HAAppy HAAllowe'en. Trick or treat? This has got to be some kind of trick...
There are two defining wagons for my location and eras, the merry-go-round hopper and the humble 16 ton steel mineral. Both of these I need in large quantities and without both of them the layout just won't look right. So, along with many other modellers, I've been looking forward eagerly to the release of Hornby's revamped HAA - not only do I need a lot of these wagons but it's theoretically the first example of the firm's new breed of products for the modern modeller. Steam enthusiasts have been well supported for some years now, but there's been nothing for the diesel & electric fan.
Unfortunately this release isn't really much of an improvement over the previous offering. Some areas are better, sure, but others are worse. Disappointingly, neither of it's predecessor's two biggest faults have been rectified.
The good news is some of the underframe detailing is second-to-none, easily the finest on any RTR wagon to date, and there's a lot of nice, extra detail inside the hopper. Also the model has NEM coupler sockets and they're at the correct height (Bachmann, please note!) although there's a bit too much slack in the socket which lets a replacement Kadee coupler droop a little as seen in the photo. I suspect some people might have problems with the socket, however, as it's set quite a way back - even the long #19 coupler I've used only just reaches out far enough. The sprung buffers will go some way towards mitigating the problem, but keep an eye on this if you've got tight curves.
One of the older model's major errors was the emaciated solebars, they needed to be anything up to 50% deeper to match the prototype. If you look at photos of the real thing the bottom of the solebar is level with the midpoint of the buffers. Hornby have not tackled this problem with the new release, indeed it's now more noticeable. Not only is the eye drawn to the chassis because of the fine detailing, but the error is accentuated by the much poorer w-iron and spring detail on the new model. The w-irons just don't look right, the springs are too shallow which leaves the roller bearing sticking out in a peculiar fashion and there's a big gap between all this and the solebar - despite it's faults the old model was better in these areas. The overall effect is a model perched on a distorted chassis, late 1980s Lima style.
The other major, see-it-across-the-room flaw on the older model was the thick rim around the top of the hopper. This has been very slightly reduced on the new release, but not by enough to make a significant improvement. This was worryingly visible in the pre-production shots and led most people I know to believe only the chassis had been re-tooled. Certainly, it looked to be a serious enough problem to stop me ordering these models in quantity until I'd had chance to see a sample - this crude tooling doesn't even compare well to Hornby's much older PGA hopper as seen in the next photo...
Overall, then, not a very impressive release - a step sideways rather than forwards. At the individual product level it does little to bring Hornby's somewhat aged D&E product line into the 21st century. At the strategic level it does nothing to convince me as a D&E modeller that I'm going to be taken seriously by a company traditionally more focussed on the steam and trainset end of the market - this doesn't even come close to the standard of product Hornby have been offering the steam enthusiast for some years now.
I'm still optimistically awaiting the release of the Class 50 which could still be a turning point, but these hoppers are not an encouraging sign. The small improvements like the brake levers and chunky sprung buffers (along with opening doors and working louvres on the 50!) look like gimmicks to pull in uninformed shoppers and reviewers. If this is the best we're going to get then perhaps it's time I stopped wasting time and money on the toy market and followed other serious modellers overseas. American again? Or that Roco catalogue looks tempting...