I've had a look through the range a couple of times now, mainly just at the locomotives/units, and so here's my tuppence's worth;
I know it's not a new concept for 2022, but the idea of there being just standard "Hornby RailRoad" then there being "RailRoad Plus" doesn't work in my eyes. The whole point of the RailRoad range was, as I understood it when I joined the hobby a few years ago, to provide cheap(er) models, of lesser quality detail-wise than the main range, but at a lower price to suit. That way it was quite easy to build up a fleet of good engines, which looked like the real thing and performed reliably. Hornby seem to have lost their way with the RailRoad range now, and I can't help but feel that someone high-up has been presented with the idea of lesser-quality models without the necessary context to go with it, and thought, "these models need some more detail, let's make a new range". Maybe there's an argument to be made that now newcomers to the hobby can start with RailRoad as it is, then move up to RailRoad Plus, then on to the full range, but I'm not convinced, especially when so many of the RailRoad Plus models are old Lima toolings.
Nice to see the Class 50s back in the range, they're not bad models in many respects. Particularly happy to see 50042
Triumph in the range, given that was the 50 which got me interested in them when I saw it at the Bodmin and Wenford Railway; personally I'm a big fan of manufacturers producing more models with names/numbers of preserved examples because then everyone wins - those making models of preserved railways get realistic engines without having to rename/renumber them, and those modelling the railways during the time when such engines would have been commonplace win too because there's nothing special about a particular engine necessarily which sets it apart from the others in that context, if that makes any sense. But anyway, I digress
The 4-VEP is an interesting one; it's been a model which the model railway scene, especially on Twitter, has been crying out for for a while now. It's a new tooling I believe for 2022, and the two liveries are nice as they're sort-of modern (not modern image though any more, really), but then you've got the old unit underneath. An interesting example of how Hornby
can, if they put their minds to it, produce a model which is a bit quirky, like 3514 in the Southern green livery, being the only 423 to have ever carried that colour scheme. Let's just hope it runs better than the original!
The Turbomotive is another interesting model; it just goes to show that if Hornby think they'll be able to sell enough of those to cover their costs, they might be able to look at some other one-off engines, perhaps such as
Big Bertha, the Lickey Incline banker,
The Great Bear, the GWR's only 'Pacific', or maybe something like a Bulleid
Leader, if they were feeling adventurous enough.
There's also the really quite surprising inclusion of the Class 755/3 and 755/4. Not something I'd ever have expected to see from Hornby - a properly modern-image unit - but it is nice to see. Just got to wait and see now, to make sure the price matches the quality!
The GWR 802/1 and Lumo 803 are also nice to see. I'd been hoping Hornby would make a GWR 802 of some description for a while, mainly because we've had a five-car GWR IET from them before and it'd be nice to have a nine-car version too. They've delivered on that front - hopefully it all works well.
I've definitely missed some stuff out but that's sort of my thoughts on it all to be honest, if anyone was particularly interested (who knows, I might have said something particularly outrageous
).
-Peter