Warbonnet

I'm sure he makes a living, but it's a lot a money to fork out up front and placing your trust in a factory thousands of miles away to deliver the goods correctly. If they cock up you're up **** creek without a paddle and a rather large debt over your head as the product wont sell. His dedication has seen things done properly. Having said that I'm sure he isnt lighting cigars with 50 euro notes either, which some of the begrudgers would have you believe sadly.

A Marklin locomotive of similar size to say a 121 or an A will be about €100 more expensive to buy (RRPs). Their production runs would be much larger and they would have the possibility of making many more locomotives over the lifetime of the tooling as the market and demand would be a lot larger. Rivarossi is now owned by Hornby and their models are made in China. Bachmann, Hornby, Athearn, Atlas, Murphy Models, Proto 2000, Walthers, Broadway Limited, MTH, Dapol, Heljan all have one thing in common. Their models are made in China. I think they all know where the best place to make models are when it comes to price point and skills. If we were to make our wagons here in Ireland you can lob at least €100 onto the price. I'm sure the same can be said for Hornby etc. Then we'd have to find someone capable of making them! If you want to go along with your commendable patriotic choice there are plenty of MIR kits of 141s, 071s, 201s and soon 121s kicking about at swapmeets which you can buy as they were made here over the Murphy Models alternative made in China.

China (for the moment) is still the most economical place for manufacture. The 121 will be the 4th time that Paddy Murphy will take on such a serious investment. The guy is a hero for risking that much cash over the years with not a massive amount of return. Irish models are niche, small run stuff as there are less people interested than say American or British outline. This is why the prices of the locos when they come on market are slightly higher. We'd all love an A Class of course, but it comes at a serious price.

Yes, and that's up front.

Sadly Noel there are two options; A bit of modelling work and a re-chassis of an existing A model currently available to bring it up to scratch, or donating around €200k to Mr. Murphy or similar and wait 2-3 years at least with the hope you'd make your money back. Anyway, this thread is about the 121's so let's keep it on topic. Thanks.

Hi Mfjoc and welcome! We have no plans to offer the under frame on its own. However we do plan to maximise its potential in years to come. It is the most viable way of offering a RTR wagon to the Irish Market.

A RTR A Class is available.

Glad to be of service!

Not strictly EBay, but if anyone is looking for a Green Woolie http://www.ehattons.com/171280/Bachmann_Branchline_32_150Y_U_Class_N_36679_Locomotive_385_in_CIE_RLYS_LNWR_Green_Livery_Limited_Edition_for_/StockDetail.aspx

Nope. Freight runs during the day but no freight goes south of Portarlington. Bizarre a freight train is blocking up around Ballybrophy. Must be a permanent way working.

There is a similar video on YouTube about building an LMS Princess (I think) where one lad lights his woodbine off a red hot rivet! They really are great videos from a time sadly long gone.

Burlington Northern EMD SD70MAC in their 'executive scheme' which was short lived before BN's merger with Santa Fe to form BNSF. Prototypes were delivered from 1993 and BN got 350 of them before the merger.

Having seen this beauty up close all I can say it will be a stunner! Even has a real leather interior!

I reckon if you were to count the amount of RTR models produced of any Irish loco the 201s would be the most numerous. They're quite popular, just maybe more plentiful in supply than others...

Press release from MM The 'interim' livery for the 201 is the Enterprise livery with the black band only. I believe that 8209 (?) was the loco that ran like this for a number of months?

Marks has some spares too like replacement railings, might be worth an email.

Missed that actually. Good spot!

2016 looks like it'll be an expensive year for us all! http://www.ooworks.co.uk/current-models/4568653183

New Enterprise I believe Tom. Source is editor of Rail Express Modeller btw. Not pulling it out of my behind

Word is that a provisional date of Christmas 2016 has been given to the release of the first 121s which will be the first grey and yellow livery and the final IE livery with more to follow in 2017. Corrected Supertrain Mark IIS and 201s in latest livery are also on the way.

Happy new year to all and we can't wait for the ballast wagons to arrive and we're hoping to be blowing some bubbles too

Links work fine for me. Weird