Hornby Dublo - The Royal Scot

I'm sure some of you have heard of Hornby having resurrected the Hornby Dublo brand?  This is something they started a couple of years ago to celebrate one of their anniversaries when they made some interesting collectibles.  The Hornby Dublo limited edition locomotives proved very popular with the collectors and serious train modellers alike.  Basically these limited edition models were limited to just 500 of each model released and harked back to the construction ethos of years gone by where instead of everything being made of plastic the trains were primarily manufactured in metal.  This makes them (relatively) very heavy making them excellent performers and of course very durable.  Add to this though all the more recent design improvements such as higher quality motors, drive train, DCC ready sockets etc... and of course improved detail levels and prototypical accuracy and you have stunningly beautiful and mechanically models.

Well announced very early this year were additions to this collectors/adult range were some additional locomotives and this new set.  Modelled to look very like the original Dublo sets in terms of packaging etc, but brought up to date with the new style Dublo locomotives and high detailed carriages etc... and we have "The Royal Scot" set.  This is modelled on a real life train service called The Royal Scot and features a Duchess class Locomotive a pair of coaches and an oval of track (which is how Dublo sets used to be presented in years gone by).  They have even gone  to the effort of providing authentic loco head board, carriage name boards etc... (in metal) which can be added to the train if wanted as well as some interesting extras and detail parts to give close coupling, more realistic wheels etc...

Anyway enough of my rambling on, now I'll let the pictures do the talking;

Add-on bits...

[Super]

The Duchess is beautiful. I take it this is a OO scale and not the N that you have been rounding up lately?

It looks amazing, there's something really beautiful about lms Pacifics in BR green, I've got an older hornby princess in the green, and even if that looks great, the metalic finish offered by (if I'm not mistaken) the metal body really lifts the look of it

The Duchess is beautiful. I take it this is a OO scale and not the N that you have been rounding up lately?

Hi Super,

Yes, this is OO (hence Dublo - if you say it you'll get it )  I pre-ordered this back in Jan or Feb, can't remember exactly when, but before I got involved in the Kato N gauge again.  I left the pre-orders stand as these are quite special and add to the other two limited Dublo's I already have

Incidentally the Duchess class is pretty much a Princess as they are very similar...

Cheers, Nigel

It looks amazing, there's something really beautiful about lms Pacifics in BR green, I've got an older hornby princess in the green, and even if that looks great, the metalic finish offered by (if I'm not mistaken) the metal body really lifts the look of it

I know what you mean, I've not been a fan of the BR Green on the Hornby models ever since they started to produce the models in the matt green colour.  Prior to that their models used to be either full gloss or like this model semi-gloss.  From what I've heard the switch to matt paint jobs was to satisfy the demands from the 'rive counters' who claim on a model it looks more realistic.  Very odd that as whenever I've seen full size real steam trains they invariably are painted in a gloss paint and in preserved state usually gleaming, so how they can say a matt finish is more realistic I really don't know.  The older Hornby, Triang and Dublo models were mostly gloss or semi-gloss.  Although I have to agree I think the metal body definitely helps with the paint finish on these models...