Craig Watson

Great video, hate hearing the sound of my own voice! Not the most confident on the microphone either, its came out well though!

Looking forward to the show, we'll be there with my first venture into O gauge "Glasshouse Loan". Hopefully we'll see you there!

Our club are down with two layouts, just had a call from one of the guys telling me the news, Cheltenham and Digitrains hit hard apparently.

Looking forward to this with Glasshouse Loan's first outing (not very far as it's been in the clubrooms upstairs being worked on for the last 6 months or so!). The layout is pretty much complete after some frantic work over the last few weeks, the next project is stock weathering, we'll be running a mixture of pristine and weathered stock with quite a few members of the Dalnottar Riverside fleet playing a visit! Hopefully we'll see you there. Craig

Thought the programme tonight was really interesting again, the thing that jumped out at me was the Hattons rep getting upset over Hornby releasing the class 66 again, how a model which has it's roots in the old Lima tooling can be seen as competition to the forthcoming Hattons version is beyond me, they will appeal to two different markets in my opinion, the Hornby one will appeal to the modeller who's building on their initial train set, who maybe can't afford the Hattons one to begin with, the Hattons one will be the more experienced modellers choice in my opinion. Thought the programme was a great insight into the company, here's to it's future!

I have quite a lot of MTK units in my collection, the late Andy Elliot had a huge collection which he'd finished superbly, when he died myself and a mate bought up most of the EMU's and DMU's keeping a large chunk of the collection together. From memory between us we have class 100, 105, 108, 126, 303, 314, 320, I also have a class 91. There were also quite a few unbuilt and part built models which I also picked up, I've since built an Ayrshire class 126, finished the last car of a 6 car E&G Swindon, the second car of a 127 parcels unit and I'm currently working on another 314, I still have an unbuilt 101, 3 cars of an E&G Swindon and 2x 150/1! I also have unbuilt kits for both class 210's 4 car 210001 and 3 car 210002, the parts for these have sample etched on them, I believe Andy Elliot built some models for Colin at MTK back in the day too. I'll have a dig over the next few days and get some pics up.

Got to agree, as a 16 year old starting out on my own railway career at the same time as they were pretty much brand new it was all really exciting seeing them at the Waverley when all we seen on the job at Greenhill then was 15x after 15x, and we got to ride behind/in front of them for free.

I'll see your Hornby one (I also still have the model I got as a Christmas present when they came out) and raise you! This is part of my collection, built by the late Andy Elliot and purchased by me from his collection after his death, classic MTK with a Lima class 87 mechanism, kept for sentimental purposes, it would be interesting to see if there are any others out there?? I'll definitely be looking at the new model, I started on the railway in early 1992 when these were still new on the ECML, used to make use of my passes every couple of months to get to London on daytrips from Falkirk, 06:30 from Edinburgh which got into KX around 10:30 then either the 16:30 or 17:00 back home, great days!

That looks great Trevor, will need to pick up the mag now!

We'll be there all weekend on stand A28 with West Pickering which is appearing on behalf of Bonnybridge Model Railway Club, hopefully we'll see you there!

Thankfully Rapido have put the below on their Facebook page, As many of you have heard, a major model train factory in China just closed. This has affected many model train companies in North America and Europe. Thankfully, it has not affected Rapido. Rapido's two factories are still very much in business, and they are expanding to meet the expected influx of new customers. NP boxcars and N scale 8600 coaches are leaving the factory next week, and TurboTrains will follow at the end of August.

Atlas, "Atlas has received notification from one of our locomotive and rolling stock suppliers that they have closed their factory. (Please note Atlas track and accessories are NOT affected by this delay.) Atlas is currently working with our network of suppliers to transfer the projects to others for completion. This will cause a delay in some previously ordered products. We apologize for this delay, thank you for your continued support, and will update you with more information as it becomes available."

Bowser, Bowser has been informed that our supplier has closed the factory. We are working to find other suppliers but it is a long process. All delivery dates are TBA. Any new information will be posted on our web site. Thank you for all the support of our products.

Fox Valley, Good Morning, Over the weekend, news broke that a large supplier of model trains in China has closed its doors. Fox Valley Models has used this factory for a large portion of our products. As of today, there is no clear path that will resume production in short order, or an easy way to move projects. With this news, we must reluctantly list all previously announced products as Postponed/Cancelled. If projects can be moved, it will take a number of months to do so, and then get a new factory up to speed on our projects will take even more time. We will keep all previously recorded pre-orders on file. If a resolution presents itself over the next few months, we will reconfirm specific projects as they get close (well into next year at best). If this process takes and extended time, it may be best to re-announce each project. This is an unexpected and sudden development. We recently received paint samples for new projects and had the indication that many of our orders were moving forward. We were looking forward to getting back to work after our extended summer trip with our son. Sadly this is not the case. But we will keep moving forward. For now, we still have a good selection of recent N Scale locos and cars available. We have a few projects at another factory that will now be our focus while things get resolved. We started as a small model company before, and will continue on. We sincerely apologize to everyone who was looking forward to announced releases and greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we move forward through this unexpected interruption. We will share news and new products as they become available. Thank you. Best regards, Matt Gaudynski

Fox Valley have released a statement on the closure as have Intermountain. Good Morning, Over the weekend, news broke that a large supplier of model trains in China has closed its doors. Fox Valley Models has used this factory for a large portion of our products. As of today, there is no clear path that will resume production in short order, or an easy way to move projects. With this news, we must reluctantly list all previously announced products as Postponed/Cancelled. If projects can be moved, it will take a number of months to do so, and then get a new factory up to speed on our projects will take even more time. We will keep all previously recorded pre-orders on file. If a resolution presents itself over the next few months, we will reconfirm specific projects as they get close (well into next year at best). If this process takes and extended time, it may be best to re-announce each project. This is an unexpected and sudden development. We recently received paint samples for new projects and had the indication that many of our orders were moving forward. We were looking forward to getting back to work after our extended summer trip with our son. Sadly this is not the case. But we will keep moving forward. For now, we still have a good selection of recent N Scale locos and cars available. We have a few projects at another factory that will now be our focus while things get resolved. We started as a small model company before, and will continue on. We sincerely apologize to everyone who was looking forward to announced releases and greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we move forward through this unexpected interruption. We will share news and new products as they become available. Thank you. Best regards, Matt Gaudynski

We had a great time with West Pickering, as usual the hospitality from Lippy and his team was first class. It was clear that a lot of effort had been put in to the organising of the show, the layouts were great, I also thought the trade was good, although being involved in the organisation of two shows I understand the frustrations in getting traders to come along in the first place, the internet being a massive factor in this, it's far easier for many traders to sit at home and deal with online orders than possibly have to hire a van, spend three days away from home (and the business) to support a show, so the ones who do make the effort should be applauded all the more for doing so. Thanks again for the invite and we'll hopefully see you again next year. Craig & James

We're looking forward to making the trip down with West Pickering, hopefully we'll see you there as we exhibit our small slice of the Toronto suburbs!

I think the comment re Britt Allcroft refers to when Hornby obtained the licence in the mid 80's, Thomas wasn't anywhere near as popular as it then became, you could probably say Hornby initially helped increase it's popularity, along with the original TV series.

You're in luck, Falkirk MRC's "Tamshooglie" is at the show, Thomas, Harry Potter, Underground Ernie, it has it all, and very nicely modelled too, I'm sure they'll love it!! http://www.falkirkmrc.co.uk/layouts/tamshooglie-oo-gauge

Hi all, The team took advantage of some spare time in the hall last night to mark out the floor plan, the first layout has also been transferred to the clubrooms ready for set up on Friday, I took advantage of an earlyshift to get West Pickering moved last night! I've also made a small amendment to the original post due to some late changes. It's all go for the weekend now and we're all looking forward to it, hopefully we'll see you there! Craig

Come along and have a shot of the raffle and you could be going home with one of the below! Bachmann AMRSS limited edition Scotrail class 47, 47708 "Waverley", the below pic is my own model, the raffle prize is an unopened one complete with certificate. Hornby Tornado Pullman Express Train Set.

Good first day of the show, we even had a special visitor to Allanbridge! Back again to do it all tomorrow! Hopefully we'll see you there!

My GBRF 66728 arrived yesterday, great service, will definitely use again! Cheers Craig

The standard bag of detailing parts that comes with the 47's, including our AMRSS one, has the corrugated red ended pipe, simple solution for me was that I was only detailing one end so took one of the spare yellow air ones and painted them red at each end before fitting.

Really looking forward to seeing this, I was also a signalman in the area although a little bit further south at Larbert Junction and Carmuirs West albeit a bit later than the timeframe of the layout (93-97), it was my home station in my relief bookmarker days too, my daughter's school classroom looks out over the site of the old Larbert South signalbox now, it was the first place I took James trainspotting when he was a kid too!! One of our club member's dad was one of the district inspectors at Larbert, his mum still lives in the station house, the only remaining part of the old station. Craig