Warbonnet

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

We appreciate the support everyone, we really do. We know that there is a broad church of tastes out there, and we respect that. We will be catering for everyone as much as commercially possible and we dont expect everyone to buy every single model we make (though we really appreciate those that do and thank them for it!) it's just in this case we need that extra bit of support as it's such a short run bit of stock. It's not far off short run brass territory to be honest, and if that was the case the price would be prohibitive for most of us wanting to buy them!

Ah I get you now. Yes, we will do the blue tara's with correct lid in the future!

What's your query with the Tara roof? Cheers, Fran

Thanks for the support! The cost is a significant sum to the tooling as these mounting points need to be invisible for the IR and IE variant, so extra tooling is required.

Hi Noel. Thanks for that. As stated above: Cheers, Fran

It's under consideration, but I can't say any more than that at the moment as I'm sure you can appreciate! It would be great if we could keep focus of this topic on the CIE ballast plough for now, as we are a bit tight for time to give the factory the green light or not. Cheers!

Hi everyone, The recent discussion around CIE era modellers and the plough vans has been the subject of much debate here in IRM Towers. We have love for the roundel as much as anyone, but as sales and our customer survey a couple of years ago showed, the love seems to be for more modern era than CIE days. The debate started around our announcement of our plough vans, where we did announce the CIE version initially, but changed to IR and IE. There were two reasons for this; one as outlined above, and secondly, the CIE van requires additional tooling changes, including doors and removal of the mesh grills. However, there has been impassioned pleas for the van in CIE guise. So, we have looked at it again. We feel we can do it and add it to the order along with IR and IE vans. But there are some issues. Firstly, we really need your support on this. We stand to make next to nothing on the ploughs, as they were more about finishing the ballast hopper train off than a money maker, but if we receive cancellations of IR and IE in favour of the CIE vans the whole project becomes unviable. So, we would need you to buy them and show your support for CIE, but we would really need you to not cancel your existing order if you have plumped for IR and/or IE. We know it’s an inconvenience, but we’ve crunched the numbers several times and it’s the only way we can do it. As an added incentive for the CIE plough, if sales do go well we are looking to do ballast wagons with the CIE roundel in 2019, so you can have an authentic CIE era ballast train. Perfect for your Supertrain 141, 181 or forthcoming 121. We know it’s an unusual approach, but this is a project where we really need your support for it to work. If the desire isn’t there, then we will just do IR and IE ploughs and conclude our market research and gut feeling was correct. Here is your chance to prove that wrong and act as a catalyst for CIE models to appear in the future. Let us know what you think below, and if the desire is there we will put them up for preorder very soon for delivery along with the IR and IE vans in late August. Cheers! Fran (on behalf of the IRM crew!)