Warbonnet

True Rich, I know Seamus was stocking some yank locos back in the good old days (proto 2000, Broadway) and I bought 3 or 4 locos from him. There are rarely freight cars though which is why I was delighted to see these. I'd happily buy one or two a week to keep me busy of an evening. Marks are also selling so US bachmann locos and freight cars but I steer clear of them as they're not great. Very reasonably priced mind you so if they serve as a gateway for people into the US scene then happy days.

Dropped into Hawkins street Marks Models last night for a decoder and spotted a basket full of Bowser freight car kits. So picked up a pennsy boxcar to make today. I haven't tried to make a bowser kit before so was keen to see what they're like compared to Accurail, atlas etc. have to say very nice indeed. I added my own kadees and will replace the plastic wheels with metal ones but overall great to see some yank stuff in shops here!

Looks lovely and smooth. Sound good too! Thanks for sharing.

Sorry Dave, I thought you were referring to release date. Yes, the April edition. Model Rail are getting as bad as Model Railroader for mad dates for their magazines as Tony refers to.

Ah I see, I was just being lazy last night and used it for the pics! I will put up some proper ones if people are interested.

Cheers lads. Will do Anto, I will give you a shout once work dies down! Also, I have no idea what happened to the pictures I uploaded. They were the right way round on my ipad when I uploaded them last night and checked the thread, now on my work computer they're upside down!

Didn't give a date Dave but said they'll all be in the Galway livery.

There's a picture of the restaurant in Galway livery in the April Model Rail. Very nice it looks too.

My beauty bargain arrived today. Class 57 in porterbrook 'grafitti' livery. Limited edition from the Bachmann Collectors club. Brand new in box.

Well Done Westy, maybe get onto George Dent and see if he'll make up a Maedhbh or the brake van for Model Rail. You can contact him through his blog site.

Sorry about that Seamus, They'll work fine in most locos. Take Anthony's advice as per above!

Sell it and buy an modern Hornby set and have a few quid left over with the winnings!

Brendan uses them religiously and nobody runs trains slower than him! I use them a lot too and have never had a problem with them.

Those Hornby Saphires are junk Seamus in my opinon. I've tried two and I don't like the running qualities of either. Maybe try the Bachmann 3 function 8pin? Cheap and I've not had a problem with any of them yet.

My sarcasm knows no bounds

Some pics of my latest arrival as requested, a Bowser Alco C630. Thought it would look good running with my Athearn U50. It's my 1st Bowser model so I was interested to see how it stacked up. On the plus side the detail and paint is very good. It's very heavy and is the usual all wheel drive and has LED lights. Sadly it's let down by the woeful handrails, which on one side are seriously distorted. I have seen pictures elsewhere of other Bowser locos suffering from this. Athearn get stick for their handrails but none of mine are anywhere near as bad as these. I will have to look at replacing them. Anyway, the pics!

Indeed, it begs the question why they went to a foreign country to take pictures of another railway's locomotive to pass off as their own! Money to burn!

I think thats why I like it so much.

Hard to tell but it looks to me that even the bogies are grey. Be interesting to see it a bit dirty too.

Looks like I'm in the minority!

Well done getting the video, looks great!

Handmade collectors piece? Me arse! Worth 35-40 squid max.

The Hornby 08 is the best one out there (super detail job mind you, not the ancient old trainset one missing the outside frames!) but the Bachmann one is nearly as good. Bachmann also do the outside door strapping variation of the 08 which I believe the CIE D's had as well?