12-04-2025
Is this the end of the line for model railways?
These are tortuous times for model railways. Earlier this week, the venerable model maker Hornby delisted from London's Aim stock exchange.
The move came after a period of turmoil for the company, which owns Scalextric, Corgi and Airfix as well as the eponymous model railway brand, and a 60 per cent slump in its share price over the past year.
They are the most prominent name in an industry that has been generally struggling in the face of rising costs, shrinking living spaces, an ageing population and abundant electronic competition.
'The board is well aware of the place Hornby has in the hearts of its loyal shareholder base, and the announcement today is not taken lightly,' the company said in a statement in March announcing the plan to go private. It had been listed for more than 40 years, but with 91 per cent of the company owned by two businesses, they no longer believed it made sense to have the remainder available on the stock market.
The company said that delisting will save it around £400,000 per year, adding that being private would 'improve its decision-making' and let it make necessary changes to the business 'at pace.'
Over nearly a century, Hornby has endured through recessions, depressions, insolvencies, the Second World War and the advent of video games. But the past few years have been notably difficult. Last year, two of the linchpins of the model railway world, the Warley Railway Club exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham and Hatton's Model Railways Shop in Liverpool, closed amid reports of rising costs and ageing enthusiasts.
Some wonderful highlights from my visit yesterday to Alexander palace and the London festival of railway modelling. @ModelRailClub
— jason francis (@jasonfrancis71) March 16, 2025
Hornby posted surprisingly strong revenues after Covid, when locked-down Brits discovered – or rediscovered – the joy of making a miniature train set in the garage. But it was a rare bit of good news, their first profit in nearly a decade.
Otherwise, the recent past has often proved gloomy. In November, the company announced a round of redundancies at its headquarters in Margate, Kent, after posting increased pre-tax losses of £5.1 million in the year to September 2024, up from £4.9 million the year before.
'Hornby are a vital part of the hobby and if they go under we would all be very sorry, but something is not right,' says Antony Cox, chair of the Model Railway Club, Britain's oldest model railway fan club, where fans meet every Thursday just off the Pentonville Road in north London to discuss gauges, listen to guest speakers and generally do the miniature locomotion.
'I hope they come through whatever problems they are having. But Hornby have made three or four management changes in the past 20 years and some of their decisions strike me as a bit odd,' Cox adds, stressing that he is speaking for himself rather than the club. 'Their products aren't bad, but somehow, something is not right on the inside with Hornby at the moment.'
Phoenix Asset Management, a firm that specialises in turnarounds, owns 82 per cent of Hornby. Another 9 per cent, worth around £2.1 million, is owned by Mike Ashley, the Sports Direct boss.
Ashley was brought on as a consultant last March, having built up a significant stake in the business. The eccentric billionaire is not much given to press announcements, especially after the criticism he endured as owner of Newcastle United, so we must presume that he sees in Hornby a version of what he has created with Frasers Group: an umbrella brand holding famous brands that have fallen on hard times.
Hornby was approached for comment. It has previously said its restructuring plans were on course. The most recent figures were promising, with sales in the final quarter of 2024 up 10 per cent year on year, propelled in particular by the Black Friday discount day, when 50 per cent of purchasers were first-time customers.
An optimistic version of the decision to delist is that it is part of a restructuring that will enable the company to stay nimble in a fast-changing world.
For the uncertainty around the hobby, there are also signs that it has a niche as a tactile, family-friendly activity that gets children, their parents and grandparents off their screens for a few hours.
'Hornby have always been uniquely placed because they are such a household name,' says George Dent, the editor of Model Rail Magazine. 'The remit has always been to appeal to a much broader spectrum of enthusiasts. Their product range is good. Like any company, they have had their challenges, but I think the consensus is that they are on the right track.'
Besides, the company has long mixed good times with bad. Frank Hornby patented Meccano in 1901; they produced the first clockwork train in 1920. The first OO gauge model train was launched in 1938. In 1964, Hornby was bought by a competitor, Tri-ang. Two decades later, in 1981, it was bought out by management after the parent company went into administration. Five years later, it was listed on the stock market. Phoenix took over in 2017, after a controversial process in which the company said Phoenix's offer 'significantly undervalue[d]' it.
'Hornby goes up, it goes down, it has good times, it has not such good times,' says Simon Kohler, sometimes nicknamed 'Mr Hornby', who worked for the firm for more than 40 years in total, latterly as marketing and development director. 'In the heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no 24-hour television. Boys played football, girls did other things. Trains were a game, a family entertainment. People got it out at Christmas. The world changed in the 1980s with electronic games. Virtually overnight, train sets became old-fashioned.'
Yet, while the children's market diminished, another rose to take its place: older enthusiasts, with deeper pockets and a desire for ever-more detailed replicas. By continuing to focus on younger audiences, Hornby initially missed out on the burgeoning new demand. But by 2000, they had changed course and launched their Southern Railway's Merchant Navy class locomotive, the rebuilt 'Clan Line,' which marked their move into higher-class models. The business prospered until 2008, before it hit another downturn in its topsy-turvy history.
'[Then] they had the financial crash and issues with factories in China,' says Kohler. 'Costs started to increase and it began to struggle once again.' Kohler left in 2014, after which he says 'it all got a little bit confusing and I have to say they lost their way a bit.' He rejoined in 2017 after the takeover and retired in 2023.
The move from child's toy to collectable has given rise to a new fear; that model railways will become 'an aged hobby', popular with the older generation but struggling to attract new fans. To counter this, in recent years, Hornby have introduced new products aimed at re-engaging younger fans, including an app to let you control the trains with a phone or iPad, bluetooth technology that lets users control trains separately, rather than having every train on a track run at the same time, and a new TT:120 gauge system – smaller than the traditional OO gauge but larger than the N gauge.
And Hornby aside, many involved argue the hobby is in robust health. Cox says the membership of his club has risen 25 per cent since he took over a decade ago. At Alexandra Palace last month, thousands of visitors flocked to the London Festival of Railway Modelling. Model railway accounts on Instagram, such as the one operated by the owners of the Miniatur Wunderland museum, which houses the largest model railway system in the world, attract millions of followers. The Gen Z enthusiast Francis Bourgeois, who got into trains through models, has introduced a new generation to the joys of all things train-related.
'I've been in the game for 25 years now, and there has been talk of doom all that time, with the arrival of computer games and things like that,' Dent says. 'But it was pretty steady in the early 2000s, and then even before Covid, there was starting to be a resurgence of interest. Lockdown just accelerated that, with people rediscovering old-school hobbies, getting away from screens and doing something physical and tactile. That's the beauty of this hobby – it's not just about trains and track, it's miniature worlds. It's very therapeutic.'
'It is a broad church of people,' he adds. 'There are kids and families, a lot more women. It's more vibrant than at any point I can remember.'
Kohler agrees. 'I've been in this business well over 50 years, and it's an exciting time,' he says. 'There are other companies out there, and you have to keep looking towards your laurels and be better and more efficient. I'm excited. Hornby's in my blood. My wife always said Hornby was my first love, and she was my second, which is fairly accurate, I suppose. When things are good [Hornby's] up, when things are bad it's down. It gets affected by innovation but it bounces back. It's a whole world.'
'It's not the same as it was in the 1970s. A train set is not on every child's Christmas list. But which other hobby or pastime can teach you about geometry, physics, logistics, social history, basic electronics, topography, mathematics? When people operate a train, they don't realise they are learning.'
In the age of the iPhone, a model railway is a way for generations to come together and enjoy something real. For now, at least, it is a hobby that endures. And despite its difficulties, where there are model railways in the UK, there will likely always be Hornby, somehow trundling on.
