Warbonnet

Tara Production nearing Completion! Production of our highly anticipated Tara Mines wagons is nearing completion and should be finished early next week before dispatch to Dublin by air! As you can see, components such as the chassis features high levels of details and the final assembly and checking is now taking place. We anticipate that orders will begin shipping during the final week of August. It's been a long wait but we firmly believe that they will be well worth it. Have you placed your order yet? Don't miss out on what promises to be our best model yet! https://irishrailwaymodels.com/collections/tara-mines

Email is Noel at info and we’ll get you sorted out!

Hi everyone, I know this is very, very short notice, but I will be doing a short talk and a meet and greet at the The Model Railway Club rooms at Keen House this Thursday evening (August 9th). The Model Railway Club have very kindly agreed to facilitate us for this event and are also throwing their doors open to the general public. It would be fantastic to meet you there and answer any questions you have about IRM /Accurascale, the industry and what we are all about (except 'what models are we doing next?' no dice on that one!) We know it's short notice, but I just happen to find myself in London this week! I also heard a rumour about the club having a fully licenced bar?? Doors open from 7pm and the talk and Q&A begins at 8pm. So, if you're UK based and in the London area it would be great to see you there for a chat! (P.S - I will also be on the following railtour so if you cannot make Thursday and you are on the train on Saturday I'll be happy to chat too!) More info: http://www.themodelrailwayclub.org/ Cheers, Fran

No bother! It was @BosKonay that did the hard work!

Cheers John! The discount email has just been sent and should be with you all shortly! Cheers, Fran

We will help you out Andrew. If anyone else wants to add the CIE plough to their existing order of both IR and IE vans then please wait for the email with the discount code which will be sent to you shortly! Cheers, Fran

Please see here for the latest update: Cheers! Fran

We are delighted to announce that our forthcoming highly exclusive CIÉ/Irish Rail 24850-24854 series ballast plough van, is now available to pre-order in original CIE condition as an additional bonus model in the 2018 IRM range. Five of the CIÉ/Irish Rail 24850-24854 series vans were introduced in 1978 to supersede elderly pre-grouping vans for the Civil Engineering Department. They usually ran in pairs, top and tailing ballast hopper trains with the plough/veranda facing inward across the Irish railway network until their withdrawal in 2013. We had previously announced the vans in later IR and IE condition, but after calls from modellers an additional pack in original CIE condition has now been added to the production run, strictly limited to 250 packs. The CIE plough vans will be faithful to the prototypes, lacking the later applied mesh screening over all the windows and it will also feature the half-sized doors on the veranda of each van. The vans will come finished in yellow with CIE roundels as per the real thing. The model will utilise the same chassis as the ballast hopper and cement bubbles as per prototype, and will include features such as fully detailed interior, including bunks and heaters for the crew, as well as full DCC control of interior and tail lights via a two function 6 pin decoder. (sold separately) The vans will also feature a switch for these features for analogue control users. The Plough Vans will be made in a strictly limited production run with the vans coming in a pack of two for a sale price of €119.95. They will make a perfect companion for a new run of IRM Ballast hoppers with CIE roundel livery which we plan to release in 2019. Discount bundles will also be offered for those buying all three packs of plough vans, with a special price of €340 for all three sets, meaning the CIE set will cost just €100, a saving of €19.95! This will be open to those who have previously ordered both IR and IE packs who wish to add the CIE pack to their order, with an email being sent to customers with a personal discount code enclosed later today. If you have already bought one pack, and wish to add the other two and receive the special offer, email us with your order number and we will process it for you. This price reflects the very small production volume and complexity of the model. The adapting of the moulds to account for the tooling changes required to offer the plough van means that delivery of all the plough van models including IR and IE livery will now be pushed back to October 2018. Orders are now being taken here.

They're getting ever closer....

No.

I believe the Hornby to Hungary rumour is nonsense. Intermountain has sadly been affected too. And before anyone asks; we’re fine! But we hope those affected get sorted really soon. cheers, Fran.

That will be sorted too @scahalane but there will be manufacturing tolerances to consider. We’re working with the factory to find a nice and easy solution to remove the loads @popeye cheers, Fran

Hi Noel, It’s 250 packs, each containing two vans. We’re constrained by minimum order quantities by the factory when it comes to decoration. As I said, there will be an update on Wednesday. thanks, Fran

Thanks guys, we should have an update on this on Wednesday. Cheers, Fran

Yep, it looks odd in the Render, but rest assured in the CAD it is correct!

Hi Pop, We will be doing loads with the wagon (we had to do a bit of reworking of the bags after we showed our fert bag expert. Yes, we found one!). The centre beams in the middle two bays will be included! thanks, Fran

Thanks JB, just to say that the roundel on this is faded white, not Tan. When we show the rest of the artwork at launch you will see strong white roundels for the CIE era wagons. This pack is aimed for their latter years of service. Cheers, Fran

Thanks JB. All the artwork for our models are taken from photos from the real thing, which would explain the placement of the roundel and the “48 TONS” in this instance. Rest assured it was taken from a photo of the real 35083! Cheers! Fran

Friday evening teasing. Here is the artwork of one of the forthcoming fert packs. More details in the coming weeks. Enjoy! (and yes, there will be CIE Packs too!)

We looked at it with the factory before man, but they just cant get the finish right. So we leave it to the experts!

A few in this thread Welcome to our research hell!

Thanks Noel. As we have always said, the best form of communication to us about a popular item or era is the sales figures. So if they sell, we will make more. Simple as that. As for people on holiday, we will leave it open a few more days, but we are coming to crunch time if we want to get this produced and delivered on time. So, if you know a CIE guy who would be interested, send him a text, email, telegram, carrier pigeon etc etc. Cheers! Fran

Hi Kevin, Okay, I think you've read the wrong way into our recent discussion on the plough vans. There are very few, if any, more niche items to be made than the CIE plough van. We thought 1,000 would be a struggle to sell, as a rake of ballast wagons only needs two plough vans, hence asking is 1,500 of them actually viable. Rakes of items, whether they be wagons or coaches, are more viable certainly. Nobody wants a rake of plough vans, that's for sure. That's why we've asked you all for support to make it happen, so everyone is kept as happy as possible. The 111s are viable as they are just an 071 in a different livery. Locos are sexy, and few more sexy than the 071s, so you can sell lots of them. A lot more 071s were made than any plough van will ever be. Accurascale and IRM are two separate entities, so both must be viable and succeed. We cant make 5,000 plough vans and leave 3,000 to rot on the shelves using Accurascale money. It doesn't work that way sadly! As for coaches, I'm sure we will look at them. Locos too. But these things take time, lots of it, and we have a packed schedule which costs a f**k ton of money to produce first, so we dont want to get ahead of ourselves and lay claim to everything and leave everyone waiting for years. These things will happen, but it takes time. It's far more likely to be produced now than it was a few years ago, I think that's what everybody needs to remember. Sorry for taking your quote out above, but I feel it is most important to stop the rumour mill going into overdrive, especially when the narrative is incorrectly interpreted. We're an approachable bunch as you said, so just ask us out straight about these things. Cheers, Fran

Hi Noel, Some interesting observations, but I'm not sure I agree with the assessment tbh. A few years ago there was no accurate CIE era stock, as there was no IR / IE stock. Now there are some, between us and another manufacturer, and people who are interested in that era are now holding off buying models pitched in that era? Sorry, I don't really understand that logic to be honest. The ivory bubbles were suitable for CIE era. Okay, the brake tests had more modern dates on them, but we use photos for all our models, so we go off what we have in the photos as there aint many clear detail pics out there, so surely some transfers or heavy weathering would take care of this issue if it really bothered a CIE era modeller? The 99% are happy to run those wagons behind their CIE era locos. I know it's not enough for some, but surely they would get the transfer sheets out? The market here is tiny, we try to cater for everyone but it's difficult to please everyone as we are seeing here. We have said we will make blue Taras, which are CIE era, we have made orange bubbles (we said we would produce them depending on interest of the ivory ones, which was fair enough, we were doing it in Richie's kitchen at the time!), and ivory bubbles with CIE branding. The ferts will cater for CIE era as well as more modern era, and liners such as B&I containers are coming too. That, coupled to the ballast plough above and if we do press on with it, CIE branded ballast wagons too, is a serious commitment to the CIE era. I don't know how much more we can show our commitment to that era to be totally honest. At the end of the day, the likelihood of us making more orange bubbles is slim, same with ivory. at least in the next 7-10 years. If you got them when they were available, happy days. If not, it's a case of you snooze, you lose I'm afraid as demand by the many will have been satisfied and there wont be a enough demand for another run, despite the few who decided to wait. You can also bet that the price point will be higher. There are also a rake of Supertrain Mark IIs on the way from Paddy. Sorry to use an age old saying but, 'the CIE modeller has never had it so good!' What more can we do?

Thanks for the feedback everyone, we will sit down and look at it again and see how it stacks up before making a call on it either way. We also welcome further feedback on this thread. It's a good bit of money at the end of the day, so we need to be absolutely sure as I'm sure you can all appreciate! Cheers, Fran