This week, I had a meeting at @Hornby’s Margate HQ. Afterwards, we were kindly given a site tour inc Visitor Centre (shut til 2021), old modelmaking factory, trade displays PLUS a private full-size train collection inc a Eurostar. With permission, here are some highlights: (1/12)

Tim Mulhall (COO) showed us the trade area displays: Hornby Hobbies now owns not just @hornby but @Airfix @Humbrol @corgi @HornbyFrance @Scalextric (and more) so there’s an IKEA-style walkthrough of all brands’ key ranges. I’d no idea Airfix had so many kits on sale..(2/12)

Special shout out to the @Scalextric team who clearly have challenged themselves to build the most complex possible layout in the space available. Imagine this being your *actual job* (4/12

But they let me ACTUALLY TOUCH some pre-production samples of Gresley’s Hush Hush W1 loco though. Oh and look it’s James Bond’s Aston Martin: the most popular @corgi car ever, with many millions made. And ooh MORE new @hornby: it’s the @networkrail Flying Banana! (5/12)

In the old (now mainly silent) Hornby factory there are many old demo layouts from shops, exhibitions and photoshoots. AND quite a number of old injection moulds from years past - a few were saved from a purge about a decade ago. Fascinating stuff. (6/12)

Out the back is Jeremy Hosking’s private railway collection. Yes that’s a Eurostar. Yes that’s @IMechE Class 47. Yes that’s a Deltic. And yes that’s a Wickham Railcar (similar as seen in St Trinian’s Great Train Robbery). This is not open to public aside frm rare open days.(7/12)

The @hornby Visitor Centre is stuffed with stuff we might remember... but some of the lesser-known past products too (Lesser-known perhaps to non hornby aficionados, anyway)...The LIVE STEAM OO gauge! The Battle Space range! The Irish Hymek of 1976...(8/12)

Loads of working model layouts (highlight of which was a @Scalextric set on which I roundly THRASHED @RichardKeenan4 for the record) - these will be back when the visitor centre reopens next year. (9/12)

Oh! I almost forgot. 1980s/1990s Hornby and Scalextric fans will enjoy this Provincial livery DMU I found in a disused workshop, the long-disused overhead line catenary testing area and the BART SIMPSON @Scalextric SET. Cowabunga, eat my shorts etc. (10/12)

Look! It’s the last ever hornby moukded model to be made at the Margate factory, the tunnel. Every trainset should have one. With more complex models across the ranges required, production has shifted to China to ensure prices are competitive. Alas, but needed. (11/12)

Please exit via the @hornby model shop, which IS open at the mo. Btw @RichardKeenan4 spent a fortune here but I’m not allowed to tweet that in case his wife reads it. Oh the shunting engines tho... ANYWAY. Thank you @hornby for a fascinating visit; & thanks for reading! (12/12)

Oh I forgot to include this image...
of Dirty Den and others off of @bbceastenders playing @Scalextric