Five facts about Hornby! 

Here's our empty factory from where we moved production to China. Proud.

6. Hornby's quality over the years has gone way down, while the prices have gone way up.

Fact number 6. His t shirt is inside out.

6. Smokey Joe's tooling is 39 years old and is being sold at the ridiculous price of £54.95.

Can't wait to buy a 200£ oo scale tank engine

I remember getting my first Hornby train set in the late 70’s, it was the intercity 125! I used to spend hours looking at the Hornby catalog, dreaming of all the sets! The sets then came with so many carriages and accessories. Fast forward to today. I bought my grandson a train set, we set it up excitedly together, the joy on both his and my face as the train ran around its little oval on the coffee table! Is that all it does he asks me. Well yes I reply. Can we play PlayStation now he asks. I have great memories of Hornby past, I fear for its future.

1: Yes I did know about the visitor's center and have been there. 2: If only 72 Mallards equal the legth of the prototype then they are not to scale as OO is 1:76 scale not 1:72

Plastic meat trays and egg boxes cost pennies but apply some brunwick green and put a British railway sticker on it add a 3 pound motor 5p of wire 50p of metal 20p for a cardboard box and ship it half way round the world == £ 280.00

6. Workers worked at the British Factory till 1995 and then. we sourced our train sets from China at ludicrously high prices and absolute tosh quality…

It would be nice to see that factory full and working again, also cheaper prices!

Hornby’s prices are far to high for the product, bent running plates and glue marks just aren’t acceptable when you charge north of £200 for a locomotive

Hornby… you need to attend to quality control … and stop ripping off your customers. Otherwise your business will not survive. Quality products (not falling apart) and value for money. Do that, and we’ll admire you one again, AND, your business will thrive.

Wouldn’t it be 76 Hornby mallards next to each other?

Fact number 1, no matter how hard I beg neither Hornby or Bachmann will make a new E2 and sell it in the US.

Margate was home to Rovex Triang Railways back in 1954. Today's range is essentially Triang in the Hornby name! The Hornby name only survived by virtue of two quirks of fate! FACT!

I’ve actually been to the Margate one I was on holiday and saw it and got so exited

May I suggest a 'focus group' consisting of 8-10 year olds where you give them each their first electric oo trainset to see how they get on with it. It needs to be bullet proof and easy to put together, crucial if they are not to lose interest and thus leave the hobby.

I have a Smokey Joe from about 20 years ago. It was absolutely rapped! I had many a crash with it. I’ve now moved to N gauge though due to space restrictions.

I had Smokey Joe when I was about 7 or 8 in the late 80’s. I was always amazed by how fast it was for a little engine. It wasn’t uncommon for it to fly off the corners as I thrashed it round at full speed in my younger days 😂😂

that Smokey Joe trainset has my all time favourite Track mat R8011, I prefer that one over the other 2 not going to lie..

Methinks it's a Crying shame that there is No One working in that Huge Empty Space today. If there were..! I may not have had so many issues with my Last 'Brand New' Purchase from you Guys. Employ some staff to fill some of that Huge Space. To do at Least Quality Control on your Chinese Product. And your Sales/Profit issues, may improve. You can only Sting people Once or Maybe Twice, before they Look Elsewhere. I was Hornby Everything, but now have Drifted away. Purely because of Quality..! Improve or Die..!! Sorry Guys, but that's how I see and feel it..! Cheers all the Same. Kim in Oz 😎 (or in Reality 😡)

Drove down to the visitors centre a few weeks ago and you were closed for stocktaking! We were so disappointed 😢

Hornby it's in china

Does Smokey Joe have a live steam thingy?

👍1954 that's when I was born.😁

I have a question, what's the rarest model you've made?

HORNBY should start produce red hat with the acronym “MMGA” - (Make Margates Great Again) and bring back the manufacturing process back home!

The visitors centre really isn’t all that…. The got a shed full of real trains but nobody is aloud to see them. There layouts are pretty basic and half the time are not working properly. And the shop is quite expensive compare to online.

Wow the Hornby archive vaults section my era I was 4 and 5 in 1996 my era. I have the 20th Anniversary HST set complete with all its contents and all paperwork card inserts mini A6 catalogue and the sealed original 1996 TrackMat. It is in the 1996 - 1998 blue box design train sets which I can see there among the other amazing Hornby sets from that period Twin Freight 1997 - 1998, Diesel Breakdown 1997 - 1998, Eurostar 1997 - 1998, and InterCity 225 1996 - 1997 among the sets visible. Mike should do whole videos of exploring all of the archived Hornby train sets through the ages.

I live there,go there all the time!

I knew all of them except for the second one

WHEN ARE YOU RELEASING THE 85th ANNIVERSARY MALLARD HORNBY???!!!!

its almost a good enough reason to visit margate

Interesting brand message that I’m really unsure the purpose of: Here’s where we used to make models in England, but then we sacked everyone to make em for cheap in China.

Return manufacturing to the UK in Margate and make everyone happy, well apart from the Chinese and higher ups at Hornby who want to maximise profit margins.

I find it funny how they don’t mention tri-ang at all

Shame the quality has dropped off over the years

I've been to Rastbourne on several occasions in the last 10 years for 3 night breaks in summer months. The streets are deserted at night apart from groups of asylum seekers roaming about the place begging. Is Margate as bad?

Where are these made now ?

76 mallards equal one full size one, bot 72!

Its 76 Mallards in a row would be the size of the real thing. Hornby has been 1:76 since the late 30s. Your trains run on HO scale track which is 1:87. So Hornby those are some facts you might not know.

Hornby should release American engines

6. Ignore fact 2, OO scale is 1:76, not 1:72, so 76 Mallards would total 70ft, not 72 which would fall just short Come on, you’re meant to be professionals!

Can you make a video game o hornby ?

well actually it would be 76 because oo gauge is 1/76 scale

here's a nother fact about hornby now there quality controle like every body else is crap!

It’s odd that y’all are openly bragging about how infrequently you update your toolings lol

If 72 Hornby Mallards make one real one your scaling is wrong... 00 gauge has a scale of 1:76. So theoratically the length of the real one would be devided by 76. So if it should be 76 little Mallards making up a big one your model is to short...

Why ur prices so high

5 other things everyone should know about hornby 1. We deliberately use older tooling and charge as if it's new tooling. 2. We deliberately rip off the ideas of others and try to present them as our own. 3.We deliberately jump on the band wagon to sell more overpriced tat ( Gay pride rainbow, beetles, coca cola etc) 4. We have no Quality control to speak of and prey the Chinese get it right. 5. We buy up competitiors and bring them down to our low level of quality Just opinion, if you don't agree move on.

6. Our prices are so high for some cheap tooling and rubbish model!

2. Yeah like I’m doing that and loosing all my life savings

Here's something else you didn't know......your t shirt is on inside out 😂

"A 72 foot Mallard locomotive" ...so theres *more than one* Mallard engine out there?..

Lets be real, Hornby is on the decline. And I believe will be the first of the big model companies to go bankrupt or shut down. I do have fond memories with Hornby and still use some of their locomotives but the prices are extortioninate

Mention thomas

6. I could buy a standard oval track set with loco for like 25quid with bday money and another set again with Christmas money in the 90s. Now I can't even get what I used to for my own kid unless I want to fork out over 100quid that's absolute junk and looks like an 8yr old designed it. 100 in the 90s could've got me either a scotsman oval set, intercity oval set, or Eurostar set, all priced around 75-85 in argos and index shops. Sorry hornby but you became a huge disappointment. The time I spent I'll always cherish, but it's bs my kid can't on reasonable prices

Can please have a free set😢 I have no money

It’s so depressing how far this company has fallen

Honestly not interested anymore. Used to be as a kid got some of the old sets and they were a nice slice of the UK. But now model in N gauge.

Why are you wearing your top inside out?

Can you get a bus as ive been priced off the road by ulez and high horby prices

I’m the 925th liker!

Here’s the real fact number 6: Hornby should disable comments so that there isn’t a flood of the exact same comments on every video

Smokey Joe is my favourite hornby train that I own and it was my first one

Me and my dad used to have loads of sets. Being a kid, I always wanted more stuff for it without appreciating what I had. They’re still up in my mums loft. Feel bad for not appreciating them still but there’s a guilt to not caring for them. I am an engineer and hope to get back into getting them out someday 🥹

#6: They produce overpriced garbage

Will you ever return Hornby to it's real home ? Liverpool