murphaph

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/owner-feared-historic-sheffield-family-business-would-be-destroyed-huge-fire-3129811 Hopefully the elderly gentleman living upstairs makes it. Seems a lot of stock needs cleaning.

The article was written in the immediate aftermath though. The author ordered items before the end of the transition period and was charged UK VAT as was the law at the time. He then got stung again as the items were shipped in the new year. Hattons should have handled orders at that time better. I asked them how they'd handle orders (my 121s were pre-orders with them) that were billed in late December. I never got a satisfactory reply. I was just lucky they arrived in stock in time. Now I would expect it to work fine as they are shipping it Irish vat and duty paid. Brexit hasn't ruined Hattons EU sales because of one thing: Model railway items are tariff free. They mostly only have to worry about vat. Otherwise the rules of origin would cripple them like it's crippling online clothing retailers for example because very little of what they sell is made in the UK.

Fantastic bit of film. Would love to see the rest!

Did these reefers ever go by rail in Ireland?

Personally I prefer it if sellers just deduct the vat at home and export the item ex vat so I have a sporting chance of the item flying under the radar. Smaller, lighter items, even if the declared value exceeds the €22 threshold seem to often get through German customs without interference. My latest such delivery was some containers from c=rail. Declared value £52. Green German customs sticker "exempt from customs inspection" and just delivered to my door as usual. The weight plays a big role in whether or not a parcel gets properly checked in my experience. If stuff is sent through the regular post to Germany then it's going to be Deutsche Post/DHL that pays the customs on my behalf and they only charge a €6 handling fee. I like to take my chances but in other countries this fee can be much higher and customs may be much more thorough so those guys are probably more likely to want a supplier to register for vat locally. I think both An Post and Royal Mail charge more than €6 so I wouldn't want to speak for anyone living in Ireland or the UK.

Hattons are vat registered in half a dozen EU countries now because their turnover in each country exceeds the threshold. I have yet to order anything from them since the first of January though. Hoping that when I do it goes as smoothly. The German post office should be well used to this as a lot of Swiss firms sell into Germany and must also register for German vat. Fingers crossed. Unfortunately it's really the small traders, selling absolutely unique items that are hardest hit by the new regulations. Edit: the regulations aren't new. They are just being applied to the UK as a third country for the first time.

Chadwick model railway YouTube channel released a video recently about managing inclines. Might be worth a look. Also remember that an incline on a curve appears steeper to the loco than one on a straight.

Thanks for doing the poll Noel. I find the baby GM rerun demand particularly interesting. I voted for those too but didn't think many would but there's something about them that people just love. 121s are great but to prototypically run them in most liveries on an end to end layout you need to either turn them or run in consist. Babies don't have this problem. As for the steam question....I also voted for a diesel there because there was no preserved steam option. I would have voted for that if available and readily convertible to 21mm (I'm sure inside cylinder models can't be that much more difficult than diesels to regauge). I voted for "more freight stock" because in my era of the mid nineties UK prototype stock is widely available to modify and respray. The freight stock is more or less unique to Ireland, hence my desire to see more of that first, however if I had to choose passenger stock I'd pick Park Royals as they were still running in my era and are not available as resprayed GB stock.

A Guinness keg lorry would be a nice addition someday.

The Ford based ambulance from Tiny looks close enough to me but I'll admit I'm not an ambulance expert lol.

Definitely. Estates were even rarer. It's one of the things that struck me when I first moved to Germany: almost the default version of a car was the estate or hatchback model with very few saloons in comparison. The saloon car was king in comparison in Ireland back then I would say. My father had Granadas before "graduating" to an Audi 100. A 5 cylinder beast of a thing which I loved going anywhere in. All used and several years old when bought mind! Neighbour had a series of Jettas after graduating from a Ritmo. Actually Fiats were far more common back then full stop.

There's a HK based company called "Tiny" that also do the odd 1/76 item. Must be the British heritage or something. They make mostly HK specific vehicles but they do make a UK St. John Ambulance that would also work fine on an Irish layout. Not as cheap as Oxford mind.

I'd second and third a Bus Scoile and a KC in Bus Éireann livery. Hinos are a "must have" for an Irish layout of a certain era. Ireland wasn't as wealthy as the UK so the vehicles reflected this. Hinos were cheaper. Cars on an Irish layout would look fairly different to a GB one. Invariably the lower spec (no alloys, no spoilers, 1.4 CL as opposed to 2.0 GTI). Far fewer transits and far more Hiaces.

It looks really lovely John. Well done.

Done Really only takes a minute.

For an 800 Class I'd buy it just to put on display to be honest! It's good to get Fran's realistic feedback about the short to medium term viability of Irish steam etc. I'm still genuinely optimistic that the market itself will grow over the coming years and attract further returnees like myself.

But on the flip side bringing out RTR steam (from steam days) brings a new dimension to the hobby that could encourage sales of a whole new range of RTR stock. I model tippex diesels. I'm not all that likely to buy a whole heap of black and tan versions of diesel stuff I mostly have in tippex but I can certainly see myself going a bit further back to steam days and then the accompanying rolling stock of the day becomes interesting to me all of a sudden.

Even though I want to (and am focused on building the collection to) model the 1990s, I'd probably buy any RTR Irish steam engine that could be converted to 21mm without major surgery, but preferably a preserved loco to start with.

Fair play lads. Going from strength to strength.

I did a double take too. Didn't realise it was Lego looking at it on my phone. What a great job.

The solder balls idea seems very suitable for our application. I think I'll give it a go as well when I'm doing scenic stuff. I've ordered a jar of them for a tenner. I think it's worth a shot sooner rather than later, the idea sounds so good.

Thanks chaps, then I will just use the Xuron cutter for now and see how I get on

Gut instinct would be St. Peter's road in Phibsboro for one of the bridges.

What are you guys using to cut your PCB point sleeper strips to exact length? Any experience with "the chopper" as I've seen mentioned around the web? Oh and a chap on a German modelling forum said something like "Our English friends are very peculiar in their ways when it comes to choosing a solder. They seem to have all sorts of odd alloys available. I always use 60/40 SnPb unless soldering white metal". He also told me something on a more technical level: SnPb won't ever melt below 183 degrees C. The Carr's stuff must contain something else and he told me about Tin/Bismuth SnBi solder which is actually probably what the Carr's detailing solder is: https://www.jufengsolder.com/low-temperature-solder-wire-/sn42bi58-low-temperture-solder-wire-1.html The thing is, it's really difficult to find in Germany he said, usually only as a paste. So I'll stick with trying the 183 degree stuff I have on order for now.

I already ordered a local alternative to the Fry's powerflow flux (it's actually from the plumbing trade I believe, used as a flux on copper fittings, so a suitable alternative was easy enough to source here. I imagine they will work similarly anyway as they are for the exact same purpose) so I am going to try the coreless SnPb + flux way first and see how that goes. Melting point of the stuff I found is 183 degrees. If it's no use I can still use it for electrical work. It's lower temp than the lead free stuff I have here for electronics. I guess I will find my own path with time. I'm just trying to avoid being railroaded into looking exclusively for stuff in Rice's book because it's almost exclusively UK only and difficult to come by here in Germany. Oh here are the few bits I got from the S4 society: Note the check rail gauge is for P4, not Irish P4. I just wanted to see how it's made and maybe modify it if possible. It was only a few quid. The rest of the gauges are 21mm however.