Glenderg

I can say with a fair degree of experience that the amount of hours that goes into a building, whether kit or custom, is about four times that of a piece of rolling stock. The drawings alone take a long time, and my only thought is they are trying to split the cost of all the work over perceived sales. It does seem expensive mind, but I assume capital costs of laser cutters and so on are thrown into the costs. Signal boxes should be in the 20-40 range dependant on detail, and stations anywhere between 80-120, but which ones do you do to satisfy the market? Genuinely don't know! Anyhow, the days of having rubbish metcalfe models with their white joints exposed on a layout, while hundreds if not thousands worth of stock sits on the layout should be well behind us, but I understand the reasons why that's the case. Lack of skills/time/kit availability and so on... They are lovely models, but if the brickwork is painted on, it's like printed stickers for decals on a model.

Bosko, Thanks for returning the activity.PHP "what's new" module

If the mods could change the thread title to something more "human" that would be nice. HLV blah blah.

Des, Deep breaths man, deep breaths. R

I've yet to see anyone use des' lighting rig supplied with the kit, so wouldn't get excited about the "lightning rig" at all. The class 55 chassis is superb, unless you are running Kirley's Alpine Pass inclines. It's a nice slow runner too over points if you lube it up a wee bit. Rich. Edit - Peez o pizz doing a cut and shut on the 55, am preping a tutorial on it for a man in wickla

It's a superb build, hat's off to the builder. One issue JB - Whas da story, man!

one of the wittiest contributions on here in some time welcome Backish.

Aye, but just for you

GNRI Milepost Dave. http://www.lennan.be/pa002d.htm midway down.

That's scaled to 21mm track so the space is about 27mm between outside rail to outside rail. Centre to centre is about 48mm. Peco express points when aligned as a crossover have 50mm centres and top to tail extend to 518mm. I think the short radius work on a track centre spacing of 67mm. R

I threw a shot of a crossover going up the gullet into CAD, and did the sums. For 00 gauge track this would need 1100mm from tip to opposite tip.

Yes I know what inside motion is, no need to bold it. Did tony mills make a better version of a MM 141/181 by himself? No. i professionally scratch build stuff for people. As well as well as having a hand in the manufacture of RTR, so I'm fairly well placed to tell you your argument is gobbledeegook.

Where can I get a bag of whatever you're smoking please, it seems to have real mind altering properties!

No bother. I'll see if wrenn can act as a go between!

Paul, this is what I meant by blanking off. Don't use a UK restaurant to make an irish one. Use a standard open, and blank off the four windows to the right on Both sides. The frosted windows are just placed over the flat sides. The lower roof in the photo is a UK restaurant roof, vent placement is all wrong. Again use a standard open coach, and you can put the right detail in as shown in the top photo. Hope that helps. Rich.

Model rail, BRM, railway Modeller, continental modeller,some us stuff too, spanning about 15 years. About 1000 magazines. COLLECTION only, not posting it to texas Dive.....

And these guys will supply too. http://www.marcway.net/list2.php?col=head&name=Marcway+00%2FH0+Pointwork

That's the stock UK one dive. The Irish one has 4 main windows either side, so you're best bet is to start with a standard open, and blank off 4 window. I don't have any left in stock nor any donors to make one up :-(

Get yer coat

Ah here, this hobby isn't a playtex advert, all full of nostalgia for a bad piece of engineering that encloses a happy place. We're at the wondebra, embrace it.

Spot on john, and I can think of only a handful of people on this island that make up kits, diminishing the demand even more.

That is cool. I assume there's a large pile of containers to go in the middle ala north wall? Love the track layout, has a,nice realistic flow to it.

The UK rail press have been on about this for years in their editorials, the fear that a PlayStation will nuke the hobby. It's unlikely to ever happen as railway modelling, and not the armchair variety, is dynamic and physical. It provides a good skillset of how to overcome engineering challenges, electronics, artistic methods, history, photography, research and so on. If I had my way, railway modelling would be a compulsory topic in secondary school. That said, you'd have add a module on personal hygiene

You lit the fire, I fanned it, you're a retired moderator now. Sleep tight.

Many who've replied on this thread do not remember the last time anyone had a serious opinion about IFM stock, which was me, and it resulted in IFM leaving here as a contributor, several bans being handed out, and some pretty wild personal insults to me, which will be settled in a car park eventually. (it wasn't IFM incidentally) I have no particular issue with customers who want to buy his stock. Much of it is as good as MIR was back a few years ago, and those kits are still selling for a fortune on ebay, but for any serious modeller, nay rivet counter its not up to scratch. In order to bring it up to craven standard, there is a hell of a lot of work to do, if you can accept compromises like parts of the under frame and sole bar being removed to accommodate a bogie. But that's me. I'm a nerd for this stuff and it gets my goat. I stay silent because he satisfies an audience here. But many on this forum just want to play trains and have rakes of stuff that satisfy their era. The two foot rule applies - if it looks good to, you buy it. Tommy brady is actually filling a hole badly needed in this small community - to provide rtr examples of commercially unviable models. To that end, I'd like to apologise to IFM for any offence I may have caused years ago. What I do take issue with is people fantasizing about 5 pole motored, working fanned A classes, and superior detailed 121 models that would surpass the current Murphy Model stock, and then posting poor photos and "whoop!" Reviews without mentioning any potential shortcomings. If you're going to take photos, take decent Res ones, in decent light and let the punter make his own mind up. 90% of this forum is comprised of lurkers, and they take a lot of the posters words at face value. Nobody wants to purchase an IFM model in the mistaken belief it's to the same standard as a MM craven. Be fair! The man has a market for his stock, and I'm not going to bash it, him, or his stock. He's shown an eagerness to improve by virtue of his stock offerings. So. Let's not turn this into another bunfight gents. Horses for courses, live and let live. It is toy trains after all. Rich.