No sooner was the Christmas holiday period over and we’re now heading rapidly towards Chinese New Year. Many of you may be aware that Chinese New Year is a holiday period in China [where the majority of models are produced] and the factories tend to shut temporarily for the holiday. That seems an appropriate point to update you on where we’ve reached with various models in production. If the model you’re looking for an update on isn’t featured below then please head over to our Project overview page which has the latest information on all our models.
OO/4mm IPA car carriers and Ecofret container flats – we’ve spent a lot of time recently sending out IPA car carriers and FWA Ecofret container flats. All paid for orders should have been sent out now – please let us know if you are missing either your order or your balance invoice, the exception to that are international orders where we have been struggling to get models sent out due to various issues with Royal Mail. We’re investigating alternatives for international orders and will be in contact with affected customers where necessary.
N/2mm Class A/B tanks and Zander aggregate wagons – production is complete and we’ve approved production samples. The models are in transit from the factory and we expect them to arrive in the next week or so. If you pre-ordered Class A tanks or Zander aggregate box wagons from us we will be sending out any balance invoices over the next few days – prompt payment allows us to get your order out more quickly. The Class B tanks will be going out to retailers around the same time – we’ve also made them slightly lighter following customer feedback from the first run of Class B tanks.
N/2mm IIA-D Drax biomass hoppers – the majority of the production is complete and is also in transit to the UK and expected in the next week or so. These wagons are available exclusively from Rails of Sheffield.
OO/4mm Caroline – we had a slight delay with PCBs for the lighting circuits on Caroline which has now been resolved and the models are in the final stages of production. As soon as we have an updated expected delivery date we will update our website.
OO/4mm TUAs – production of the TUAs exclusively for Rainbow Railways is complete, however during our final checks of production samples we discovered some slight problems with some of the tampo printing (around colour density of some of the printing). Rather than send out a not quite right model we’ve agreed with the factory that they will re-work the liveries on the affected models – this will add a bit of a delay while the models are corrected and we now expect to receive the tanks around April – May (depending on how long the corrections take).
N/2mm Mk 5 Caledonian Sleeper and TPE coaches – the Mk 5s are in the final stages of production and we expect the models to leave the factory in March/April (which would have them arrive in the UK during April-May).
N/2mm Pendolino second run – the Virgin liveried Pendolinos are ready to leave the factory but might not make it out of the door before Chinese New Year. If they don’t make it out then they might arrive all versions together – we’ll let you know as soon as we hear from our friends at Rapido.
N/2mm Class 59 – we’ve agreed a production slot with the factory for the 59s so our order book will close on 31 March 2023.
After the resumption of the factories in February we expect a lot of progress on various models so keep an eye out on future updates!