Warbonnet

It's been a little while since we announced an Accurascale Exclusives wagon pack. Actually, no. It's been a whole week! But here we are with another one, and one that uses a wagon type we have not talked about for a while. The interesting and unusual NER 20t hopper wagons found plenty of use in private owners hands, especially in an industrial setting. We thought we would add another triple pack of these to the first production run in the eye-catching and rather attractive "Londonderry Collieries" livery. History Built on the site of old blast furnaces, situated at Nose’s Point south of Seaham Harbour, construction of Dawdon colliery commenced on August 26, 1899 to alleviate the expense of mining the old shafts at Seaham Colliery, and the colliery fully opened in 1907. By 1910, the 3,300 miners at Dawdon Colliery were already producing one million tons of hand-mined coal per year and by 1930 the numbers employed at the colliery had reached their peak, with a workforce totalling 3,798 people. Prior to 1899, Dawdon had been a small village of 83 houses, but under the patronage of the Sixth Marquess of Londonderry, it was extended during the early 20th century, by the building of twenty streets of new housing to accommodate the rapidly growing workforce at the colliery. In the early 1930s, the increasing tonnage mined by Dawdon Colliery led Londonderry Collieries to issue an order for a new fleet of wooden 20T hoppers, with Charles Roberts & Sons winning the contract, constructing the new wagons during 1935. The design was virtually indistinguishable from the North Eastern Railway P7 types, even down to the fitting of extended wooden stanchions and the end open ‘letterbox’ recesses for assisting in rope haulage operations. As elsewhere, the wooden stanchions were quite quickly sawn down to headstock level, in line with general LNER practice, but examples persisted even into the 1950s. Under the nationalised National Coal Board, steel bodied wagons rapidly replaced wooden bodied wagons at the collieries, and the surviving former wooden 20T workhorses were either moved centrally to Seaham, to be used for the tipping of spoil and ‘smalls’ (bought up from the staithes by the fleet of Seaham’s Chaldron waggons), or derated to 15 tons for the removal of very large coal pieces. Unlike the Chaldrons at Seaham, which had a usefulness not served by other wagons, the surviving 20T hoppers were surplus to requirements, and had all but disappeared from the railways of the Londonderry system by the early 1960s. The Model The Londonderry Collieries 20t hoppers complete our NER hopper wagon line up for our first run of these wagons. A vital cog in our "Powering Britain" series of coal wagons through the ages of the railway, these wagons are now in production and arrive in stock with us in late Q4 2024. Pre-Order Your Exclusive Londonderry Hopper Pack Right Here! View the full article

Following on from our recent update on the former Hattons Originals Andrew Barclay tank engines, the other run of tank locomotives initially announced by Hattons but taken over by ourselves, the P Class, are also progressing through production rather nicely indeed. We received decorated samples just after the run was taken over by our team, but it was immediately apparent that some tweaks to correct the samples for production were required. There were three locomotives in particular which required corrections, and recently we received some sample bodyshells with these corrections in place. Let's have a look at them! H4-P-017: SE&CR: Buffer blocks now correctly Indian Red, not black. Front splashers now body colour, not black. SE&CR Crest printing improved. Wainwright Green now improved to match colour samples. H4-P-018: SE&CR: The top of the buffer blocks now correctly in red, not black. Front splashers now body colour, not black. Buffer Beam numerals now correct appearance, and additional text added on the left side. Cab side plates were set too high, and have now been repositioned. Cab roof is now a single colour, and does not have the green inset. Tank side lettering has now been spaced correctly, and the yellow improved in colour depth. Incorrect shade of Simplified Wainwright green has now been corrected, to account for less varnish being used on the paintwork in this period. H4-P-018: SR: The top of the buffer blocks now correctly in red, not black. The locomotive number has now been changed to 1027, correct for the livery shown (1323's livery had been misinterpreted). The rear bunker number has now been located in the correct position. Production is now underway and we are on course to deliver as per our original delivery date of Q4 2024. These are available exclusively via the Accurascale website only for £99.95 each. Pre-order your loco below! Pre-Order Your P Class Here! View the full article

Looks like it was a good show. A friend was there with his layout Ebbsworth Street, which had Jools Holland behind the backscene inspecting at one stage I believe!

Hi David, I complimented the thread on being respectful, and something we could then engage in. My remark about disrespectful behaviour goes back to more historical incidents on here, some of which you defended IRM on, or indeed witnessed even in recent weeks. I think it's a perfectly fair comment. The buffer spacing between both real 121s and 141s is the exact same. It is just the models that are different, both of which were conscious decisions and understandable. Thanks, Fran

If you are referring to the model, then no. Both were built on different chassis in different factories. Cheers! Fran

Hi folks, Just to confirm that these rivets will be present on the finished models. Some rivet elements are added at the end of the tooling development process, so not always present on samples. Cheers! Fran

Very well said and much appreciated @Flying Snail. We are always open to constructive comment and being open and honest with our point of view when there is some respectfulness in the comments and an understanding and acceptance of our point of view too. When a tantrum is thrown it makes engaging and assisting a lot more difficult. All we have ever done is try to do our best by the Irish element of our great hobby and provide lots of models to bolster what has gone before, so we can make Irish outline railways a truly viable and attractive proposition for everyone. I'm sure most are aware of our Accurascale side of the business, and how well that is going for us. With competition for factory capacity at an all time high, it would make more business sense for us to concentrate on high repeatability projects for Accurascale where we can do 15-20 reruns of over the life of the moulds and sell more due to the market size and demands, than doing any Irish outline model, as we may get 1-2 reruns tops of over the same period, and a much smaller production run to begin with. Our external accountants have basically argued that IRM could be seen as "costing money" as we leave those revenue opportunities on the table, but we do IRM and persist with bringing more and more models out because we love Irish railways and this is our home and our market. It's for the love of it. We are not asking to be hailed as heroes, or looking for excuses should we make a decision someone disagrees with, or indeed an error (we are all human after all), just a little bit of respect when expressing viewpoints. All I will say is that many Irish models, not just UK repaints, have had this set up for many years now, so it must be remembered that it's not an exclusively IRM Bulleid wagon quirk. It's odd how it's never been mentioned before. After all, all our wagons before these had them at scale distances and all ran behind locomotives which had the spacing at UK spec, and nobody ever said anything. Our As were the first to have them at correct spacing, and have been hauling coaches with UK spacing. It's amazing how our humble little Bulleid wagons brought it to the fore! Cheers! Fran

Hi Dave, The Park Royal’s as it stands is done to prototypical Irish spacing. This is due to the future development of our range of both coaches and motive power which will become apparent in the future. Cheers! Fran

Hi Al, It is up to you what you decide to do, but note that a lot of Irish models are made this way, and we tried best to facilitate everyone, but that is impossible. If you wish to cancel future orders please email us with your order number, but it is also worth remembering that your 141 class locos, cravens, 071 etc also has this and it is very unlikely models of this quality of these wagons will ever be made again, being very niche to begin with. Cheers! Fran

Hi folks, As you can see below, lined up with a 141 they match perfectly. I believe this is the same for 071s, Cravens and 201s too from another manufacturer. Not to mention Woolwich moguls, jintys etc from this era. While not in scale position, it does match the majority of locos made and looks more at home on 00 track, which we find that 99% of our customers prefer and use. We also considered the historical usage of these wagons in mixed trains, such as cattle wagons, tankers and vans which many modellers already have represented on their layouts using re-liveried UK models, and we felt it odd to have our wagons have a different buffer spacings in an otherwise uniform mixed train. We went for a compromise as a result. It is a case of "Damned if you do, damned if you dont" I'm afraid. Of course, for the finescaler and top modellers out there, they can be repositioned with some modelling if they choose to do so. We try to be considerate as possible for those who wish to go finescale, hence the new 28mm axles that make 21mm gauge easy, put sometimes we have to make a choice We showed off all samples early on and heard no objections, so we pushed on with production. Cheers! Fran

Hi everyone, Great news! Our latest wagon project from the Bulleid wagon project, the ubiquitous CIE "H Van", is now at decoration stage! These first samples are currently being put together and will be sent to us in the coming week. We will show off the completed samples when they arrive, but these images give you a flavour of what's to come! We're still on track for a Q4 2024 delivery and pre-orders are coming in fast. Secure yours for a no money down below, with each triple pack priced at just €89.95 each, with 10% off when you order two packs or more and free Irish postage and packaging. An incredible piece of value for money for highly detailed, accurate Irish wagons. Pre-order yours here: https://irishrailwaymodels.com/collections/h-van Cheers! Fran

decorated park royals and full update due in the next 4 weeks!

Our recent announcement of our 21 ton BR hopper wagons, later designated HTO and rebodied and designated HTV has gone down very well indeed with modellers. Considering it fills a long standing and much needed gap in the wagon range of 00/4mm modellers, it is unsurprising how popular they have been if our pre-orders are anything to go by! Of course, even though the HTO and HTVs were very much seen as a humdrum BR standard wagon in grey and bauxite liveries, they did go in differing directions later on in their careers, with industrial and engineering operations making use of them later in their lives. This always gives us some great ideas for some limited edition, one time run "Accurascale Exclusives" packs, and today we present two very different packs to you for consideration; our ZDV engineers triple pack, and our ICI internal user pack! ZDV Pack With the transfer of domestic coal transport to the air braked wagon fleet of HEA wagons in the 1980’s, the HTV fleet were in terminal decline. British Rail engineers saw this and upon evaluation deemed many wagons to have a reasonable amount of serviceable life left in them. Engineering trains were typically vacuum braked and employed ex squadron service wagons in new roles and the HTV’s were no different. Whilst many wagons were converted to box-body spoil wagons such as Clams and Rudds, some of the fleet retained their original bodywork either in cut down form to gain the Tope fishkind name or not altered at all and just receiving the ZDV TOPS code. Our pack of ZDV engineers wagons represent the latter. Photographs show these wagons in use variously in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s for carrying spoil at many infrastructure jobs across the country. The patch painting, rusty bodywork and chalked markings make these wagons stand out from the rest as being unloved, uncared for yet equally vital in maintaining the country’s railway network. ICI Pack ICI Lostock Soda ash works, Northwich is more well known as being the destination of the 1930’s built LMS bogie hoppers from Tunstead but their internal rail network had a number of other vehicles present. As well as a brace of Ruston 165 0-4-0 diesel shunters, there were a small number of ex BR rebodied HTV hoppers. These were used from their withdrawal in the 1980s well in to the 1990s for carrying “hot rocks”, hot, processed limestone around the plant during the production of Soda Ash (Sodium Carbonate) The Model Each wagon features a wealth of separately applied detail, from handrails on the diecast chassis and hopper ends to the intricate brake gear and hopper operating mechanism underneath, all museum quality detail and prototypical accuracy modellers now come to expect from our wagons and which is now our standard specification. As well as a diecast chassis with full hopper detail, each wagon rides on 26mm axles, which are 2mm in diameter, with pin points in brass bearing cups for ultimate smooth performance and ease of conversion to finescale tolerances. With the wagons announced later in development to curb waiting times, we're already at decoration stage and we are about to begin production of these wagons in the coming weeks. Delivery of the models to customers is currently estimated at Q3 2025. Both wagon packs will be a one off, limited production run in special presentation packaging like all models in the Accurascale Exclusives range. Each pack is priced at £99.95 and we're operating their usual 10% off when you buy two packs or more, along with a new offer of 15% when you buy 5 or more packs direct from our website. That means each wagon just costs £27.47 when you factor in loyalty points rewards and postage and packaging being free! They can of course be mixed with other HTO/HTV wagon packs in the launch range to get these discounts. Pre-order yours today for no money down via the link below. Pre-Order Your Accurascale Exclusives 21 Ton Hopper Packs Here! View the full article

Modellers awaiting our very new and very detailed Mark 1 56ft 11' coaches have been awaiting some news on these wonderful coaches. After some trials and tribulations, including something completely new which popped up to throw yet another curveball our way, we can confirm that production is complete on our BR blue and our Yellow Accurascale Exclusives tool van. Shall we take a closer look first? As you can see, they look pretty delicious! The further good news is that production is complete for these coaches and they're already on the way to us! They are due to land at our warehouse in the last week of August. So, that's the blue and the tool van. But, what about the carmine? Well, this is where it gets interesting. When we sign off for production of a new model, everything is correct; the details, the printing and of course, the colour. These act as a template for the factory to follow. Once production is completed, the factory sends us one of every model from the production run to check and sign off on. The Mark 1 coaches were no different. Sadly, the factory used an incorrect shade of carmine which did not match what we signed off on with the decorated sample. This means the whole carmine production batch was wrong. There was only one thing to do; remanufacture the coaches in the correct colour. Our factory partner, brilliant as always, rose to the challenge of this and stood over their error. They wanted it to be right as much as we did and have now fixed the issue for us. However, this does take time, and therefore the carmine coaches have been delayed slightly as a result. We are very sorry for this delay, but it was beyond our control. The good news is that the factory are almost finished the new carmine batch, and we will have a new delivery date for these in approx. 2 weeks time. We do know that they will be approx 4-6 weeks behind the blue and tool van coaches, but we will have a more specific date soon which we will send out to you as soon as we can. Our Maroon production run is still on course to be delivered Q1 2025 as per the original announcement. In the meantime, make sure you order these very special coaches below, or via your local stockist! As you can see above, you will be getting something rather special for your money! PRE-ORDER YOUR MARK 1 SUBURBAN COACHES HERE! View the full article

One of our prouder moments!