Hornby 2022 Range - Our Top Picks!

Hornby 2022 Range - Our Top Picks.

At the start of this week, Hornby announced their highly anticipated 2022 Range in 00 Scale. There are many great new products that cater for modellers all over the country, with modern image multiple units such as the Class 745 in Greater Anglia livery and Class 423 EMUs in Southern and Southwesttrains Liveries being announced alongside the London, Midland and Scottish railways experimental 'Turbomotive' 4-6-2 locomotive. Also announced was an expanded 'Railroad Plus' range, which features the Class 57 in Great Western Railway livery, very appropriate to me - as I write this post while currently on board the 'Night Riviera' between Reading and Exeter. Also joining the Railroad range for the first time we see the Lima tooled Class 67, in DB Executive and Colas Railfreight liveries, and the Class 108 DMU, also an older tooling, returning to model stores in BR Blue and BR Green guises.

High Speed Trains once again form the backbone of this years range, with multiple Class 43 powercar packs expected by November 2022. The most interesting of these may be the Railadventure pack, which features two buffered Class 43/4s in the very unique Railadventure Green and grey livery. These powercars are sure to be popular, and a very interesting and unique model that many people are sure to enjoy, an added bonus of this powercar set is that there is no need to buy a rake of coaches to go with them, as they only have been seen (as of yet) running as a pair, or being hauled across Europe by big German diesel locomotives! The fun doesn't stop here, three more surprise announcements were the First Great Western 2005 livery pack and matching coaches, the East Midlands Trains pack and the East Coast/national express pack and coaches. These three announcements are sure to excite many modellers as previously High Speed Trains in these liveries were very hard to come by! Also due is yet another pair of Great Western Railway powercars, this time representing 43004 'Caerphilly Castle' and 43155 'Rougemont Castle' - these are used on the Class 255 'Castle' Sets operated by GWR on medium distance regional trains such as Taunton - Cardiff, or Plymouth - Exeter. These are accompanied by a rake of four Mk3SD coaches allowing you to represent the most modern iteration of the High Speed Train in the west country.

Another staple of the Hornby catalogue in recent years is the Intercity Express Train, or Class 80x packs, this year we will see four new IETs, including Lumo Class 803s, Transpennine Express Class 802s and Class 80xs in GWR and LNER with additional coach packs allowing the formation of 9 Car trains as seen on the core Paddington - Penzance and East Coast services. The Transpennine liveried IET is sure to be popular as it features possibly the most striking livery ever applied to a train in the UK, and it will go great alongside Dapols Class 68s and Accurascales Mk5a coaching stock, northern region modellers are certainly in for a treat this year! The Lumo 803 is the newest Train Operating Company in the UK, and the model of the 803 by Hornby will add some variation to the layouts of any modern image east coast modeller, and would look great running alongside Hornby's LNER 80xs and their soon to arrive Class 91s and Mk4s. Whilst on the topic of Class 91s, this year we can expect 91110 in the special Battle of Britain Memorial flight livery alongside 91101 'The Flying Scotsman' in another colourful and unique LNER livery.

Steam era modellers are in luck this year, with the announcement of steam locomotives with working smoke generators, this can even be found on a new model of 60103 Flying Scotsman, the newly tooled Stanier '5MT' among others. This will add a whole new level of authenticity and realism to any steam era layout, or even on rail tours for those who model modern image but still want an excuse for a shiny new steam locomotive. Other Noteworthy steam era additions include the A1X terrier in the Isle of Wight Central Railway livery in a set along with three teak style coaches, a 3F in a fake LMS livery and seen in the 'Railway Children', the Hornby Dublo range which unfortunately our allocation has sold out of, the Hornby M7 in a hybrid British Railways southern livery and three Bullied Pacific's in their streamlined form - one 'Battle of Britain' Class, one 'Merchant Navy' Class and a 'West Country' Class. There is a multitude of new Train Sets due this year, two of which include the Era 1 L&MR Steam locomotive 'Lion' which can be found in the controversial 'as seen in the Titfield Thunderbolt' train set as well as the 'lady With the Lamp' set. More sets include the 'Triang' train sets, one of which features a breakdown train to represent the original train set that was released back in the 50s/60s. Two new 'Railroad' train sets are due, one the 'Network Traveller' featuring a Class 06 and freight wagons, and another set featuring a railroad class 67 and a variety of modern image-esque railroad wagons known as the 'Red Rover Train Set'.