Hattons pre owned Hornby

Hi All. As a dedicated Southern Railway fan , I have purchased a number of overpriced preowned pieces of stock from Hattons.   They sent mr an email, telling me that a “wish list item” had just come in? It was the famous, or version of Bogie B Passenger Brake, but it is “ Made in China “, it looks okay. My question is “ When did Hornby’s manufacture  begin in China “? And the number of this van is R4535-P002, if that means anything ?Best wishes. Kevin

R4535 is the 'new' super-detailed Bogie B non-gangwayed van in SR olive green. This model has never been made anywhere other than China. It also means that the finish and detail way surpass the old gangwayed luggage van that dated from the 1950s.

I don't have a date fr when manufacture was transferred to China, but probably from the late 1990s. The Bogie B model dates from well after that, coming into the shops somewhere around 2012, I think.

Hi Jeff.  Thank you for your reply . With the Hattons preowned label , Ref. “R4535-PO02” , I don’t know whether that means anything to you ???. I must say that it is a fine looking model with the mesh at the windows, and it has spare Couplings for closer coupling. And I don’t know about the Hornby original, but this one is a similar length to the         Wills kit.    Best wishes. Kevin

I think you mean the Ratio kit - it's essentially the same vehicle type. The Hornby model is indeed a very fine model.

I am only guessing, but if Hatton's have more than one of the same thing in the pre-owned section, they tend to add a suffix reference: P = pre-owned, 002 = the second one listed.

Hi Jeff.  Thank you, silly me , of course Ratio. Even if I had known about the POO2 , beforehand, it wouldn’t have made any difference to me because Hattons didn’t let me in on their coding system secret?   Best wishes. Kevin