Hornby Reviews 120

Celeste Jackson from customer service was absolutely amazing and sorted my problem out within 24hours. Her willingness to help and sort out my loco made the experience painless. Hornby a customer service is amongst the best!!!!

Ho avuto bisogno di due pezzi di ricambio e ho trovato la massima gentilezza e disponibilità. Veramente grazie.

I recently purchased a Ford Mustang GT 1968 Quickbuild kit from Lidl. Unfortunately there was a defect with the injection moulding on one of the parts. I contacted Hornby and their customer service team were really polite and helpful. They sent me a replacement model free of charge. I'm over the moon with the excellent customer service that I have received from Hornby and I now have an excellent Model of a 68 Mustang. I can highly recommend Hornby Hobbies Ltd. Thank you very much

Great customer service from Hornby. The service advisor Celeste Jackson in particular dealt with my issue promptly and professionally and was very supportive.

Trying to build a model layout from scratch for my grandson. Got a faulty Loco. Warranty probably expired but I bought it from Hornby in Dec 2023. I e-mailed Customer services asking for advise and solution for getting it repaired. Waited 10 days and no answer (Not even now 17/3/26) So I e-mailed their technical services and to my surprise.... no it was no surprise really... I got NO ANSWER. The price of these loco's are really high and for anyone to start now is an expensive hobby and if Hornby treat all potential customers like this then they will soon kill the hobby or go out of business altogether. I will avoid buying from Hornby again if I can help it. Hornby was a big name in the past but in the future they are a name everyone I have encountered in this hobby despises.

We had a crack in part of an upperbody of the Pocher JPS F1 car HK114 Lotus and messed up 4 ignitions on top of the Ford engine. After some back and forth emails. Nwe its arrived , foc! Hats Off for Hornby div. Customer care service!Regards, Robert, TheNetherlands.

Ordered a train set for Christmas. Delivery was quick and efficient. However, within 3 weeks of little use, the power car stopped running. Reported to technical services but waited another 3 weeks to know where to send for assessment, having in mind it is obviously still under warranty. Received response with details but indication there was a potential turn around of 6 weeks. Item sent 2 weeks ago although no acknowledgment of receipt as yet. Had owned Hornby products many years ago without any problems and so obviously disappointed. In the meantime, 8 weeks after Christmas there is a train set which can't be used and with no assurance of how long it will take to resolve.

I had a Corgi Vanguards model arrive missing a headlight. However, the Customer Services team were very helpful and certainly went beyond what I was expecting.

I had to write this review after seeing such poor reviews from other people.

I ordered three items for Grandsons for Xmas as we also bought them a Scalextric set and I ordered accessories.
Unfortunately my son doubled up on the accessories so I had to return them.

Admittedly there was a bit of a delay in being able to return, but to be fair they must be very busy after Xmas.
I tried to be patient and sent a couple of emails which got prompt and very courteous replies.
I cannot fault their customer service and I did thank Celeste for her service in particular.
Thanks Again

Purchased for my son’s birthday. Tested it beforehand. Didn’t work. Spoke to CS via email (long wait), returned via post with returns number, yet weeks later no refund.

I am beyond angry.  Actually I am furious; totally livid.
I bought my grandson a starter railway direct from Hornby last Christmas that was faulty, and it has taken a whole year to rectify the problem with the faulty train.  So finally he now has a starter set that works. 
I bought him another train for his birthday in November which he was over the moon at receiving, 
His dearest wish for this Christmas was to have the Flying Scotsman, so imagine my fury and frustration when I was told that this didn't work!!!
So I have had yet more aggravation getting the item replaced and the defective one collected. Hopefully Amazon will have a replacement with me today.
My grandson is devastated. He is obsessed with trains, his knowledge about them is remarkable, as is his memory. And to see him so upset was awful. 
He was over the moon excited on Christmas day to receive it, and to receive yet another faulty item from this company was, with no exaggeration, devastating. 
When my son was small he had a Hornby train set and many trains, all good quality and worked well. 
What has happened with these products? All now produced in China, I expect, at a lower price, lower quality and higher profit for the company. 
I am angry, irritated and frustrated at having the aggravation and seeing my grandson's disappointment.

graphics are nice as is the colour on this tanker wheels and model very cheap nasty plastic a big disappointment overpriced for this quality and price ruined a potentially good model
should be sold in £ shop

Purchased a TT120 scale train set, just to keep me and my grandkids ticking over till Christmas. One thing has lead to another and we decided to build our own model railway. If you like art and crafts, this is such a great investment into having great fun. Do your research and enjoy the fun. Thanks Hornby ❤️

I can only review what I experienced on Friday which bucks the trend of recent customer reviews.
We recently ordered 2 Wireless Scalextric controllers. One was unserviceable on receipt. Both E Mails provided on the website did not work so I rang Customer Services. Fiona was very helpful and arranged a replacement that arrived in 26 hours and sent me a QR code to return the defective item
Although we were very disappointed with the fact that 1 item was defective on receipt and the fact that the E Mails for both customer services and technical services came back with "relay access denied" I feel that Fiona must be given 5*

After years wanting a train set black Friday I decided and went for it.
Had no delivery details just turned up by dpd.Anyway just wanted to say made up so far

Ordered a set in the black friday sale which was to be a Christmas present. Received a notification of delivery time from DPD for a time when I was not in so asked for it to be dropped at a local collection point. Instead it was taken back to the DPD Morley depot and sat there for 5 days before then being returned to Hornby. I contact customer services who then took 6 days to respond. When they did respond they asked if I had managed to resolve the issue and that was it. I then responded advising that I needed them to resolve this as it has been returned to Hornby and as of yet still no reply or resolution which is a further 4 days on. I would avoid Hornby as there customer service is non existent and now i have a child that will be without a present they really wanted

I have just received my TT120 Duchess of Athol back from Hornby hobbies technical repairs, thank you guys from a non working model to a fully functioning locomotive it now runs as it should. Excellent service thanks again..

Absolutely rubbish products, very poor quality. Hornby has had its day. Wish we had bought my son Bachmann, more expensive but a far higher quality.

OVER 130 DAYS AND STILL WAITING.
After wrong information given to me by Hornby who in April or May 2025 first advised me to return 2 faulty TT locos (both still in warranty) to the Wonderworks shop saying because I bought one of them there it needs to go to the Wonderworks and not to Hornby repairs, they finally apologised and arranged a return in June which they received June 20th. I chased their repairs dept. by phone 22nd August, they said one was fixed and the other waiting for a chassis. I phoned again 12th Sept, same answer but they agreed to send the fixed one, still nothing. I phoned again 22nd Oct, they agreed to return the fixed one and send a free replacement for the other, STILL NOTHING. Maybe it will arrive soon, but I shan't hold my breath. Over the last 5 years I've spent around £5,000 direct with Hornby on both TT and OO (yeh too much I know), plus other Hornby purchases from retailers. Of course that all counts for nothing, but now I've completely lost faith in Hornby.
Jeff Howard

My son has just got into model railways, 00 gauge. We only live 15 minutes from the Hornby building in Margate. Thinking that we could get all the help we needed we embarked on numerous trips spending over £800 on locos, decoders, and various other items. Without going into too much detail I can only say the sales staff are sadly lacking in anything remotely knowledgeable/ helpful. You would think that there we are in what I thought would be the most helpful establishment to do with all things trains, but NO. On every trip the staff seemed disinterested, completely lacking in knowledge, and as a result we were sold about £1000 worth of goods that we didn't need, were wrong, not compatible. I appreciate the rules applied by Hornby regarding the 30 day refundd policy, but after a month trying to sort out the issues we returned the locos to be told sorry couldn't do anything about it, I asked for a credit note for the locos that had never been used with the receipts and was told NO, even though the members of staff knew we had been regulars and purchased a large quantity of items. We sold all the locos and decoders on e-bay at a loss of about £500. There is one gentleman who works in the shop sometimes who is very helpful, the tall man dark hair, if he's not around forget it.