaiting my planned layout move, overhaul and expansion. It's not a trivial job so I only want to install it once. It's the same for a lot the lighting I have which is also waiting for the move.

[@alfiestrains7190]

yeah i had the same problem with the power car wheels ill take one off of my virgin one

[@EuviRail]

Thanks for sharing. According to Hornby there was no problem of course....

[@alfiestrains7190]

@@EuviRail can you make a vid of the wheels change cus im doing it today

[@wolvertoncentresidings5676]

As you have already said Hornby seem to be in two camps for this model. Unfortunately it seems Hornby are out to get as much money as possible from a revamped 15 year old tooling at the expense of upsetting the more serious adult modeller, which seems to be the case with a lot of thier range these days. ( Class 60 for eg which was a brilliant model back when released but is now showing its age) As a WCML modeller I'd like to add a contemporary pendalino but I'm going to give this one a miss given the issues with moulding being "soft" (caused by the tooling wearing out) the wheel issues you mentioned and the livery application not being as crisp as it should be. Thanks for taking the time to do a review.

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Steve. I feel sorry for WCML modellers like yourself with this one.

[@michaelgrey7854]

My 390 always ran well.

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Michael. My original Virgin 390 did as well. Hornby had put different wheels (with a different flange depth) on the model I purchased and this led to the consistent derailments. May have been a manufacturing issue where the factory ran out of the original wheels and thought the substitute ones would be fine. I'm going to revisit at a later point as I want to remove the traction tyres on these and re-test with a larger rake. More anon.

[@eastmidlandparkway6267]

Great informative video about Hornby’s new pendolino in avanti livery shame it has come with dreaded traction tyres that came on my virgin alstom version pendolino for the price hornby are asking for old tooling but with a new paint job as you said they could have asked for abit less or changed the drive unit l changed my traction tyres on my alstom and added more weight to the power car and it’s better went to the pendolino service sheet and noticed that they do modified pack of wheels l noticed in your video that the traction tyres are on different axles where mine are on the same axle which made it easier great 👍🏻 video as always l always look forward to your videos as your opinion on locos and rolling stock is very informative at what to look for Kind Regards Kev Beighton Parkway Sheffield

[@EuviRail]

Thanks Kevin. My review set is going back to Hornby on Monday to look at the wheels issue. When I get it back or a replacement I was going to look at replacing the drive wheels to remove the traction tyres and adding weight to the power car.

[@REDHILLCENTRAL]

@@EuviRail hi I have this set as well, and the problem I’m having is that the power car is too light if that makes sense?? so when it’s running it’s not using its full power seems very shaky, would you have any suggestions as to what I should use to weigh it down, also I see you mentioned the black rubber traction wheels on the power car, should I remove these or leave them on and just weigh it down more. Thanks

[@euvitech7027]

@@REDHILLCENTRAL Yes, the power car is definitely too light. I would look to add about 120-150gm to it. Lead weights are the best in terms of weight density but lighter metals can be used. I used old coins on the Eurostar set! They were worthless anyway so at least they were put to productive use! Whatever you do you need to keep the center of gravity as low as possible and the weights need to be secured so that they don't move around. My set is currently with Hornby but when it comes back I intend to add weight and remove the traction tyres. Note that you can't just take off the rubber tyres on their own. You need to replace the wheels they are on as well. I cover this in my video on removing traction tyres on the Eurostar and I will repeat that video for this set as the performance characteristics will be different. Hope this helps.

[@ArcadiaJunctionHobbies]

The aesthetic is gorgeous and well done - but at speed it 'feels' like a toy train running on your layout. I have a Lima DB Lufthansa DMU from the early 1980s that looks and performs similar to this. Perhaps even better. Hornby are asking for a lot of money for 40+ year old technology with 2021 paint job.

[@havocatthewedding9852]

what confuses me is the fact that the add on coaches are £50 (ish) and the set is £279 . you get 4 coaches and nothing else , taking away how much they would get in profit from the added coaches =£40 . Times that by 4 you get £160 Which means the pack costs £160 and Hornby are getting £119 profit !

[@EuviRail]

I suspect the manufacturing cost of this set is actually a lot less than £160. I'm sure have given themselves a big margin on this one.

[@bennickss]

£240 for a 15-year-old analogue model with no track or DCC controller is definitely not worth it, especially since you can get the original DCC virgin trains set for about £190 or less nowadays

[@EuviRail]

I've seen an add for the original set dated 2011 at £160 and that included a DCC controller!

[@bennickss]

@@EuviRail great video anyway, i have got a much older west coast express loco recently, hornby’s r2772 class 87010 ‘king Arthur’ in intercity swallow livery fitted with Olivia’s v4 sound and headlights for a very cheap and very surprising £142, the sacrifice being it’s the older tooling (late 90s-early 2000s)

[@SprattyHeath]

Hornby's quality control seems to be falling downhill quite badly and it does concern me since prices the prices for all their ranges (except Humbrol) have had a dramatic increases in price because of inflation, post-Brexit, Covid etc, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better from what I can see. For me, the biggest offender in QC is paint finish. I've noticed this is becoming a reoccurring thing and Hornby don't seem to be doing much about it. One of the best (worst) examples of poor paint finish was on the GBRF Class 50 they released not too long ago, they got the shade of both the blue & the orange so badly wrong and it looked hideous. As for the issues you've mentioned that your Pendolino has it doesn't seem to be just a one-off thing. My one has minor blemishes in the paint finish, and on one of the leading bogies it's missing that front guard/frame protector piece that clips in place (I don't know what the proper name of it is). I assumed it had come loose from the factory, but it was nowhere to be seen in the box which leads me to believe that they forgot to fit it in factory (oops). Lastly, about the derailing issues, I don't seem to find anything wrong with mine. It negotiates 3rd radius curves without any issues whatsoever so you may just have a bad batch of wheelsets, which if it is the case I'd contact Hornby about and get it resolved. Great video btw, subbed to your channel. Can't wait for more!

[@EuviRail]

Thanks for that. I heard of the C50 GBRF debacle alright. Glad I missed that one. In terms of the derailing I identified a larger flange on the wheels in my Avanti set versus what was on my Alstom Pendolino and when I swapped the wheels onto the older set it showed the same problems. The train pack is going to Hornby on Monday so it will be interesting to see what they come back with.

[@chrisj6321]

Over 300 pounds now from Hornby

[@EuviRail]

Oh yes it is and I won't be forgetting this in an upcoming video....

[@warnz9701]

Spot on, overpriced and no interior.