Flying Snail

Part 2: I went and purchased two more pre-owned Cravens this week from the main Rails of Sheffield website. This time the ex. VAT value of the goods was below the €150 customs threshold. UK VAT was paid at point of purchase, as before and so was a £3.15 customs duties fee (I presume this is the €3 plus some sort of handling charges) ... and then that was it. The two carraiges were delivered to Dublin without any further customs charges or handling charges being applied by An Post. Something to note, the €150 customs charge threshold is calculated in the ex. VAT value of the goods before Rails added in UK VAT. Edit: Also I should note, the £3.15 customs duties fee was applied just once.

Agreed - it really makes these much easier to find in future.

I'd say, given that the painted sample has had a spin around New Junction, it’s safe to assume the model is currently being reviewed, or has been very recently, and that we can expect an update once they have some feedback from that process. To be fair, they’re very good at letting us know once they have news to share. I take the project status page with a large pinch of salt until the model actually moves into the “In Transit” stage. So many issues can crop up during the tooling and production stages that those deadlines are aspirational at best. That’s just the nature of the beast. Accurascale have a great crew of project managers, but there’s only so much they can do if a factory makes a mistake or if the FIFA Peace Prize laureate decides very strongly to make international trade and shipping rather more interesting than it needs to be.

Thats very restrictive - you should revert back to them to tell them why you can't sign the permission form.

well Richard does work at Accurascale ....

It did spell Guinness correctly, so that’s a point in its favour .... or should that be a pint? AI is improving at a rapid rate, but it’s not there yet. I think, like a good pint of the black stuff, it needs a little longer to settle. ...

To be fair, commerlad, Clare is a major holiday destination with good transport links. From Dublin it's only a few hours on the motorway, and Shannon Airport brings in visitors from across Britain, Europe and North America. From an Irish perspective, it's a little odd seeing all those references to "the mainland" - for many of us, Ireland is the mainland! That said, I think your post does highlight what is probably the more fundamental issue: scale. The Republic has around 5.5 million people compared with roughly 68 million in the UK. Even if you include Northern Ireland, the all-island market is still much smaller. That means a much smaller pool of enthusiasts, volunteers and skilled people to keep heritage railways running, and fewer local visitors making repeat trips throughout the season. Heritage railways don't survive on overseas tourists alone; they depend on local support year after year, people like yourself making regular day trips to their local railways. Tourism certainly helps (Clare attracts huge numbers of visitors) but tourism and heritage railways aren't quite the same thing. A tourist might visit the Cliffs of Moher once, whereas a preserved railway needs a loyal base of repeat visitors, members and volunteers, alongside tourists, to justify the ongoing costs of maintaining locomotives, rolling stock and infrastructure. Ultimately, I think that's the fundamental challenge. Heritage railways need substantial capital, continuous maintenance and, above all, a large and active community of volunteers and repeat visitors. With a much smaller population to draw on, Ireland simply has a smaller base from which to sustain projects like these over the long term.

... picked up a couple of Cravens to mix in with my Park Royals. We'll see what customs charges are involved in the next few days So, the three pre-owned Cravens arrived to my home in Dublin this morning. I ordered from the main Rails of Sheffield website, not their eBay store and they were sent via Royal Mail and An Post. VAT was paid at point of purchase, and that was it - they were delivered without any customs charges or handling charges. Couple of things to note: There were three items of the same type in one parcel, so for the customs declaration they were declared as 1 x model railway goods with a value of £208. This is allowed under the rules and as the package value was greater than €150, the new €3 charge did not apply anyway. Also model railway goods have 0% customs duty. As VAT had already been applied, there was no customs related processing required and no charges were applied by An Post. I bought from the Rails main website not the eBay store, and they may or may not be applying different processes on eBay for international customers - I don't know. But what I do know from having used Rails main website extensively since the demise of Hattons is that Rails have made themselves aware of the customs rules, and (like accurascale) they have processes in place to ensure that charges are correctly applied (and minimised for EU customers).

I think it would be hard to find a better combination of research into the prototype coupled with design and build of the model. There's some attention to detail here!

Rigorous, scientific method - I like it . I hope that it wasn't the result of frustration with the trouble you encountered. Hopefully you'll be able to work it out with the help of Rob and others here

You might very well think that; I couldn't possibly comment ... actually I can comment ... picked up a couple of Cravens to mix in with my Park Royals. We'll see what customs charges are involved in the next few days

2046? Historically, the open days have been for major milestones - 2022 was for the (delayed) 175th-anniversary. I'm pretty sure the last open day before that was for the 150th anniversary back in 96. Thats not to say that the powers to be won't decide to open it up again before the 200th anniversary comes along in 2046, but open days in Inchicore are rare so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Edit: The IRRS runs outings to Irish Rail locations (including depots and works) on a regular basis for members, so if you'd like to get inside one of the areas that are usually off limits to the public, then I recommend joining up. I'm sure they'll be back to Inchicore long before 2046 rolls around

May David rest in peace, my condolences to his friends and family.

They look excellent! Love the different shading on different panels on the ferts!

Pictures of derailments from the Civil War period can provide good views of underframes etc. Like this one from Laois: https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000721943 There's a few in the NLI archive and other online sources

and this morning the thunder and lightning has made it to RTE: https://www.rte.ie/news/2026/0626/1580406-weather-ireland/

even better ... it made it to Carlow Weather: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CxTL6weXY/ edit: its like strobe lighting on that video!!

I hope Roger is on the mend soon. I've thrown my hat in the ring for some 4mm kits, but this and the Worsley thread is a reminder that time creeps up on us all. I've long planned to purchase some more of Roger's card kits, I may get the finger out once he's recovered

Sure if you're ever cooking up up a few Mk3's for our friends on the big isle, would you stick a few on the pan for us too? (or is the market for Mk3's already too well taken care of over there?)

I'm seasick just looking at that pic!

Very nice, I'd say it was a nice way to travel .... so long as they didn't put you to work to pay for your passage . I'll have a slightly different view of containers like those (and other river traffic) next week sitting in a 'biergarten' by the Rhine watching the boats go by Edit: I assumed you were on river traffic ... there's some rather large container barges on rivers like the Rhine, but is that actually a ship coming up an estuary?

I’m genuinely sorry to see KR Models go into liquidation. Whatever criticisms people may have had, nobody should take pleasure in a business failing, customers losing money, or years of work coming to such a painful end. That said, I found the tone of the liquidation statement difficult to accept. Keith has clearly put enormous time, effort, money and emotion into KR Models, and I do have sympathy for that. Outsourced manufacturing, especially in China, is complicated. Supply chains are difficult. Quality control can be challenging. Small manufacturers are under real pressure, and the model railway market is not an easy place to survive. But sympathy does not remove accountability. The statement places a lot of blame on influencers and social media commentary, but the reality is that much of the criticism did not appear out of nowhere. Customers raised concerns because, in many cases, the models had real and visible issues. Wheel problems, damaged parts, warranty returns, over-tightened screws and inconsistent quality were not invented by YouTubers. They were customer experiences. It is not fair to suggest that influencers alone created the problem. Influencers may have amplified criticism, and some may use strong language or chase engagement, but that does not automatically make their criticism invalid. In this case, I think Sam and others were giving views that were, broadly speaking, defensible based on the products people actually received. There is also a bigger point here. Other companies have managed outsourced manufacturing successfully. Accurascale have shown that high-quality modern models can be produced through overseas manufacturing. Accurascale are no longer a small company, of course, but I think KR Models can fairly be compared, at least in broad terms, with Murphy Models, which under the late Paddy Murphy also delivered highly regarded models through outsourced production. So the issue is not simply “China”, “the factory” or “the influencers”. The responsibility still sits with the brand that commissioned, approved and sold the product. Of course, social media influencers are not beyond criticism. Some lack experience. Some can be too dramatic. Some may have commercial relationships that are not always obvious to viewers. But when a reviewer highlights genuine quality issues, that is not sabotage. That is scrutiny. In a hobby where models can cost hundreds of pounds, customers deserve honest commentary before spending their money. The saddest part of this is that customers who paid upfront may now be left out of pocket. Blaming influencers for that feels misplaced. The business took the orders, managed the projects, chose the factories, approved the products and handled the finances. Those are commercial responsibilities. I wish Keith and everyone involved no ill will. But I do think the closing statement would have landed better with more accountability and less blame directed at the people who pointed out problems that many customers could see for themselves. Criticism is not the same as a campaign. Honest reviews are not the enemy of the hobby. In fact, they are part of what protects it.

Oh, very good indeed! I enjoyed that .... but then I like dogs too EDIT: I've just watched this 3 times and I'm still grinning - do yourselves a favour folks and give this a look

I'm in the same boat - notified about one of my two Hunslets (tbf I ordered the second one after I had paid off the first, so there's a big gap in my order dates), but nothing about my Park Royals yet. I'm in Ireland. Perhaps they're being picked and packed by separate teams?