Revolution Mike

That looks like it might have pickup issues. If it doesn’t improve then please get in touch to swap it as it certainly isn’t representative of the random one I tried yesterday. cheers Mike

We only sent out the first orders yesterday evening so no one has been forgotten. The order was in our newsletter a few days ago and is the same as always ie order of when the order was placed plus you will be notified when your order is "Complete" ie despatched. Your friend's order number is a balance payment not his original order - if he placed his deposit very early and has paid his balance then he might have snuck in to the first batch but more likely his deposit was automatically marked as Complete when he paid his balance but his order isn't despatched until both parts are marked as Complete. Cheers Mike

The N gauge Ecofrets are just being checked over and will be in stock very shortly so we will start to send out orders next week. If you paid a deposit then you should receive a balance invoice by email over the next few days. Cheers Mike

The 56xx models are en route and we expect them soon. If you ordered through us we are starting to send out balance invoices (you can check progress on the Projects page of our website). Cheers Mike

Cavalex are tooling the variations for the different builders (and I'd argue that they already look better than Hornby's offering) so I'm not sure that having models from different manufacturers is going to reflect the different builders!

We haven’t decided yet but it is definitely easier for us to duplicate the pairs we’re doing in N (in terms of admin, R&D and graphics!). We will make a decision over the next few weeks as the OO CAD is completed. Cheers Mike

No, we had to decide whether less choice as single wagons or more choice but as pairs was preferable so we took the pairs route. There’s an incredible number of variants of these wagons which is great but the risk is always making sure that minimum order quantities are met. If we’d offered them as singles then we would have had to reduce the number of variants. Also in terms of how they were and are used they’ve been a mixture of block trains and handfuls mixed in with other freight/engineers stock.

Hi Spenc You can see any estimates we have by clicking on Projects on our website. Cheers Mike

Cracking lyrical reference! Good effort chaps!

We’re just waiting for the factory to confirm when they expect to complete production of the OO IWAs - shouldn’t be long now then to be followed about 6-8 weeks later by the N gauge version.

DRS liveried 68s are used if the TPE 68s are undergoing maintenance eg final photo here: https://docbrown.info/docspics/ArchiveSteam/lococlass68.htm Cheers Mike

We are expecting the N gauge version to go on sale late next week with the price around £35 per wagon with a discount for EarlyBird orders. The 4mm version will follow a week or two later. Cheers Mike

Hi Bernard Hope you're well! I included the electricity costs within NR's track access charges as I would expect the 93 to be considerably cheaper to operate (successive generations of electric locos have been cheaper than the previous generation) and the tri-mode 93 should benefit. Cheers Mike

Depends what state the 91s are in and what costs (leasing and track access) are for a 91 v 93 - I suspect the 93 will be far cheaper to operate.

Sorry but you keep repeating this despite being told it is manifestly incorrect. I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to prove but it isn’t right! If you know from the outset of a project that you might want to use the identical chassis for a 69 and 56 then you design and more importantly tool it for both from the outset. The design is nowhere near the bulk of the cost hence why if you can share tooling (even part of the tooling in this case) it is so beneficial. As you say you will still have to tool separate bodies but that doesn’t make the cost saving from a shared chassis anywhere near trivial. I have a reasonable/good idea of the costs involved in the various stages and repeating incorrect ideas gives a false impression to others.

Not at all but I do own half of a model train manufacturer! The fact that a 69 is a co-co like a 37 is completely unhelpful in terms of using the internals from one to the other. The point is that the internals of a 56 and 69 (with a bit of thought) can be identical - close or similar are no use!

The only reason they are the most expensive (they aren’t as some other Farish diesels are more expensive) was that I was using the newest tooled items I could think of. Comparisons with a decade old Dapol Mk3 is not helpful as that tooling will have been paid off and tooling prices have increased considerably in that period.

Thanks for the reply but I’m well aware of the costs of design vs tooling vs assembly. More to the point I didn’t say that tooling a chassis was the most expensive part (though tooling still represents a very significant cost) but that the cost of tooling a chassis that could be used across two locos was beneficial as the cost could be shared. I’m not sure why you are comparing a 37 to the 69 as that is irrelevant - the key point is that the chassis for a 56 and 69 is identical because of the origin of the 69! You can use exactly the same chassis.

Are we talking fair like for like comparisons? Ie new tooling, full RRP non-discounted prices for both? A 31 plus 3 x Mk2fs at full rrp would be £150 + 3*48 ie £294 so not that different to the 319 (which is newer tooling and you’d expect to sell far fewer 319s proportionally than loco plus coaches). The Kato comparison is largely irrelevant unless you’re producing 5-10 times the normal Farish production run. I hope that the 319 does really well (I’m looking forward to getting one or two) because if it doesn’t then it is a struggle to see how anyone can make multiple units.

Because if you’ve tooled the chassis then that goes a long way to allowing you to split the tooling costs across 2 models.

Absolutely! The OO9 loco is estimated to be £150 ie not far off the price of a 5 car Azuma which gives us a clue that if Kato did enter the UK market (with no potential appeal to their home market) then perhaps we shouldn’t be expecting the price to be the same as the Azuma. cheers Mike

I’d be surprised if they did - they produced the Azuma because it was a Japanese design which they could sell in Japan (which is how they kept the price down ie by producing in considerably higher volume than would be possible for the UK alone). There are considerable non-trivial (in terms of tooling) differences in the Electrostar family. I’m sure some variants will eventually get done RTR but not sure which ones or whether they will all get done.

The bigger concern is that despite increasing the gross margin that the net profit is still low for the level of sales. That suggests that the cost of business is too high (or the margins are still not high enough) for the income. As others have said if the income has been increased during lockdown then there is no guarantee that the sales will continue which makes things worrying.

Hi Sam It should be as expected (ie July or August) on our website and newsletter (unless there are any last minute problems). Transit time includes time for loading and unloading etc. Somethings are not always easy to predict eg the recent Suez incident or what happens at Customs. cheers Mike

The blue with dominoes is suitable for the 70s (headcodes stopped being used by 1976 earlier in some cases). Having said which if anyone wanted a head code version in blue it should be fairly easy to apply transfers over the dominoes. cheers Mike