What's in store for the Hattons brand name? My interview with Jack Morgan from Rails of Sheffield

I speak to Jack Morgan, Marketing and Content Manager for Rails of Sheffield - he explains what happened at Hattons, what's in store for the Hattons brand name now that it's part of the Rails of Sheffield family, and also answers your questions about Rails, Hattons and more.
www.modelrailwayquest.com
#railsofsheffield #jackmorgan #hattonsmodelrailways #locomotives #revolutiontrains #liverpool #hornby #metcalfe #dalpol #gaugemaster #rapido #peco #modelrail #OOgauge #modelmaking #ukmodelrailways #railway #HOgauge #ngauge #railroad #trains #dawnquest #ogauge #modelrailway #modeltrains #oogauge #howtobuild #modelrailwaylayouts #trainset #ogauge #buildalayout #modelrailwaybuildings #scenerypaintingtips #worldofrailways #goodstrain #britishrail #uktrains #railway #railroad #trainfan #modelrailwayretailers #modelrailwayshops #modelshops #railwaymodellers #womenrailwaymodellers #hornbymagazine #gardenrail #modelrailwaylighting #weeklyupdates #womeninmodelrailways#bachmann

[@michaelphilo3525]

Thank you for having that interview. I live in the US and am a big fan of British model railroading. I was very surprised, and pleasantly so, to hear that several viewers posed questions about Rails' intentions regarding the trunk service and international shipping cost transparency. Both issues are a big, big deal for those of us who are international customers. I have written to Rails a couple of times to ask about combining orders because doing so would have substantially reduced my shipping costs. Their responses gave me the feeling that they did not particularly care. I was a loyal Hattons repeat customer because of their superior customer service. They really did seem like they cared. With Hattons trunk service, I spent a lot more money than I would have without it and a lot more money than I ever did or wanted to do with Rails.

[@redhound4889]

I live less than 100 miles from Hattons and really appreciated the Trunk and then the combined postage.

[@alanfbrookes9771]

I agree, I live in California and Hattons was my main access to second-hand models. I was spending about £500 a month at Hattons. All that ended when they closed. To all intents and purposes, Hattons no longer exists. I guess it's going to save me £500 a month !

[@mrbluesky2050]

A point you touched upon, the elderly demographic at model railway shows, seating IS a MUST, barriers and handrails are good, being able to lean and watch is good, sometimes we can walk, sometimes we can lean, help us old buggers to enjoy the hobby.,

[@ianjeffery6744]

Not just at shows, but in shops as well! I see Rails' Emporium has seating...

[@pauldannenberg391]

Thanks for a great interview Dawn. I hope Jack may read this and if he was not aware some aspects of shipping to Australia he is now. I was pleased to hear you asked the question about the "Trunk" service. I live in Australia and had only been aware of Hattons for a bit over 1 year before they closed. In that year I tried the trunk service and quickly moved 90% of my train budget to Hattons. Postage costs from America via UPS and Fedex had caused me to only shop from retailers offering USPS shipping but that was also steadily rising and limiting purchases. I don't know what arrangement Hattons had with DHL but it truly was value for money. Since I was using the trunk service I was not expecting departure times from UK to arrival to be so incredibly quick. The record was 3 days and 9 hours for a parcel weighing 5 pounds containing quite a lot of N scale trains. I think it cost about 30 GBP to ship. It still doesn't matter if shipping time is 2 weeks as long as we can get notifications about the parcels progress getting from A to B. I don't understand why some people complain about postage from the UK when it was working out to be about 1/5th of USA shipping / postage costs. I've looked at Rails eBay stock and they are currently using ebay's express global postage which is ....................................... awful. One Kato SD70ACe costs 24.90 GBP postage. Items posted on eBay typically take 3 weeks to get to Australia. Although eBay says they use DHL the evidence (postage time) suggests they use DHL's aircraft and that's about all. eBay will also add 18.60 GBP import duty to my bill. eBay makes it easy for retailers to ship but the postage for 1 item makes it unlikely for a customer to actually click on "Buy it Now". Hattons or any other retailer overseas do not have to add import duty if the invoice (including postage) is less than AU$900 ....... about 465GBP today. If retailers in the UK ship a parcel valued at over AU$900 they probably won't have to do much other than correctly declare the value and the buyer will be contacted by Customs (Australia) to pay 10% tax before Australia Post or the courier company can release the parcel. eBay purchasers DO have to add import duty from 1p upwards. (there is a very long sad political story behind this situation. If Rails of Sheffield can bring back the trunk that would be great please. :)

[@bazza3643]

Hello Dawn, I owned and operated a hobby shop in Napier, New Zealand for about 20 years. Yes most retail shops do not provide customer seating, but I noticed fairly quickly, that if I didn’t provided a couple of chairs for my customers partners to sit on, the partners very quickly walked out the front door taking any prospective customer with them.

[@neilharbott8394]

One thing I did like about Hattons preowned, was the link back to the product directory, so you could check on the technical specs, etc. I wonder if Rails would look into linking their store to the product database??

[@chrissharp5073]

Dawn another great interview. Over my lifetime I've seen many great model railway businesses go or change hands. Sad losses but then from the ashes a new business arises. The interview was a good insight into Rails but as to the future of the Hattons brand name well it will be interesting as to the final outcome!

[@AtreiusLux]

Thank you for the interview, I'm hoping whoever takes on the genesis coach tooling does reruns of previously made liveries. I missed out on the olive green southern ones.

[@ianjeffery6744]

So did !, alas!

[@martynfarmer6905]

That was very informative Dawn x

[@modelrailwayquest]

Thank you Martyn. Hope you're having a good day.

[@jonharbour9166]

Some great questions in your interview Dawn. I live in Australia and bought almost exclusively from Hattons because of the trunk service. With so many models now generally only available if you pre-order, the trunk was a godsend. Hattons gave you choice over the shipping options with the trunk and you had visibility once the goods were shipped. I passed most of my Hattons pre-orders on to Rails as I anticipated that most of the stock Hattons had ordered would likely end up in Sheffield instead. It was interesting to compare the way Rails dealt with the partial arrival of items that were on one of my pre-orders... I got no notification that my card had been charged, I had no choice over shipping methods and the order was not shipped for several days after the products arrived with Rails. In fairness, the shipping costs were actually very reasonable, but although the shipment was tracked, I never got any details of the tracking from them. First I knew was when I came home from work and the box was waiting on my doorstep. With Hattons, such pre-orders were immediately placed in the trunk for me to ship at my leisure and choice of shipping process. Hattons offered significantly better service. I work in supply chain, so I fully appreciate just what an undertaking the trunk was for Hattons. But, it was a game-changer for their overseas customers and Rails would be smart to seriously consider implementing it. Otherwise, they may find their share of pre-orders from the likes of Accurascale and Rapido being shrunk as they pass directly to the manufacturer. As another of your viewers commented, when asked about it, Rails didn't really appear to show any interest in it.

[@modelrailwayquest]

As you can see from the comments - you're not alone. The trunk service was a real attraction for overseas customers, but as you might imagine, might not have been conducive to running a successful business!

[@jonharbour9166]

@@modelrailwayquest - That's possible. I work in Supply Chain and the cost of storing stock is not trivial! However, I suspect the cost was more than outweighed by the extra stock people bought. I noticed that many of the comments about the trunk included something along the lines of "I spent more than I would have done otherwise!". I think what made it more expensive was the complexity and cost of compliance with overseas governments (e.g. Australia, who imposed the responsibility of collecting 10% GST on Retailers and transport providers in an expensive and unwieldy way that benefited nobody except from the government).

[@inspiringengineer]

Acurascale shock up the market! :)

[@ianjeffery6744]

Thanks, Dawn! Well, it wasn't a surprise that Mr Morgan was non-committal about some Hattons matters - it's early days, and time will tell. I hope the Genesis tooling is taken over by someone (Rapido?), as these coaches are well worth having. As to comments about Rails being out to make money, they're a business, and it's what businesses do.

[@RonCooper-nl4pn]

Hi Dawn, I have been terribly let down by two of my Local dealers on my Preorders for locomotive stock. I managed to get some of my last years locos from Rails and I have now preordered from them for this year. I also received an email from Rails confirming them and quoting the price that included a Dapol O gauge class 66. It is a shame that I have been let down by my local Model Shops. Regards from Ron 🚂👍

[@modelrailwayquest]

That is a shame Ron - I do try to support smaller local model rail shops as much as possible.

[@ianmacaulay4936]

Jack mentioned improving the Rails website. My suggestion is to allow the user to choose how many results are displayed per page. At the moment it is stuck on 20, so when a search (such as Bargains) returns 503 results, you now have to scroll to the bottom of each page, then click next page, wait for that to load, and then repeat that over. Very tedious. Please allow the user to choose the number, as many other websites do.

[@modelrailwayquest]

Thanks Ian - I'll pass your comments on to Jack.

[@bachmannobsessed2234]

Recently purchased a Hattons class 66 chassis boxed at £57 off eBay with a faulty motor, would a Bachmann class 66 body fit a hattons class 66 chassis i wonder????? I do have a Bachmann class 66 colas so wondering whether to try fit it onto the hattons class 66 chassis lol till a Hatton class 66 body appears on eBay lol

[@grays257]

The Hattons trunk service was customer care at it's best, they gave a brilliant service for overseas customers, not copied by any other retailer. It appears Rails are not interested in copying it, or is it they just can't operate the service, because they don't have the expertise of Hattons to combine orders and ship internationally. They are not offering anything to attract Hattons overseas customers.

[@shauntaylor9251]

Rails have only bought the Hattons name as a business decision , they hope it will make them money .

[@railwaymechanicalengineer4587]

QUESTION why did Hattons suddenly drop the Bachmann brand and RAILS simultaneously drop the HORNBY brand ?????

[@graham76man]

Bachmann dropped Hattons, when they started to produce their own models. It was a similar story with Rails, though they now have Hornby back.

[@graham76man]

Unfortunately Rails have a problem as they are one of the most expensive shops to buy from. You can simply see this by using price lowest first on their site. If you did that with Hattons, you could get items for under £10 which start at £12 on rails. It's no cheaper on E-Bay. They currently have a LNER Triang and Hornby coach for £29 plus postage! It's worth about £10 to £12 when boxed (it is). The coach doesn't even have an interior! Are they nuts!

[@madhatter61]

Never say never. Some shops have more than one outlet. It would be nice if the opened a second shop called hattons in Liverpool. Not at the moment but never say never.

[@madhatter61]

Combined effort, and you Dawn are doing a fantastic job .

[@modelrailwayquest]

Thank you! Yes... never say never!

[@abbush2921]

Rumors `Bachmann and Hornby to merge ! LOL !

[@alanfbrookes9771]

So, what he's saying is that Hattons is dead other than their website, which has little point without the sales service. Model railways have become a rich man's hobby, and the rocketting prices are destroying it.

[@johnblair8146]

Rails didn't rescue SQUAT. and they're not keeping ANYTHING alive. This is just a blocking move. The Hatton's spirit was in the employees that are now unwanted. Rails bought the name and website and hired ONE employee. 99.9% of Hatton's is still LOST. No more Hatton's or Rails Originals branded product and fewer people employed in the industry, not to mention less competition to keep prices low. Still a sad thing to happen. Hopefully someone can start a business to compete with Rails.

[@shauntaylor9251]

It was Hattons decision to close the business down though

[@billeaton1970]

There are several businesses already competing with Rails. Open any UK model railway magazine to see their adverts. Kernow Model Centre is one example. Another, particularly for O Gauge, is Tower Models.

[@thomasj219]

AccuraScale picked up some of their toolings.

[@johnblair8146]

@@shauntaylor9251 Yes it was and they probably had good reason for doing so but the fact remains that Hatton's is GONE. VERY LITTLE remains.