Nova Scotian

Brampton a bit far for me to just pop across... roughly 1100 miles. Enjoy your time. Welcome to Canada.

Yep, had specifically been looking at HMC for the PLA one. One thing I appreciate about HMC is they don't jack the prices retroactively - you pay the RRP of that model from the year it was launched. Disappointing re. spares, given Oxford Rail involvement. I'm assuming these weren't a runaway success given the deals they end up doing on these - but maybe more from over production than lack of popularity?

The retailer I ordered mine from is now showing a June delivery timeframe.

Well, yes, because your suggestion is serious :)

@30801 shared the image below in another thread. What I'm thinking is that Rapido should take the theme/concept on board, but rather than the understated elegance of this model, really turn the dial up to 11. Go all out. Some suggestions: - Nowhere is Paddington holding QE2's hand on this model, while licensing may be an issue this really is key - Royal purple or bust for the loco - More flags - it should make JRM weep with joy just to look at it - The tender should be modelled on the Speaker's State Coach, with all the ornate detail accurately rendered in 1:76 (on axles that are too narrow) - Commission ModelU to provide accurate figures of the Queen's Mother and Princess Diana sitting hand-in-hand in an open coach, with Elton John riding behind as a courtier. - Either "Turbotrain" or "VIA LRC" branding on a coach, reflecting the loyal service of QE2's committed Canadian citizens of the Commonwealth, in intercity swallow livery, with rose gold accents - based on your Loriot Y tooling ("Lizzy's house"). - And of course, Rapido's signature underframe detail.

NRM don't sell them, but apparently also sell some horrific 4472 tat. Ladies and Gentlemen, for your delectation please find: - Snowglobe https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/products/yrk-fs-snow-globe - Watch https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/products/flying-scotsman-nameplate-watch - Rubber duck (to be fair, my kids would have wanted this as a bath toy when they were little) https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/products/flying-scotsman-duck And best of all (worst of all?), some retro dublo-inspired shorties with only slightly compressed dimensions, salt and pepper shakers: https://shop.sciencemuseum.org.uk/products/nrm-flying-scotsman-salt-and-pepper-shakers On the watch/pocketwatch thing - there's something to be said for a modern mechanism, even something smaller/thinner, but "inspired by".

A true replica of an LNER pocketwatch from 1934 would be cool. Or even commissioning a watch with the same typeface and bevel style. All of this would be far less tacky and more interesting. If you add a chronograph function (maybe someone in the dynometer had one?) we could all measure the scale speeds of our 4472s as they whip around a 2nd radius curve.

A margin drop despite 18% increase in direct to consumer sales would be worrying. I have no doubt we've seen a softening in demand in the hobby - we're back to some pretty steep discounts on surplus stock from some of the box shifters. With cost of living it's hard for most to open up the wallet regularly when the cheapest non-railroad shunter is 108 GBP, an 0-6-0 is about 165GBP and up, and the cheapest "big steamer" is 205GBP.'' I mostly buy on sale - if I miss out I miss out and I'll deal with it. The sentinel 6w I got for 55GBP which is a steal, it's a better model than that. But the fact they had to discount 50%, and retailers still have them in stock at 60-65 GBP suggests all is not healthy. Sitting in that boardroom today would be difficult - high margin, small runs of exclusive models where you mostly sell out on pre-order (especially direct to consumer) is tempting. But your demographic data is saying that might not be there forever, and for long-term sustainability you need to keep bringing people into the hobby, which you can't do with a 500GBP gold plated flying scotsman. Someone on a previous thread has suggested that Hornby's root issue is their allocation of production slots. I think there's a bit more to it than that, but it does affect their margin (surplus being discounted), their revenue, and leaves them with stock on hand rather than cash in hand. Moving more in the direction we've seen smaller companies move where pre-orders inform how big a run should be could help them significantly. They'd have to speed up that feedback from consumer and retailer, do most of the development work upfront, but it could be that you see a yearly catalogue and a "pre-order catalogue" for the next year. Actually splitting it in two and using orders to drive production would create a much more efficient use of production slots - currently they're suffering from a lot of opportunity cost.

A lot of effort compared to just rubbing a graphite pencil over the rails.

Disappointed to have missed out on the 50 quid sales of these a couple/few years ago - getting very into industrial shunters and would be willing to take a punt and play around at that price! Ebay shows 80 quid starting for most second hand now. There's a retailer with some new kicking around, at the same price.

From digging around this today, as I saw the same thing as Jim: - only applies to products tagged as a bargain (you'll actually see an image overlaid) - does not include the Dapol 73 deal or the Dapol Terrier/Jinty - if you want to browse what's eligible, click the bargains link and then filter by your interest. There's some sorely tempting OO loco deals. I had added the terrier to my cart to add the code and see if that changed my decision, and from there went on a bit of a hunt for what's in and what's out for using the code.

Extremely tempted by this. O gauge loco for the price of an OO?! Great livery too, shame there was only one. And it got exported to Canada in 63 to then be ignored. If someone were to repatriate it I'd expect the model to sell better!

Riffing on the Inland Waterways and Docks theme... how about an Avonside 0-6-0ST? Portbuy started with I.W &D, before going to PBA.

Mid-April now and getting angsty. Hope this one is a success for Dapol - their B4 is a sweet runner and we need more well designed shunters :)

Very supportive of this. Will be adding 40p to my 2x Andrew Barclay pre-orders when they arrive. I work in supply chains (inc Decarb of). Decarb all the way through the supply chain is extremely challenging - it's complex, there are gaps, chain of custody can be a challenge, and obviously some companies are further ahead, some lag behind. The most important thing is to start. Start where you can. And roll out from there. Accurascale to be applauded for this.

Thanks to the OP and others for this thread. Going there for work in July and looking to add a couple of personal days (including minatur wunderland with my father). Very helpful.

My father models both n gauge and OO gauge. Thanks to rmweb and I he now also models O gauge - a spectacular deal on lionheart pannier tank + 2 mk1s from the bargain hunters thread. And he just lightened Dapol's website by one Guinness 08 :) (I believe he also as a BR green gronk + a Heljan 128). I've been kicking myself for 4 years I didn't jump on the 150 quid Heljan 05 in pre-pandemic clearouts. Fancy a Dapol 14xx too, once they do an approved run and I can buy through a UK stockist!

From everything I've seen of this industry, UK companies could either outsource production, or would have been out of business. I don't see any way they could have been price competitive with the market's willingness to pay for the fidelity of models required. You're right it's a risk, but I can't see this coming from a place of "saving costs" - everything we've seen since the 90s is this would have been about saving the company. I don't like outsourcing - it's amazing how quickly things go wrong in mission-critical applications when supply chains are opaque. However, expensive as they are and however much we love them, these are toys. And we (modellers) are price sensitive and assign more value to fidelity than to domestic sourcing.

There was one response blaming Dapol for outsourcing to China ("what do they expect") and two others in a similar, but less direct vein. I certainly agree there's been lots of discussion about how it happens - that wasn't the basis of my post. Following your comment I went and looked at Dapol's Facebook post. That was a mistake 😯 Can delete my post if you wish.

Yeah, that was the stimulus for my question. I saw the email, went to see what else had been changed over and gave up with the PECO website. I do have sympathy for PECO - they have a large catalogue over several brands and keeping the e-commerce side current/accurate is extremely time consuming. Side note - my kids still talk about their visit to pecorama. Particularly the kind people they met who taught them how to glue together a plastic shed :)

Learn something every day :)

Interesting - when I saw "cdn.shopify" when I went to download some plans from their site I assumed it was location services playing up (as the links were broken). But they most host with Shopify, who are Canadian... Thanks for that - I hadn't worked out the coding system. What you describe makes sense. That price list is much clearer than their website. Thank you @Bucoops - extremely useful. I can probably wait, if they plan to produce Code 100, otherwise I'll probably try and pick up some electrofrog. Or just get over myself with attachments to my Hornby J13 :P

I'm frankly disgusted at the attitudes of some people on this forum. They're acting like Dapol is a big bad business and this serves them right - anything for a modeller to be able to get a cheaper model. They have roughly 30 full-time employees at last filing. One assumes most/all in Wales. What's happening is likely theft, a break of contractual agreement - and I would hazard has the potential to threaten the future of Dapol. People filling their boots of counterfeit goods (eg. not sold by Dapol) is going to reduce demand for future runs. Without someone to do the market research, measure the prototype, purchase the production slot (and provide QA on EPs, production etc), have relationships with retailers, market to consumers etc - does anyone here really think we're going to get quality UK outline models? At 150+ quid a pop, a quick look through ebay suggests there's been a lot of models already sold (and the bulk discount should have any modeller questioning the posting!). That's likely 10s of thousands of pounds. Wishing Dapol the best here - I hope they get the posts taken down, they prevent this in future, and they have full redress from whomever has done them wrong.

Has anyone seen a list of those PECO switches/turnouts/points that have been converted to Unifrog and those that haven't? I find the PECO website extremely unfriendly. I could go with electrofrog, as that's my plan, but I like the flexibility of and design of the newer unifrog. Model in OO - but assuming if someone knows where a master list is that'd help everyone. Currently planning to use code 100 as some older stock I'm attached too, but if that's too hard then I'll go with code 75 which seems to have been updated.

That's because they didn't produce anywhere near enough of the composite corridors! Without those all your three car sets are two car sets! 40% off a new Bachmann 37, not seen one this cheap yet. https://www.themodelcentre.com/35-304