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Welcome Back to the UK, Mr. Schneider!

rapidobill

By rapidobill,
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rapidobill

rapidobill

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Ah, Warley.

 

There are two trade shows that we attend each year that I view with an equal measure of hope and dread: The Amherst Society Show in the US (“Springfield”) and the Warley Model Railway Club’s National Model Railway Exhibition (“Warley”).  Both shows are similarly very well attended and both provide an important venue for us to show off our most recent products. More on that in a moment. The biggest difference is geographical.

 

For Springfield, I hop in my car, drive 45 miles each way – often at least one way in a blizzard – and sleep at home. For Warley I drive about the same distance – normally NOT in a blizzard - hop into a little metal tube, and try in vain to sleep for six hours as I wing across the Atlantic. The upside is that I get to come back to the UK, a place that I love dearly.

 

So, here I am again, currently staying at the very lovely Plough Inn in Hathersage in the Peak District, doing my best to prepare for the show between Ploughman's Lunches (what else?!) and meetings with clients.

 

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 This year my job of preparing for the show has been made much easier by the inclusion of Gareth Bayer on our team. Gareth will be joining me to staff the show (alongside Rapido’s long-time Honorary Staff Member, Terry Wynne) after he spends a few days with his parents and meets with some of his customers. He is even bringing our North American samples and designed most of the posters. All that I had to do print the posters, meet with a few of my customers, and arrange to have a few samples flown in from China. In the immortal words of one of our factory partners, “NO pwabwem!”

 

Or, as he also likes to say, “BIG pwabwem!”  :O

 

Somewhere between China and the UK are, in two separate boxes, via two different courier companies, three delayed samples. One box contains two fully decorated OO Stirling Singles for Locomotionmodels and the other one nearly completely decorated OO Dynamometer car for Rails of Sheffield. From the photos that the factories sent both look amazing. Both were also supposed to arrive yesterday. As of last night one was sunning itself in Dubai, the other was… somewhere. In an amazing example of temporal distortion through Google Translate I was told that “it should be arrived yesterday afternoon.”

 

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I did manage to spend the first part of today in a very productive meeting with the guys at Rails of Sheffield – once I found it. When Jason and I travel together he always gives me a hard time about using Sat Nav to find my way. He prefers printed maps. He also uses a rotary phone and wears bell bottoms. What can I say? Now, I’ve been to Rails before so, as Huang says, should be “NO….” never mind.

 

My rental this time is a little Peugeot 308 diesel hatch. Not a bad little car with some unique quirks, as most French cars seem to have. Still, it has a built-in Sat Nav. Fantastic! I plugged in the Rails postal code and off I went. After weaving through the maze of streets that is Sheffield I arrived at a point not far from Rail. All (there’s that word again) I had to do was make two turns and…. “Road Closed. No Access to Chesterfield Road.” What an annoying little sign! I suspect my little Peugeot was saying something like “You STOOpid American! Now I shall leave you right here and laugh in your general direction! HAH!!” I put the nav on map mode and found my way out. Eventually. Jason might have been proud….

 

On the way back from the meeting a strange thing happened – the sun came out! Encouraged, I decided to take a little time and explore the Peak District. I stopped back quickly at the Plough to drop off my computer, grab a jacket and… yes… sunglasses, then went back out the door - into the rain.

 

The weather sure does change quickly here in the hills.

 

Still, managed to enjoy an amazing drive through this lovely area. Can’t show too many photos, but take my word for it!

 

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Anyway, make sure to come see us at theNEC this weekend, booth B28. I'll be the one with even less hair than last year. 

 

Now, wonder where those boxes currently are…..?

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Talltim

Talltim

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Dunno what’s going on outside Rails, but they seem to have replaced half the road with an embankment made of broken bricks

Edit, ah I see, they’re replacing the retaining wall of the former Heeley station yard and widening the road https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/content/dam/sheffield/docs/roads-and-pavements/bus-routes/Chesterfield%20Road%20Works%20Plan.pdf

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Gilbert

Gilbert

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No, but a Tornado buzzed the pub as I got back today! Dambusters live!

617 squadron now equipped with the new F35 raptors - so be very very careful...fantastic photo as well..

 

post-1107-0-45673200-1511296523.jpg

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rapidobill

rapidobill

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Hi Bill,

 

If you fancy a little light trainspotting put "Peak Dale" into your satnav. It should take you to Peak Forest - about 25 minutes from Hathersage - where there are usually plenty of stone trains on the move...

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

Hmmm... Have some time tomorrow I think... Thanks!

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Talltim

Talltim

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F35 lightning. Raptors are F22 and the UK would have to spend the entire 10 year national budget just to buy one.

According to Wikipedia* the F22 is just over a half as much again as an F35, so expensive, but not that expensive. Mind you, the ban on exports might present a problem

*yes, I know

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rapidobill

rapidobill

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Samples? What samples??

 

Some of you (I hope…) may have read about the… fun… that we have been having getting samples here. Again. It seems that his happens every year! Over the past few days I have been practicing new and exciting ways to scream at a shipping company. Now, I don’t want to name names, but they have three initials that begin and end with the same letter…

 

Anyway, we had two boxes of samples leave China independently. On box had the Locomotionmodels Stirling Singles and the other had some new Revolution products and some surprises of our own. Just two little boxes. Shipped seperately for safety. We gave them 10 days to make a 5 day trip. Good planning. NO pwabwem!

 

Ahem.

 

Both boxes ended up sunning themselves in Dubai as they both sat on… apparently… the only aircraft in this company’s fleet, which had broken down on the way. It took seven days to fix. Really. During which time, or so I was told, the shipping company (starts with a “T”) had no access to the aircraft and no way to offload the shipments onto another aircraft… were it to have one.... or to another carrier.

 

If there was a bright spot in all of this, it was that I had hand-carried some samples with me.  So had Gareth. Good plan!! At least we would have something to show, as a THIRD box with the Rail of Sheffield Dynamometer Car samples were coming by a… more reliable… shipping company. NO pwabwem!

 

Fast forward to noon or so today. After several late/early (3:00 AM+) e-mail exchanges between China, the UK and USA (ah, the wonders of a worldwide economy and global time zones) the one plane in the service of that company (ends with a “T”) somehow managed get its rubber band wound up enough to get airborne. The Stirling Single samples, the Revolution samples and the Surprise samples had all safely arrived at either my hotel or were waiting for Gareth to pick them up. FANTASTIC! Meanwhile, I was sitting in the Rails showroom, enjoying the guys’ banter and a cuppa, and wondering why our “by noon” delivery hadn’t shown up yet. BIG pwabwem!!

 

Well, the good news as of now (9:45 PM Thursday) is that those samples are now due TOMORROW morning. All the rest are here and in good shape, and we’re all looking forward to having what we and our partners wanted to display at Warley. What is the saying? “It’ll be alright on the night!”

 

So, off now to chat with the family at home who should be about full of turkey by now. Happy Thanksgiving to all my countrymen (and women)!

 

Hope to see many of the rest of you on the weekend! I’ll be the bald one quivering and drooling in the corner...

Edited by rapidobill
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rapidotrains

rapidotrains

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.

 

Oh !  Happy belated (US) Thanksgiving (I'm sorry I thought you were Canadian).

 

.

 

 

Yeah we thought he was Canadian too.

 

He insists on doing Warley, which means he hasn't seen Thanksgiving dinner in four years.

 

Our Thanksgiving is in October. A much more sensible time.

 

-Jason

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sjgardiner

sjgardiner

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Yeah we thought he was Canadian too.

 

He insists on doing Warley, which means he hasn't seen Thanksgiving dinner in four years.

 

Our Thanksgiving is in October. A much more sensible time.

 

-Jason

 

We could make Bill a Canadian, though he may not appreciate that.  October may be a better time for Thanksgiving, but the Americans have nailed this one for scheduling.  Holiday on a Thursday, for anyone not so unfortunate to be in Retail and be crushed by the evil Black Friday, easy peasy 4 day weekend (which frankly is needed to recover from the Turkey Feast).

 

Looking forward to see what surprises Bill has up his sleeve at the show on the weekend while partaking in the particularly Canadian ritual of Grey Cup weekend in Ottawa.

 

Stephen

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