DJ Dangerous

Awesome, thank you... Or "tank" you... So they are a necessity for anybody modelling Irish Rail over the last 20 years? Hint, hint, @Arran!

So have the Dana tanks now finished their tenure on Irish railways?

Let's hope not! It may be likely that it's the final loco, but there have to more coaches on the way. The Mk2D's span the black and tan, SuperTrain, IR and IE generations, and there's even one of them in the RPSI's green rake today, possibly another one soon. That tooling has to be good for another few runs, one hopes!

Try Chris Dyer. He can commission re-sprays.

If Arran doesn't release them, Weshty has the transfers available from Studio Scale Models.

I'm not so sure on the cab lights, yay or nay, but the rotating axle box hubs are the dogs dangly bits, whether on locos or on IRM's wagons, they just add far more than you could imagine.

Damp? I don't remember what that is!

Where's that George fellah gone, skulking around in the background but never doing repaints? Only one of the four still available from Hattons...

They were gone within minutes... Four more live just now: https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/siteresults.aspx?searchfield=auto ballaster

Five Bachmann Auto Ballasters up on Hattons right now, second-hand, Network Rail, in case anybody wants some for repainting: https://www.hattons.co.uk/stocklist/siteresults.aspx?searchfield=Auto ballaster

Murder, you mean.

I'd second what @murphaph and @Irishswissernie say. Starting online to test the water before opening a physical shop is a no-brainer. I'm sure that there are rules of thumb as to how many years of losses it takes in various industries before breaking even, so you'd need to look into that. If it's five years and €500k invested before you break even, for example, you'd need to have that time and capital to spare, while also having means to survive personally. You'd also have to ask yourself why people would shop with you over the competition. Why would a customer of Marks Models for the last twenty or thirty years drop them to shop with you? What are you going to offer that is so much better? Marks Models website is rubbish compared to Hattons, so having a decent website that is updated daily would certainly be a good reason. Ditto the search facility. Search for something on Marks Models website and you get no images, no alternatives, just a list of text-only entries. The easier it is to buy from you compared to your competition, the more likely that people will spend more, and will return. A well laid out website, a great search engine, regular updates, clear and accurate photos and descriptions, and you are certainly part way towards success. An example of another great online shop is the IRM store. It's so well laid-out that you don't even need a search tool, but there is one, and it is excellent. Either way, best of luck with the venture!

Rakes of 12 were not that uncommon:

Thank you! Wow, incredible sales so far!!!

Will we get a heads-up here on the forum if any of the thirteen wagon packs are running low on pre-orders? If I recall correctly, the website stock level countdown doesn't start working until the packs are actually in stock.

They were probably hauled along the rails by some sort of locomotive?

I had been trying to find some "today" 071's as well, but they appear to have been very small runs of 250 each, and now command insane money online. Try contacting Chris Dyer, who has commissioned some 071 re-sprays into grey for me. For the InterCity 201's, it might be worth checking with Chris, and also with @WRENNEIRE

To simplify for idiots like me, a "DCC Bus" is a fancy name for a power cable running underneath your board (usually), from your controller, following the route of your tracks above, and "Droppers" are cables passed from your track through your board to this cable. And, "Frogs" are the blades on your points.

So an Advanced Consist is where the two decoders are set up so that the locomotives have the same running characteristics, but the controller doesn't actually know that the locos are running in consist? Whereas in a Command or Universal Consist, the individual decoders don't have to be configured to match each other, as the Controller manages both decoders to keep the locos running smoothly together?

I never thought of that. For Insulfrog type points, surely you'd need to somehow liven up the insulated blade or run a feed to the track off the dead blade, as the whole idea of DCC is that everything is always live?

Excellent, thank you! I sent them an email a week or two, so will also ask about that when I get a reply.

And what a lovely back-scene of ScaleScenes cardboard containers you have in that photo! Totally off-topic, but where does one source the gauze to model the platform around the cap on the centre of the oil wagon?

And that's why the trackwork and pointwork looks so clear and neat!

So for example you could turn the headlights on or off on the lead loco, or blow the horn, while using an advanced consist, but if both had the same address, both would receive the same instruction?

Tortoises are mounted underneath, I guess?