Der Rechtsanwalt

On the issue of inflation, the fiat currency system is collapsing. That means the €Euro £GBP, $USD, ¥JPY, CHF are all dying. This system was created and maintained by the Central Bank system. That system is collapsing rapidly. When we came off the gold standard in 1971, the central banks substituted the gold standard with debt to create an artificial value for the currencies they were printing. The pillar banks ran out of people to lend money to in or around 1996 so they created the subprime market. In other words, they started lending money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back. We were fed a load of nonsense by governments that our economies started to boom because of sound policies and foreign direct investment. In fact, the banks were allowed to throw the lending criteria out the window and flooded every western economy with credit. The subprime market collapsed in 2008. The system was placed on life support with bank bailouts in the hope the fractional lending system would struggle on until a new form of fiat currency system could be established. This is why we saw seemingly lunatic solutions of lending more money to businesses and people who were unable to service their existing loans. The interest earned on loans is the banks' income stream and it was hoped that borrowers would use the new loans to service the old ones. This would keep the banks from collapsing. This worked but didn't solve the bigger problem of having to print more money and finding people to borrow it. This left governments as the only players on the pitch who could borrow money (through issuing treasuries) to create the artificial value to back up the money printing. As the money printing destroyed the purchasing power of the currencies, the banks were forced to print more money and put that into circulation. In short, you need more money in circulation to buy the same stuff. This accelerated the erosion of the system. Governments were faced with a new problem, they couldn't just borrow the money and leave it sitting in a government account gathering electronic dust, they had to push it into circulation quickly. That's the real reason why we have a bike shed that cost €336,000, a guard hut that cost €1 million and a children's hospital that is costing €2 billion with no end in sight. The starting gun for the accelerated collapse happened in September 2019 when the repo markets on Wall Street tanked. The interbank lending rate which was normally 2% jumped to 9% overnight. The Federal Reserve stepped in and promised to print as much money as needed. Another temporary stop gap averted a major system crash. Within six months we were into COVID followed by Ukraine. The war in Ukraine forced the Russians to put their ruble on a gold standard which became a reality in 2024. The Russians were badly burnt by the 2008 crash. They paid off their debts using oil and gas revenues and started accumulating gold. The Chinese followed suit. Today it is estimated that the Russians have about 12,000 metric tonnes of gold and the Chinese have between 17,000 and 24,000 tonnes. The BRICS nations (formed in 2009) started moving their economies towards a precious metals and natural resources standard to safeguard their national interests. Many countries including middle eastern countries started threatening to join BRICS. Germany repatriated all of it's gold from Fort Knox in 2020 (held there for safe keeping during the cold war) and for the first time in it's history the German Bundesbank didn't top up it's foreign exchange reserves with US dollars. It costs the US government about $8 trillion dollars a year to run the country. They only take in about $5 trillion in taxes leaving a deficit of $3 trillion a year. They borrow the balance by issuing US treasuries. Normally the Chinese buy the bulk of these, but they quietly started to get out of dollar denominated assets as far back as 2008, buying less and less treasuries every year. The current evidence that we are nearing the end of the collapse can be seen as follows: 1. Normally when an economy enters recession, prices drop. While the EU economies don't meet the central bank's definition of recession, you will note that Germany contracted in 2023 and 2024. Ireland experienced a -4.8% contraction in 2024. Estonia -3% while Finland -1.3% during the same period. The ECB jacked up interest rates but prices continued to climb and have done so since. Moreover, these price rises were in basic things like food, clothing and fuel, not just next year's Mercedes or Christmas in Aruba. 2. The 30 year long treasury bonds issued by governments are favoured by pensions funds. They normally generate a low yield with the principal paid back at the end of the thirty year term. Since June 2022 the German 30 year bond has gone up from 1.4% yield to 3.348% today. It's not just the German long bond, but British Gilts, the US Treasury 30 year and the French equivalent. The yields are sky rocketing everywhere. What this means is that the market is factoring in risk of being paid back in fiat currency. The German 30 year bond hit a 14 year high in late August. It has been higher but that was in the early 1990's when the German reunification costs were starting to hurt the German economy. This is going to have a knock on effect on the stock market. Why? If you can buy a bond giving you a high return which is backed up by the taxpayer, why would you speculate on the stock market which is much more risky? 3. The S&P 500 was at 3,298.4 on 25th September 2020. Today it's 6,693.75. Some economists predict that if it reaches 7,000 it will go off the end of a cliff. The reason being is that as the long bond yield continues to go up, people will start dumping stocks. Many of these companies that the S&P500 tracks borrowed heavily when interest rates were low and the underlying economy today is very weak meaning their performance is probably overstated by a country mile. If the stock market collapses it will start a cascade in other sectors. 4. The Fed are expected to announce an interest rate cut this month when we have a nasty level of inflation in the US economy in addition to everywhere else. This will cause the US dollar (the world's reserve currency) to tank in value causing further inflation. The above conditions are very similar if not identical to the Weimar Republic in 1921 and we all know what happened to the Reichsmark in 1922-1923. In the context of making 00 gauge locomotives cheaper, I don't see the prices coming down as the fiat currencies continue to decline in purchasing power. Accurascale have done extraordinary well in delivering cutting edge and technically brilliant models at very reasonable prices to date in the face of the above worsening economic conditions. In addition, they have cut the legs from under the competition. One solution to bring prices down though might be to explore the possibility of paying the Chinese factories in gold. The price of gold per troy ounce in September 2020 was €1,908. It's €3,172.10 today. The gold hasn't changed but the purchasing power of the currency has.

It is understood that the Murphys Models Alstom X'Trapolis DART + is now in tooling. The Murphys Models MK111 coaches will enter tooling in the next few weeks. These are newly tooled coaches with specific Irish differences which set them apart from the BR Mk111’s. With respect to pricing, delivery or running numbers there is no further information at present.

Unfortunately, there is no firm update on these re-runs.

This was in was in the Czech Republic during the May bank holiday weekend. And yes, you have to wear the uniform to get on the train.

I remember the Modeller's Den off Aston Quay. It was a Post Office also I think. I bought a few Tamiya models from him back in the day. Unfortunately, he's long gone.

Something a little different.

That's wonderful news. I'm delighted to see that.

The longest I’ve seen is a 7 car set made up of a 3 and 4 car set linked. The 17:10 from Heuston to Athlone is typically a 7 car set Monday to Thursday. Friday it reverts to the Westport service which is a 6 car set with dining.

I spoke to Paddy Murphy at the MRSI Show last month. He said the following: The 071 class would go into production mid-2025 The MkIII coaches would enter production around the same time The 071 class would come in the same range of liveries as the initial run except in different numbers The 071 class would have various electronic upgrades similar to the recent run of 141/181s. In addition, the 071 would have a modification to the manual parking brake wheel Irish Rail removed the grab handles on the front of the 071 cabs when they were repurposed for freight (current slate grey livery). In order to reflect this deletion on the models, the cabs for the current freight livery had to be retooled otherwise holes would be left in the plastic. This retooling translated into delay. No unit price has been decided yet owing to inflation in the €Euro.

Hi Derek, I'm not certain about Carey's Road bridge. I think it's unlikely though. The Foynes branch line will join the main Limerick line east of Limerick Station, by passing the station altogether. It appears to be a re-instatement of the later branch line closed in 2013 rather than the one closed to passenger traffic in 1963. Apologies about the misidentification of Ardnacrusha. I just re-post the videos from the original source on YouTube. I don't think he's a Limerick man either. Glad you are enjoying the thread. It's not often we get to see a reversal of the rationalization of our rail network.

I went to school in the 1980's on freezing cold, drafty Cravens with leaking steam from broken radiators fogging up the windows, while passengers all around me put out their cigarettes on the floor. I remember having to open the door of the coach by pulling down the window and opening it using the handle on the outside. That was the extent of passenger safety back in those days. I also remember having to run the gauntlet coming out of Heuston when kids along Landen Road in Ballyfermot used to hurl rocks at the train to try and break the windows and fellow passengers ducking when they were successful. I remember the comparative luxury of refurbished Mk2's, they had heating that worked, and the novelty of Mk3's with automatic doors and airline style seating. Whatever about the discomfort of travelling by rail in the past, at least you could get a seat back then. I bought two sets of ICR's during the original pre-order; a 3 car and 4 car set. A 4 car set takes me to work everyday and a 7 car set brings me home. For me, I can't imagine a model set more relevant than these ICR's. However, each to his own. Sales have tanked not because of a lack of interest or desire by the community, it's because the people are struggling to put food on the table. In my view, it's not IRM's fault or that of a fickle or capricious customer, its the fault of the central banks and the inflation they have created.

I'm very grateful to IRM for their honest and transparent update. IRM are more like a co-operative than a manufacturer/retailer and we are more like members of that co-operative than consumers. It was a brave move by IRM to set out the facts. I couldn't see Hornby doing such a thing. It looks like it worked as the community's support has become evermore galvanised behind IRM. However, I don't think this project is out of the woods yet. At present we are facing into a very serious diminution of the Western currencies. Today we are paying 26% more for petrol and diesel than we were three years ago, 18% more for clothing and 17% more for food than three years ago. This is a clear indication that the Euro is losing purchasing power. In addition, precious metals are increasing in value relative to the currency they are purchased in. In most cases precious metals have hit all time highs. Again this is an indication of Western currencies losing purchasing power. The Chinese have been accumulating gold for the last 15 years. Some estimate that they have in the region of 17,000 metric tons of gold. To put this in perspective, officially the largest deposit of gold in the world is in the US, which is just 8,320 metric tons. It's not for nothing that Germany repatriated all of its gold from the US with the last shipment arriving in March 2020; nor it is any surprise that the Bundesbank, for the first time in it's history did not buy anymore US Dollars to top up its foreign exchange reserves. In short, countries around the world are getting rid of the dollar, the world's reserve currency since 1945. Two years ago, the Chinese government changed the law allowing Chinese citizens to buy gold. Many Chinese citizens have opened gold accounts. It might be worth exploring the possibility if the Chinese factory would accept payment in gold rather than GBP or Euro. This might safeguard the project from the worst vagaries of a massive exchange difference which I fear is on the horizon. Finally, paying in gold as a medium of exchange might ensure the project not only survives but may be quite profitable. In addition, accumulating the gold now would make the project much cheaper in the long term particularly if we are looking down the barrel of a late 2025 delivery. These savings could be passed on, making the ICR project a lot more affordable.