Warbonnet

We’ve just Unloaded the van after a very busy two days at the great Bangor show. Thank you to everyone who made purchases, preorders and stopped by to say hello! We saw some familiar faces and made some new friends too. A big thank you to Derek Carter and the NDMRS for looking after us so well. Roll on next year!

Just back from the Bangor show and several people over the weekend were singing the praises of this layout at the IRM stand. I love the setting, big fan of urban layouts and this nails the location! Excellent stuff.

It is my understanding that the old MIR kit forms the basis of the silver fox Hunslet. It captures the look of them very well.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by for a chat and a purchase today, we had queues of people saying hello and placing orders. Lots of people waited patiently to talk and place orders too as Patrick and myself talked to other customers and we really appreciate that. We got to catch up with familiar faces and made new friends too. It’s a great show and the North Down Model Railway Society should be congratulated once again. We’ll be back tomorrow with bubble special offers and Plough, Tara and Accurascale preorders! Cheers, Fran

Was never a major fan of the black and silver but this pic of 074 has been my screensaver for a long time now. It's great to see the 071s getting TLC. 074 North Wall Ballina Liner 28082017 by franburke, on Flickr

Hi everyone, Drop by our stand this weekend at the Bangor show to check out our pre-production Tara Mines wagon, pre-order your ploughs as well as Tara's and pick up some bubbles at attractive rates! We will have packs C, D, E and F for sale and we accept both euro and sterling and all major cards. We're down to 10% of bubbles left in stock, so they wont stay around for much longer with A and B sold out and C and D not too far behind. Dont miss out. See you there! Fran

Erm, we haven’t really decided yet! Terms would be same as the offer round the Wexford show. Thoughts?

Hi guys, we do accept your point of view and we thank you for your suggestions and feedback. The plough is probably the riskiest project we are undertaking as there is so few we can produce. It is a very niche model in a very niche sector of a niche hobby, so the risk is great. Thankfully it so far has sold well, but we know there is only so few we can sell. Based on our market research and experience selling models so far, CIE has lagged behind the more modern eras such as IR and IE, so we decided to play it safe for now and go with those two liveries. Having said that, we are not ruling out doing a CIE liveried set in the future. It will just be based on the success of the IR and IE pack and sales of other CIE era models we have made so far, such as packs B-F in Cement bubbles. While they have sold well overall, ivory has certainly outstripped orange in pace of sales, and as Dead Kennedy says, can probably be attributed to greater longevity into IR and IE era. We are also concious of ‘overheating’ wallets, and with Ferts with CIE roundels as well as Bell and B&I liners to come there is new stuff coming for CIE era, as well as spoils and weedsprayer for modern day operations, as well as there being ivory and orange bubbles already on the shelves for the discerning roundel modeller. Anyway, to conclude, we will make plenty for CIE modelers, both this year and beyond. This includes blue Tara’s (in time!) and yes, ballast hoppers with roundels and should sufficient demand dictate (250 of you) CIE roundel ballast ploughs to match. I hope this helps clear up any confusion. These things just take time and LOTS of cash that we need to make out of other models to fund the next tranche. cheers, Fran

Hi Noel, they will be easy removable. Cheers, Fran

Sorry men, it's been flat out here! The model does have half doors, Richie switched them off for the time period being modelled / represented by brake codes etc in the CAD render, which is of course the later state. All the details for the earlier liveries are on the model, just in case we do the CIE livery in the future.

We did an interview with Ben Jones for the May edition of Hornby Magazine, discussing the plans for IRM and Accurascale and our background to date. Not sure it will give a 'behind the scenes' look at us but it might give an insight into all things IRM. @Garfield will sign copies at the Bangor show on a first come, first served basis!

IR leads by 5 at the moment

Perfect for you @Noel

Thanks men, we’re at the 20% presold already! We were always a bit apprehensive about doing the plough as we could only ever do them in such a low quantity. While we will do another batch of hoppers some time in the future it’s unlikely we’d have call to do a further batch of ploughs. It’s great to see you all get behind them and vindicate the decision!

Sorry Noel, I reread the spec and I have made an error re DCC. The functionally is the following; There is on/off capability with DCC chip, but if you do not fit one the lighting will be on as a constant. So strictly you do not need to fit a DCC chip to have lights on with DCC, but you will have control if you fit a chip. apologies for the confusion! Hi Craven, yes if you order now it’s payment up front as it’s how our web system works. You can of course run the risk of waiting for them to be released and hope they don’t sell out before release. cheers, Fran

You can get two function decoders for a lot less than 25 euro if you know where to look. We will have chips to recommend in the coming weeks. They will be 8 pin and installed inside the van.

No Noel, for DCC control it will need a decoder. The switch is for DC use.

Hi Geoff, Yes, the Irish Cement branded bubbles that we found sold out in about a minute and a half this morning. We will have ivory packs C and D as well as orange packs E and F for sale at Bangor. Drop by the stand for a chat, be great to meet you. Cheers, Fran

Correct Noel, this utilises the Bubble / Ballast chassis.

My colleagues @Glenderg and @Garfield will have that info

I've talked to a couple of lads who have bought sets C and D and added Railtec Irish Cement logos, so there's always that option too! Oh God yeah, Irish railways are seriously complicated, as we have found out since we started IRM!

We have hard pictorial evidence of four bubbles which had the Irish Cement branding and we did three of them. If someone can find us two more we will absolutely do a pack!

Sorry for the few technical gremlins this morning folks, all sorted now and the orders for both packs are flying in!

Hi Noel, we may do them at a later date but these vans fit with the era of our ballast hopper release so it made sense to do these liveries to compliment them. Cheers Fran