murphaph

Oh that's a shame that all the 129s have two red lights instead of two white lights. I expect a manufacturer to be forced through economics to sometimes release a livery that doesn't exactly match the hardware in a given time period because the cost of modelling every modification of a loco would be prohibitively high. So I take the "slightly off" hardware to get the livery. But this lighting arrangement never seems to have existed on any 121 from what I understand so appears to be an error either in the spec or on the factory floor. Are there lenses in front of the LEDs or are they those colours naturally? I'm wondering can they be fixed using spare parts to get two whites and one red.

The same flickering?

Yeah that's poor QC at the factory. I assume the red LEDs are driven by the same decoder output so the fault must lie in the wiring from PCB to led or in the led itself or the common positive to that led but a RTR model shouldn't have such a defect. I'm sure MM will be equally annoyed with such things.

Can you send it back for replacement? Stuff like that shouldn't happen.

My black Friday bundle arrived today. Very happy. Almost a shame to remove the loads and use them for containers but a great way to 8 new running numbers for little effort. Packaging much improved over the gypsums. Items snugly packed with bubble wrap in the void to stop the rattling around.

Hattons don't anyway. I have the three IE ones on pre-order there and the IR pre-orders went straight through the system as soon as they were added I reckon. The IE ones are still showing as pre-order on their website. Of course the pallet may have arrived and not been broken down yet. I expect Hattons have a lot of stock coming in so close to xmas.

Good to hear the warehouse packaging issues have been addressed. I'm in the middle of setting up a 121 with a blank LS5 decoder. Just using trial and error to see what is wired to what but there's not that much really. A question. Do you guys like the MM way of describing the front of the loco as the cab end? I know they were driven cab first for most of their lives but inside the cab as far as the driver at the controls was concerned that was still "in reverse", right? It's not important and each to their own but I am more inclined to label the bonnet end the front when I am setting up the decoder etc. Am I the only one or does anyone else prefer the "bonnet is front" school of thought? It's good to see all the lights are on their own function outputs so we can set things up so the bonnet end lights are off when in consist or hauling a train. Quick question about the IR era marker lights. Were these LEDs or incandescent bulbs?

The big UK retailers are well used to selling ex-VAT to outside the EU already so that's not a problem. Model railway stuff is zero rated for customs at WTO level so it's just the VAT that should be added back on. It'll come down to the handling charges which An Post extract and how easy they make it to pay them. Here in Germany I pay a flat €6 handling charge on stuff from outside the EU which customs have stopped but I must pay the guy the VAT cash on delivery. If I'm not home he takes it to the local post office where I have to go and pay before collection. It's not so bad but it would be nice if I could pay online in advance so the item is just dropped off even if I wasn't there. But for sure whereas before I would often have bought from the UK I will be looking for a local supplier a bit harder. Imagine even in our little hobby the amount of sales the UK is forsaking. This can't end well.

Major changes in regular parcel services from Germany to the UK (so presumably in reverse too and presumably to large parts of the EU if Germany is affected). From January latest, in some cases before: -DPD only serving business customers -Hermes stopping all business -GLS stopping all business

Parcelwizard gone as an option from Friday Brexit starting to have a negative impact already. If the only ones left are An Post with AddressPal you can imagine what they awil start charging. It's already much dearer than parcelwizard.

These are the first Irish locos released since IRM entered the arena to provide a whole bunch of RTR stuff to haul. Probably no surprise that they are possibly the fastest selling Irish locos of all. Absolute golden age for Irish modelling. If I'd come back to the hobby a little over a decade ago I'd probably have modeled US or possibly German outline to be quite honest. Irish stuff would have been too much effort for me, box opener that I am! I want a LOT of stock on a large layout some day. That's not practical if you have to build all the rolling stock yourself. You'd run out of time on this earth.

DPD managed to drop my Hattons parcel last week despite the fragile tape all over it but Hattons packaging left a lot to be desired in fairness. Oxford diecast items protected with a single layer of old school single layer bubble wrap that looked like it had been used a dozen times before. Normally I can't fault DPD here in Germany either. These big logistics companies seem to be formed by merger after merger, takeover after takeover so the company culture is a patchwork of old ones. They are very different in respect of how they operate in each geography I reckon.

Even if that is true you don't need to repeat the digits.

Yeah the orange/black on white were not really visually impaired friendly either. Barely any contrast between orange and white. I hadn't noticed the platform number signs in the background in the image posted by Rob. They are exactly right, why they needed to use a different design between the two signs is a bit of a mystery to me. The sign in the foreground would be far easier to read if it just had the three platform number "shields" like the sign in the background!

The new signs are ok and hopefully will last a bit longer this time. I have no problem with the idea of a common typeface and sign design for all PT nationwide. That's a good thing, but pick a design and stick to it. I find the use of the "Platform" agus aris as gaeilge to be completely superfluous on a railway station. There's no need to clutter the sign with words that are not needed. There's even a pictogram of a train if it isn't clear enough with the numbers alone. Signs should convey information as quickly as possible and wherever possible words should be replaced by pictograms and numbers. There are people who have difficulty reading be it due to being sight-impaired or dyslexic or whatever. There's no need to over-complicate their lives and we can all understand pictograms. Anyway I don't mean to be overly negative. The common "identity" is most welcome.

I believe the mk2d stock was vacuum braked as it was ordered new from brel and it could be specified like that to maintain compatibility with the loco fleet of the time. The mk2ac stock was bought second hand and was air braked.

I wonder will we see more UK retailers offering a trunk service to cut down on customs handling fees and shipping costs after Brexit.

The 4-4-0 was shown to me by a member here. Beautiful indeed.

I'm not suggesting Leslie do this for EU sales of course but it's done a lot. Kits and stuff like that are easily declared "commercial sample" which means they cost the recipient nothing and are therefore vat and duty free. The lighter parcels barely get looked at by customs anyway. I got this little envelope the other day from Switzerland and this is very common. If it had actually been checked by a customs officer there would be a green sticker on it. Small envelopes are rarely even looked at. The postal systems of the world would grind to a halt if stuff this size was properly inspected by customs:

Hattons have placed my 3 IR 121s in my trunk so they are in stock (though sold out on pre-order). Fingers crossed they ship them asap and that they get here before Brexit because I've paid UK VAT on them now.

If you've got family in Northern Ireland you're all set I'd say. NI is not leaving the UK customs or VAT territory. Parcels can continue to be sent domestically to NI from GB. There are continental model railway shops that ship to Ireland too. Even UK outline stuff is available from https://www.modellbahnunion.com/ They have in fact expanded their UK range ahead of Brexit.

What is the threshold for triggering an obligation to charge Irish VAT? Is the threshold for all sales into the EU or per sales to individual member states? I'd be happy enough if UK retailers had to charge me German VAT and attach such a VAT paid invoice as that would hopefully mean no DHL handling charge on my end. Essentially no change there to the end customer.

Fascinating stuff. Thanks John. Phil

I note that most but not all of these vehicles had through piping for air brakes. Was this just a legacy of their BR days or something or why did they need that, seeing as the Cravens were vacuum braked?

I reckon any viable steam loco in RTR would have to be something that survived to preservation so us 'modern' modellers can buy it too. I'm conscious as a newly returned member of the fraternity of the need to support the kit suppliers if we want the more exotic items that will never be viable RTR. First orders placed with SSM, Railtec and DC Kits this week I'm also looking at other items from other smaller suppliers but I'm also being careful not to buy more materials than I can assemble in my lifetime!