Warbonnet

They are the same except for the shaved head on the hopper top, which makes them look quite different alas.

You're not short in stature or patience Noel (except maybe in the case of a RTR A Class! )

Super stuff, thanks Kieran!

You reminded me that there is that other Gareth, who is also still a member!

Good man Noel, thanks! Any idea on wheelbase by any chance?

Hi everyone, does anyone know what the length of each car in a 2600 class railcar is? Cheers! Fran

They go for big money on EBay these days. Don't think many were produced.

One Gareth is still a member, another one was politely (and rightfully) told to take his leave.

£90 for the twin pack is a decent price. One single Autoballaster in UK livery is €70 in Marks for instance. In hattons a Genny is £46 on its own. Though who knows how high it will go!

Overall black as per the roof doesn't capture the prototype though. It's a combination of silver, rust and diesel exhaust black. They do start out in life silver as far as I can remember. I have seen them painted silver as per Eamonn's suggestion and it really pops them out.

Sean Ryan will be the man to talk to Peter. Usually placed towards the back of the hall.

Irish Railway Models will be there this Sunday, happy to take orders and shoot the breeze!

As many of you probably know by now, there was an IRM delegation in Germany this weekend. We got to check out real trains too, here's some pics from Frankfurt Hbf and Nuremberg Hbf for those who are interested. Enjoy! ICE 1 Frankfurt Hbf 05022017 by franburke, on Flickr

So, to the news! As Patrick mentioned earlier, himself and myself had to fly out to Germany this weekend to meet our Chinese factory representatives to discuss and finalise a number of details. They are as follows: 1. The ballast wagon will be going into production next week after Chinese New Year ends with a delivery date of late April 2017. 2. The tooling for our Tara Mines wagon will start next week also, which will see our production schedule accelerate dramatically now we are dealing directly with our factory. 3. Once the Ballasts lands the bubbles will go to production with a summer 2017 release date. 4. We have secured extra production capacity with our manufacturing partner which will see an increase of new models we will be bringing to market. Some of these will be fairly easy to guess while others will come as a surprise to many! That's the news folks! It's been a hugely tiring day but we've reacquainted ourselves with some old friends, made some new ones and have begun our next chapter!

We appreciate the patience and help everyone has given us in bringing you the first indigenous Irish RTR wagon Kevin. As you know there was a hiccup along the way which has brought this delay, but in the grand scheme of things we're doing better than most RTR manufacturers in delivery times (I have a British loco on order since 2010 for example!) considering we do this in our spare time. However, the wait is thankfully, almost over...

Hi Robbie, just to let you know it's forum rules to post an asking price too. Cheers!

Probably the worst time of year to sell anything David in fairness.

They're a sweet wee model. Absolutely tiny. Good to here Mr. Ex-Modelfair is still going. Got some of my 'hard to source items' from him in the past at good prices.

Exactly Dave. Nobody has a clue how this is going to pan out. Apparently the train is a lot less than air freight and faster than ship. I wouldn't be surprised if Britain tries to do favourable trade deals with China, the USA and other non EU markets. Only time will tell.

It will be hard for someone, most likely. However, at this juncture we have no idea who that will be. My purchases from Germany have been comparable to UK, save Hattons who subsidise postage. As I previously stated, businesses like Hattons have been deducting VAT for customers outside the EU for years. If they want to sell to people in the EU, then businesses would be stupid not to offer the same facility to the EU after Brexit. Simple good business sense. I have bought from the States regularly and if you go over the €150 duty (not VAT as you correctly pointed out, my bad) the penalty is large. But I still save over buying the same product in the EU. We simply have no idea how Sterling will react, but economists predict it will drop and already has since the Brexit vote. I guess I'm more a 'glass half full' kinda guy.

We simply do not know what the VAT structure shipping from outside the UK to Ireland at this early stage of the Brexit process will be. At this time, as Garfield has pointed out, if you buy goods to the value less than €150 outside the EU and have it posted to Ireland, there is no additional charge. If UK businesses deduct VAT on products shipped outside the country (Hattons for example has been doing this for years for orders outside the EU) then you will see a 20% discount on the sticker price. The would keep a lot of products under the €150 threshold. Paying an extra fiver on your shipping rather than using Parcel Motel will still see you making a saving. There are a huge amount of variables to consider before declaring 'dark days ahead'. Will sterling tank for instance? Have read many economists predicting parity with the Euro, this will bring down the cost further. Not to mention altering tax rates post Brexit, which could include VAT. It's far too early to say. It has as much chance being good news for us as bad news. I do agree with Noel though, it is almost certain to drive the price of British outline models up further due to the weakening pound and I think we've seen this already with recent Hornby and Bachmann announcements. Shipping from Germany to Ireland is not that expensive. I've done it myself. And most German websites offer English translations. I can't see them scrapping that over Brexit. The import threshold from Europe to the UK may be similar to what we experience from importing outside the EU. Again, far too early to say. There is always Google translate too which is nice and handy. Maybe something like Parcel Motel will cease to be viable, but we will still buy stuff from the UK. I wouldn;t go all out with the doom and gloom just yet.

Great job Glover! Re buffers, this is something we're replicating with our ballast and bubble wagons, making sure the heft of the prototypes is recreated in the models. One major drawback of a lot of RTR models is the anaemic and underscale buffers. You have got them spot on.

I'm happy to bet that we will see an A Class Kevin. These things take time and resources.

The 201s that were set aside (apart from a few fire/crash victims) did not have PP capability. I have always wondered was it an expensive job to retro fit them.... It is interesting however to see a couple of 201's on the comeback trail in Inchicore, with 230 currently getting rebuilt after its fire on Enterprise duties. Looks like the demand for locos is growing at least...

The head of IE of the day disliked the whole shunting process needed with loco-hauled trains. He was a former head of NSE and was used to multiple units and the flexibility they offered. This meant binning 201s and 071s off passenger trains, but also 141s required at places like Heuston and Connolly for shunting/release and of course the coaching stock involved. Railcars offer a more streamlined operation in this regard to Mark II and Mark III loco hauled stock IE had apart from the push pulls of course. The country was awash with money at the time and the desire was there to give IE plenty of funds to buy shiny new trains. While Mark IIIs are still running in the UK on a daily basis they've been refurbished a couple of times at least. IE's were due a big refurb and at the time it was explained that new trains wouldn't cost a whole lot more and would offer greater savings in terms of running costs, flexibility etc over existing stock.