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Will Hornby ever release the 4VEP again?

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Sad Sprinter

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I know that model railway firms cycle through models every now and then. Surprisingly, Hornby's 4-VEP was only avaliable for a short period of time, but I have not yet seen any sign of it ever being released again. What's everyone else's thoughts on this?

Also, I really wish Bachmann would release their 4-CEP in NSE livery, I wonder whats stopping them?
 
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Colin1501

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Also, I really wish Bachmann would release their 4-CEP in NSE livery, I wonder whats stopping them?
The Bachmann tooling is for an unrefurbished 4-CEP. None of these ever appeared in NSE livery - NSE started in 1986, by which time the CEP refurbishment programme was complete.
 

Islineclear3_1

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NSE livery was only ever carried on refurbished 4 Ceps. They were rebuilt/refurbished between 1979-1983/4. NSE livery wasn't applied until much later; in fact, many refurbished Ceps were painted in the London & South East Sector "jaffa cake" livery from about 1985

A refurbished 4 Cep would require retooling which is probably not on Bachmann's priority list right now

I'm sure you can pick up a Hornby Vep on eBay. I wish the blue/grey version came with curtains and of course the cab windows were not quite right
 

Bevan Price

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I know that model railway firms cycle through models every now and then. Surprisingly, Hornby's 4-VEP was only avaliable for a short period of time, but I have not yet seen any sign of it ever being released again. What's everyone else's thoughts on this?

Also, I really wish Bachmann would release their 4-CEP in NSE livery, I wonder whats stopping them?
It probably depends whether they think thay can sell enough of a reissued model.
 

Journeyman

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Unfortunately the Hornby 4-VEP was a surprisingly bad model, with enough small flaws to really spoil it, and as a result, I don't think it was very successful. Nowhere near as good as the BIL or HAL. It's a real shame, as it could have been used as the basis for a CIG model - identical underframes and cabs, of course.
 

Wivenswold

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7153, the testbed for the refurbishment but didn't receive hopper windows and survived until 1990 (by then renumbered "1500"). It carried "Jaffa Cake" livery but not NSE.
 

Journeyman

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7153, the testbed for the refurbishment but didn't receive hopper windows and survived until 1990 (by then renumbered "1500"). It carried "Jaffa Cake" livery but not NSE.

It still looked significantly different to the unrefurbished ones, though, because of the relocated brake van.
 

Wivenswold

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Ah, this is the point at which my Eastern Region (aka "North of the river") origins and knowledge of subtle Southern Slammer differences are exposed.
 

DJ_K666

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Unfortunately the Hornby 4-VEP was a surprisingly bad model, with enough small flaws to really spoil it, and as a result, I don't think it was very successful. Nowhere near as good as the BIL or HAL. It's a real shame, as it could have been used as the basis for a CIG model - identical underframes and cabs, of course.
Even the BIL had it's errors, if you've seen the late Colin Parks's thread on RMWeb about modifying it.
here is the thread. Colin was a very talented, yet modest man, very happy to talk about ideas and give sound advice to people. His 4SUB that he built from scratch was long in the making but really looked the part too. Here's the 2BIL thread.
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/73651-2-bil-to-blue-bil/

There's also a thread about a guy modelling the temporary 6REP units using Hornby VEP, MJT parts and brass sides. As well there's a 442 in there and a 4CIG. Well worth a look.
 
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