We had a great time at the Rails Open Day yesterday; for those that couldn’t make it we’ve prepared a quick one-minute watch showing the highlights including our N gauge Class 59s, 00 gauge HOA decorated samples and first EP of the 00 Alcan PCA tank.
We were asked plenty of questions about all our models at the show and hopefully we answered them all. Face-to-face we are usually far more indiscreet about our plans than we are online – as long as Chatham House Rules apply!
The most common question we were asked was: “How long before your Mk5 coaches/Drax hoppers/Caroline saloons/any other product will be here?”
The answer is that even for models currently in production it is very difficult to know. This is because, although things are improving all the time, the lingering effects of Covid are still making precise scheduling almost impossible.
Issues including, but not limited to, sudden power cuts or power rationing, staff shortages, revised working arrangements to allow for social distancing and supplier issues (caused by the same problems) are having a regular but completely unpredictable impact on production times.
There is little we can do about that, so once models are tagged as in production asking us when they are ‘due’ or ‘expected’ is unlikely to get a definite answer – we put a summary of all the information we have on our Projects page. Once we know the models are shipped we update the project overview and will start sending out balance invoices, so that’s a big clue that they’re imminent!