CAF Mk5

[Railer]

Nice one lads on the CAF Mk5s, never saw that one coming at all. A big, big wow from me.

I was going hold off on Dapol's TPE Class 68 but not an longer. 

Not saying anything about the 92 

[RedRich]

Announced earlier than the lads had planned but  really amazing choices. Wish you all the best men.

Rich,

[Admin]

Thanks guys!

wait until you see the IRM lineup

[RedRich]

Sounds good Stephen it's been fantastic the last few years and the fact that it's going to get even better is exciting.

Rich,

 

[Noel]

2 hours ago, Admin said:

Thanks guys!

wait until you see the IRM lineup

Any rough idea of when the IRM lineup may be announced? (There is no snow forecast this March)  You guys are really getting your teeth successfully sunk into the UK market and rapidly building a reputation for excellence.

[iarnrod]

Amazing to see four lads from Dublin taking the UK railway modelling world by storm and showing the established players in the market how it should be done. Massive congratulations lads.

However, you have now left me with a conundrum with the Mk5 announcement.....do I start modelling the dark side, aka the UK scene, and buy some Dapol TPE 68's before they totally disappear from shelves on foot of your Mk5 announcement, or wait and see what you announce for IRM, and continue with the Irish scene.

[Noel]

1 hour ago, iarnrod said:

Amazing to see four lads from Dublin taking the UK railway modelling world by storm and showing the established players in the market how it should be done. Massive congratulations lads.

However, you have now left me with a conundrum with the Mk5 announcement.....do I start modelling the dark side, aka the UK scene, and buy some Dapol TPE 68's before they totally disappear from shelves on foot of your Mk5 announcement, or wait and see what you announce for IRM, and continue with the Irish scene.

Yes don’t please give up on the 60s and 70s  

[heirflick]

13 hours ago, Admin said:

Thanks guys!

wait until you see the IRM lineup

Great news...now take your time and hurry up!!!

[Railer]

I know it's a Dapol issue but will you guys be looking into some sort of coupling arrangement between Dapols 68 and your 5s? I wish Dapol would address it as it derails locos out of the box as it is.

[BosKonay]

19 hours ago, Noel said:

Yes don’t please give up on the 60s and 70s  

Our market research would indicate, particularly for the UK market, that the 'KEY' era(s) for modellers is from roughly 1945-1975

[Noel]

On 2/12/2019 at 6:54 PM, BosKonay said:

Our market research would indicate, particularly for the UK market, that the 'KEY' era(s) for modellers is from roughly 1945-1975

Thanks for info. Interesting. Looking at the dominant age demographics at shows and clubs here one suspects it may be similar here in Ireland (ie the non-internet group that are very active in the hobby).  1974 seems to delineate a significant change here in Ireland as bogie and container freight replaced loose coupled pick-up/drop-off goods wagon traffic and mix rake trains often split and marshalled at intermediate stations were replaced by modern era uniform fixed rakes such as mk2, mk3, etc, followed by the demise of loco passenger services in the 00s, which lead to the wholesale destruction of former railway metropolises such as Waterford and Claremorris, etc. As you know I'm a CIE 1960s B&T era guy for both nostalgia reasons and the shunting operations such era's stock requires, yet I have recently leapt 60 years forward to build a mk4 set to run because of recent nostalgia travelling on same. Prior to that anything post 1975 seemed boring to operate and too modern. Paradox - square that with running green 2222 below 

 

Very happy to have these coaches so my 222 finally has some suitable rolling stock to haul. Now I have to decided if I should complete the rake by attempting resprays myself of more Hornby mk4 donors, or buy a few more from Chris's mail order service?  Not sure I could match the quality of these resprays, especially the lining. Whoever did it for Chris did a superb precision job. All I did today was convert the bogies from the horrible large Hornby tension lock couplings (TLCs) to Kadees with a little fettling, styrene and superglue, took about 20mins to do the four bogies. Murphy's law (the other one) and just my luck that if I do resprays myself or buy a few more, IRM could announce proper CAF Mk4 sets!  Now I'm exploring possible RTR donors for CAF Mk4 DVT 4xxx series conversion.

 

PS: Kadees may prove essential for reliable push operation running once I kit bash a DVT. 

Edited February 15, 2019 by Noel
video corrected

[Railer]

Finally managed to get my hands on a lovely TPE 68 after almost missing the boat. Thanks to Accurascale practically all the stock of TPE 68s in 00 are gone from all suppliers. I may end up with 2 with any luck as I'm locked in a bid with another flea bay until someone out does me.

Can't wait for the Mk5 sets to release now.