Blaine

A website 'under construction/coming soon' etc is not a good way to promote yourself in this day and age. Neither is not accepting electronic payments

PM sent

Everything ok now http://newsthump.com/2016/02/15/jeremy-corbyn-pledges-to-nationalise-hornby/

Sterling be devalued nicely for a while too

Once again Ill remind the congregation that none of Fry's models ran on the layout. They were the ones you see in the glass cases before you entered the room that housed the layout. Modellers would appreciate this, but Ma and Da and the kiddies wouldnt along with all the others looking to be entertained No point in putting at whitehead, none whatsoever. Their new coffee shop will be the main attraction.

Still cheaper than 3 IRM ballast wagons......... Economies of scale and all that.

40 stands of layouts/displays - no trade due to the archaic nature of the organising club

Good for you. Have a cookie

So why ask for others help or opinions?

Post the photos now, see if anything needs doing

Dont forget the spraying technique, all well and good having the cans prepped but if you cant spray correctly you will not get good results

Oh well, in todays Whitehead there would be no room for them

Officially the weirdest of many many,many weird threads on here. From clubs to politics to whatever next

Sorry but I didnt think much of that layout at all. Basically a British outline layout with Irish stock put on it. None of the buildings looked even remotely Irish, a proper remote Irish terminus would have no more than 2 platforms and in general would be as minimalist as possible, all unnecessary sidings etc removed, or never built in the first place.....

Sorry, but that is complete garbage. The stationmaster is not responsible for the sidings, you need a PTS cert to access the track, which entails a 1 day training course and unless you work for IE or are an authorised contractor you will not get a cert to get near the trackside legally. The days of slapping on a high vis to go trackside to take photos are gone. The Heritage officer has nothing to do with it.

Any progress photos of the SSM kits?

This is taken from another site and explains an interesting angle. This also applies to a lot of slightly older, but still in manufacture Bachmann products In 2000 the transfer of Hornby production to China had already taken place. Their results for 2000 show that gross margin was 35.4%. Now, if it is true (as they would like us to believe) that Chinese manufacturing costs have been the problem, then you might expect this gross margin to decline or at least be hard to maintain. By 2001, however, the gross margin had climbed to 39.9%. Let's run the clock forward a decade:- By 2011, Hornby's gross margin had climbed yet again to 46.2% Perhaps that was an aberration? Let's have a look at their latest 2015 set of accounts:- By 2015 Hornby's gross margin had climbed further to 46.7% That's why you cannot blame China. The manufacturing share of Hornby's costs has declined from 100 - 35.4 = 64.6% to 100 - 46.7 = 53.3%. The impact of this greediness is easily shown by looking at the breakdown of a typical Hornby product bought directly from them. The customer pays £120 for a loco, the taxman takes £20 leaving £100. It costs £53.30 to make it so Hornby are left with £46.70 contribution towards costs and, hopefully profit. Imagine for a minute that Hornby still operated with the year 2000 35.4% margin. The manufacturing cost would still be £53.30 but the margin would only be £29.20 producing a selling price of £82.50. Add tax and the customer pays £99. I would certainly be willing to make more purchases if prices were 20% lower.

Hopefully it is a frequent timetable

Its not your capital outlay thats been put on the line here so why the concern. If there is no improvement Hornby could enter administration (again) and that would be unfortunate. They are still the leading brand name for model railways (in the UK/IRL at least) but their loss would be felt. They could begin by improving quality control and delivery times of their products

Yes Mother - and people bought it too.

Perhaps, dont forget similar models were sold as 'Irish Passenger Set'

Proves that people will buy any old rubbish

One simple word - America. They love this kind of thing, from Elvis trainsets, to Downton Abbey trainsets, even Operation Iraqi Freedom trainsets....

I never did watch Downton mainly as Top Gear was on at the same time - but trains/railways were not integral to the plot of even a single episode. There are 'people arriving/leaving on a train' scenes, nothing more http://downtonabbey.wikia.com/wiki/Downton_Railway_Station Its not like the aforementioned Thomas the Tank engine where the series is about trains

See attached.....