chris_irl

hehe That's in Dublin Zoo, or at least Dublin has it as well. They've quite a few funny signs dotted around the zoo

I think this will make a nice cameo scene in my new layout! thanks for the link

quality pics I really love that layout!

yellow box on the roof buffer beam blue boxes on the back car by the wheels

looking good

£100,000-£150,000 for R&D, measurments and producing the final tooling and prototype is a figure I've seen thrown around a fair few times. Its well enough established from Irish forums I frequent as certain users who run shops etc have queried it or know from Mr Murphy's experiences If you assume a retial mark up of 100% (which doesn't seem unreasonable for the typre of product) you're looking at wholesale price of 125/2 = ~65 for arguements sake. After that its pure guesswork, rather than vaguely known from above. IF selling price is 65, probably looking at varaible costs of around 20-30, fixed of 150k/X thousand units and profit of 5-10 per piece. X=5000 units seems like a reasonable production run to reach a profitable level Once again I will stress these are just my musings and nothing more. Given that runs of 500 are possible the variable costs may be considerably less (though these special runs are usually variats on a standard item)

thats some fantastic weathering on those locos. really makes them look real and well used it particularly like the 09, looks like its been round the block a few times to say the least also the tankers, what were they when clean?

thanks for the photo, help show it quite well. Nice 33 running round too

Cheers, they look much neater and cleaner than standard couplings, especially on the 141 as a way to connect them. having the coupling static obviously allows all the detail pieces to go on to which make it look well. Did you have to cut back any of the coupling pockets on the bogies to get it to work properly?

Hi there, newly active member here, though I've been on other sites for a while. can I ask where you got all the snowploughs from. I'd be interested in adding similar to my class 20's. I have them already on my Heljan 26 but these came with it. are they plastic or metal? Also how sharp a corner can they go around, as the Kadee coupling look fixed to the chassis in a lot of cases, notable the 141 you showed pic of the underside. By the way its a fantastic layout you have there!