Hornby Operating Ore Wagon Set

Hi Folks,

Been a while since I posted any new purchases, but that's due to me having been away looking after my gf who got rushed into hospital the weekend before last.

Anyway, some of the goodies that arrived will appear here soon, but just to whet your appetite I thought you might like to see this little gem. A set from the 70's/80's I managed to find this complete, unused set (only missing the instruction sheet which I should be able to find online) on eBay the other week.

What you get is the infrastructure to make an elevated wagon drop-off along with piers to build the line up to it etc... A wagon that has an operating drop function built in which operates when it runs over the bridge dropping its load into a wagon (or I suppose lorry) that is running below it. There is even a bag of 'coal' provided - see down bottom left of the 2nd image

Enjoy!

[Super]

That is pretty cool. Do you have to glue it together or does it snap?

I think it's snap together, but I guess it would depend on if you want it on a permanent layout or not :-)

That looks amazing. I always preferred the older box artwork like this, as opposed to the newer ones which show a heavily photoshopped image of a train in motion.

[Super]

There are two things that I find quite odd about the setup of this on the box picture..

Super - I guess the first one is the track on the upper level not being supported on either side of the bridge component, but I suspect that may be on purpose as if they depicted supports other bridge parts buyers would expect those to be included.

Second one? That this depicts coal being moved, but you have diesel logo's?

[Super]

Thats right Nigels...the 'Floating in Air' rails just are out of place.

The second oddity is....why would they build such a contraption just to dump a load a coal from one wagon to another? Doesn't seem to make sense to me. Seems like a waste of time and money in real life than to just load the second wagon where the first one was loaded with coal and send that to its destination and skip this whole process. Is this something they really do? Now if the under pass was for either a River Barge or Semi Truck that would make more sense to me. Then, having no rails on the lower level one could put earthen or concrete abutments on either side eliminating the 'floating rails'.

Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing the model, in fact I like it very much, its just sometimes my analytical multiple personality sometimes sees things and starts to argue with my Super personality and a fight ensues in my head.

No I totally get it Super, the floating rails don't work for me either, especially as that loco is quite a heavy little number, but at the same time I think that is more a marketing thing as I mentioned before.

As for why? Well I suppose it could be possible that rather than build a rail that brings the trucks all the way to the bottom of the hill or whatever it could make more economic sense to do exactly what this does, move coal from a local mine line to the mainline train that takes the product to market. However that would work better if you had a small/narrow gauge shunter rather than a type 06 which is more mainline.

[Super]

Its just amazing that as old as the set is, its in such great new condition.

I know that's why I snapped it up as soon as I saw it pop up on eBay, just couldn't resist it