As ever, I tend at these moments to feel most sympathy for all those talented and well-meaning folk who work for the brand. Hornby Hobbies have decided to remove the two ‘Trains of Film’ packs from the Hornby 2022 product range and acknowledges and accepts that Studiocanal owns the licensing rights to the ‘Thunderbolt’ locomotive as depicted in the ‘Titfield Thunderbolt’ film as well as Dan Taylor’s grounded carriage body. It’s a darn shame a greedy media group have the final say on an item that would probably sell quite well. I would have thought that the TT connection to Lion would have been so obvious from the start that that’s the first thing Hornby should have sorted out, but there you go: eye off the ball, or too many assumptions not being checked? Simon K has made it very clear in both Hornby series he’s going to go after ‘their models’, although how Lion fits that I don’t know, and he’s stepped across into making them seem like bullies rather than the victim with the antics as a result.

Yeah, I don't think it's a case of Hornby copying per se (lest we forget, they were the first company to produce a Titfield Thunderbolt train pack with the ex-Airfix 14xx, Lowmac and Toad).This isn't the first time Hornby have made a Titfield-related set; their 2013 catalogue lists R3186 - "Trains on Film: 'The Titfield Thunderbolt' Train Pack", containing an all-over black 14xx, attempt at Dan's house on the Loriot Y, and a brakevan. Further, they released a Youtube video in response to Hornby's announcement, in which they stated that they had an exclusive license for the production of Titfield Thunderbolt model trains from Studiocanal, the film's rightsholder, and that they and Studiocanal would enforce their IP rights. I find It’s funny that Simon says give us suggestions it’s your range, yet for the decade plus people were screaming for the class 91 we were ignored, yet the second Cavalex announced it, off Hornby went.

Indeed might xyz arrive first, eat your balance sheet and find abc are canceled later down the road ? Whatever, the fact is that when Hornby finally got around to enquiring of Studiocanal about a TT licence they discovered that Rapido had beaten them to it months before. We’ll probably never know the truth, but: It’s perfectly credible that Hornby independently started developing a Lion model off the back of their Rocket offerings. Given the conversations on the Hornby Facebook page after the announcement it was very surprising to see the amount of people who unaware of Rapido and unaware of what prompted this whole saga to begin with. Zero live bidding commission is added on in addition to auctioneers fees where the "Flat Fee" registration option is available and chosen.We can now also arrange UK-wide collections for boxed consignments weighing up to 30kg – just contact us with the item and address details, we’ll send a courier, and you can sit back and wait for the auction proceeds to arrive in your bank account.