Revolution Mike

I'm sure that is right - probably the closest equivalent to the prime print advertising slots (or at least to a point - you can't easily measure advertisers not wanting to be associated with intrusive ads!). Cheers M

The VAT change was an EU-wide one to try and make sure that VAT was actually being correctly collected. It isn't mandatory (yet AFAIK) for VAT to be collected on orders below €150 but it can make life easier for retailer and customer. The OP raises part of the problem in that a website has no idea if you are going to go over the limit (above which the retailer shouldn't charge VAT but VAT will still be due on entry to the UK (or EU)) or potentially where you live (particularly if you're not logged in and/or you use some form of private browsing/cookie blocker etc). IIRC once VAT has been added then it must be indicated as such on an invoice (though that may not be generated until payment has been made). Cheers Mike

Advertising (and monetising a free service) is always a tricky situation. Without wishing to criticise Warners here are some general thoughts/questions that may or may not apply to Rmweb. - customers expect free services to remain free (whether that is fair/reasonable or not). There comes a tipping point where users stop using a service and/or use adblockers. As an aside Apple's forthcoming changes in iOS15 are going to have an impact on online advertising. - giving customers something extra for a payment is generally a happier user experience (rather than taking away something that was free) - benchmarking advertising income vs actual use (not number of subscribers/users) should be pretty important - what is the level of churn of active users? If it is low then it suggests users might moan but keep on using the service, if it is creeping up then the opposite ie you are relying on new customers to constantly replace established users. Marketing orthodoxy is that it is easier to keep an existing user/customer than attract a new one. - too much (particularly irrelevant) advertising puts off users and also other advertisers (who may not want to advertise on sites where their ads are lost amongst others or where users already feel overwhelmed by ads (eg reputational risk)) - I wonder about the difference in impact of "passive" adverts (ie adverts at top/bottom/side adverts) vs "active" adverts (ie those that require a user to close them). Does the actual benefit (income) outweigh the negatives? - everything I read about advertising suggests that more targeted adverts are generally more successful (and presumably part of that is that they are less annoying) - just because other sites monetise through ads doesn't mean everyone should do it - it can be part of a pleasant user experience and/or USP to have no/minimal ads. More specifically for Warners a critical choice is whether it is about getting enough income to pay for Rmweb or as much income as possible - the two do not necessarily lead to the same strategy. Software and storage costs must make up a fair chunk of the cost of running Rmweb, but I don't know if Warners also apportion salary costs to Rmweb (and it is none of my business!) which could substantially change the required income. But those are to some extent in Warners' control (ie choice of software etc). From what Steve has said there is a cost (either internal or external) of altering Rmweb for different types of advertising - I'm sure that will be considered against the income from advertising. The other thing about forums is that the users generally create the content (as Jon has just said whilst I was writing this) - put too many of them off and you actually kill your own product. Warners get direct and indirect benefit from the user content on Rmweb in a variety of ways. Not an easy balance and not all users are the same (ie every user will have a different tipping point/bugbear)... Cheers Mike

If you click on Projects on our website you will get an overview table which has any estimates for delivery (if we have one). Our order book closed at the end of July so best guess at the moment is very late this year to early 2022. Cheers Mike

None of which is a counter to what I said. You're just saying you want a Peak and believe that so will others! I don't disagree with you but that isn't the decision making that a manufacturer has to make. And as I said the rationale for investment will differ across manufacturers anyway. I'm not sure what relevance you think that "real world" following of particular traction is to model railway production anyway - there are plenty of modellers not massively interested in bashing and vice versa plenty of bashers with no interest in modellers (probably more bashers with little interest in models than the other way round IME). My point was that Peaks have been available from Farish previously and also from another manufacturer's perspective why it would be very risky to tool up a new Peak (given part of the market will have been satisfied and that you have no idea whether Farish have a new chassis Peak nearly ready for arrival!).

Hoe do you know that no one else is interested? A more likely conclusion should be that no other manufacturer is prepared to risk duplicating something in the Farish range. I’m not sure which EMUs you are referring to as Dapol haven’t done any and Farish only have the 350/450 and the forthcoming 319. So that leaves Kato’s 800 and our 390, 321 and forthcoming 313. Our models happen because customers want them and we’re able to take the risk on things that perhaps some of the larger manufacturers couldn’t risk. Even if the Peaks are desirable (and I think they clearly are) the reality is that Farish have produced them and for anyone wanting to model pretty much anywhere over the last 60-70 years needs some flavour of MUs. Cheers Mike

Why not check with Rails? It might be that the deposit part was added at a different time to the rest of the T&Cs or that no one had thought about the situation where there is a deposit for an item that suddenly goes up considerably in price.

Format and pricing will be announced when we open the order book likely to be late this year or Q1 2022. cheers Mike

Pricing and set format to be finalised over the next couple of weeks but likely 2 car IoW sets, 4 car preserved set and 4+3 sets for original tube use. We’ve no plans to sell chassis separately. Cheers Mike

We tend not to put timescales on EP to deco samples as the reality is that they take as long as they take and we’d rather they were as correct as possible. Having said which we hope to have deco samples relatively soon and will show them off when they arrive. Possibly by GETS but if not the next show we’ll be at will be MR Scotland 2022. cheers M

The difference in cost between a Vanwide and VEA would be negligible - including air brake equipment is not particularly expensive. Surely the total you’re prepared to spend will be roughly the same whether you’re getting 10 wagons or 15? If the price is massively more than other contemporary tooling then I could understand it but there’s a whole host of variables that come into pricing so even then straightforward comparisons are rarely as straightforward as they might first seem. cheers Mike

An Accurascale 37 would be a very nice accompaniment!

Great news! Really pleased to see these resurrected. For the thick/lazy amongst us which were the latest versions - I presume the Lafarge then the blanked out and white ones? Cheers Mike

If you purchased direct from us then you will have paid an £8 premium and that will be going to the 5637 group (we couldn’t do that until the models arrived). cheers Mine

The issue with 206 should be fixed now. Thanks Mike

Yes although it appears like duplication, the reality is that we started work on this months ago. Some of the 59/2s spent quite a bit of time round Warrington.

While I understand the reasoning there is a risk that it becomes a chicken and egg conundrum ie which comes first! It is rare that even if models come from the same manufacturer that they all appear at the same time. The Mk5s have been hauled by a fair few different locos now so while the 73/9s are ultimately needed for north of Edinburgh they are not essential for other areas.

Wasn’t one of the reasons that Farish got purchased by Bachmann that GF was struggling? The Mk1 and Mk3 from Farish both had upgrades at various points under GF from window strips to solid bodies. I’m far from convinced that you could ever model the majority of lines with available (at the same time) ranges. Too many units missing. Batch production is here to stay and has given us far more choice of models than we’ve ever had. Whilst it is frustrating waiting for the next batch we’ve also got to be realistic that just because we want something doesn’t mean there’s sufficient demand to do a new batch (unless we want 1000+ of something!).

Wasn’t one of the reasons that Farish got purchased by Bachmann that GF was struggling? The Mk1 and Mk3 from Farish both had upgrades at various points under GF from window strips to solid bodies. I’m far from convinced that you could ever model the majority of lines with available (at the same time) ranges. Too many units missing. Batch production is here to stay and has given us far more choice of models than we’ve ever had. Whilst it is frustrating waiting for the next batch we’ve also got to be realistic that just because we want something doesn’t mean there’s sufficient demand to do a new batch (unless we want 1000+ of something!).

Out of interest are you signed up for our newsletter/social media or do you read our website (Revolution Trains)? Because all of those have featured developments of the 56xx and our website contained updated estimates of delivery dates as we received them. As an aside no one has been waiting many years as the first orders were taken July 2019 so the longest people can have waited since ordering is 2 years (though Sonic were showing the CAD and tooled samples before then) . I can’t remember exactly when production started but the order book was open for a period before production started and then of course COVID struck.

Just to add a bit of context - the first 56xx models went out Wednesday evening. By this morning 50% of our orders had gone out (though some I still need to mark as despatched). By the end of today my best guess is that we will have packed 80% of the orders with much of the remaining amount of orders that we are either waiting for balance payments or they were the last orders we received.

I’ve no idea whether all the orders from Rails have gone out or how many they had to ship but we had a lot! The Sonic models are slightly different to our normal way of working but the fundamental reason I guess people came to us is that they got their models considerably cheaper. Rails have taken a considerable risk supporting Sonic so why shouldn’t they also get their models to send them out to recoup some of the not inconsiderable sum they’ve paid? For our models, there’s another benefit/reason to coming direct which is that ultimately if people don’t then the models just won’t get produced. Having said which if it is important to people that they get their models first then 2 people are always going to struggle to pack hundreds of models as quickly as one of the large retailers. PS it hasn’t helped having two models arrive at the same time with our Ecofrets arriving a day or two before the 56xx models. We’ve also had to invoice a fair amount of customers for their balances. None of which are complaints or whinges, but they are reasons why things take time.

Not yet - we’ve got a few improvements on the first CAD that we’ve asked the factory to make. Cheers Mike

Mark That sounds like a problem with your machine if you’re being transferred to EBay (I’d be checking it for viruses/malware). You will need to be able to access your account if you have a balance invoice to pay. If you need any help please drop us an email. Cheers Mike

As it says clearly on our website no orders were transferred anywhere. All orders placed with us will be fulfilled by us. Cheers Mike