MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT

Dear Customers & Friends

I have been at the helm of Southern Rail Models for the past 10 years and am both happy and sad to announce my retirement.

Over the past ten years, Southern Rail Models has produced a range of great models from the original NSW interurban U Boats, to the South Maitland Railways 10 class, the Queensland 2300 class & the coming 2400 class diesels in both 12mm and 16.5mm.

During those 10 years I have been supported by a wonderful team of Directors and Shareholders all of whom are modellers in our great hobby.

Accordingly, I am delighted to advise that although there are some role changes, the management of Southern Rail remains in the same hands as before and the team will continue to deliver great models.  The current projects and future models include:

QR 1550 diesel, QR 2400 diesel,

RRAY/RRBY 5 pack container wagons,

NTAF and Ampol tank wagons,

QR OLO/OVO tank wagons,

Re-run of the NSW Endeavour / Explorer DMU sets with an upgraded chassis,

Other projects and Trackside Structures are also in the development phase.

The Directors and all the Southern Rail team under new Managing Director Phil Hadley look forward to continuing to deliver a range of quality scale models to the Australian railway modeller.

– Rob (Rocket) Stevenson

OUR NEW CONTACT DETAILS ARE

Postal Address – PO Box 1049, EPPING, NSW, 1710

Telephone – mobile held by Darlene Ratcliffe 0497 158 069

E-mail – info@southernrailmodels.com.au

THESE DETAILS ARE NO LONGER USED BY SOUTHERN RAIL

rocketstevenson@ozemail.com.au

Phone nos: (02) 49812945 / 0418 282 564

CHINA FACTORY  VISITS

Southern Rails project management team and myself have recently returned from visiting our Chinese manufacturing partners, so we are able to give some comprehensive project updates:

1550 / 2400 / 2460 & 2470 CLASS  PROJECT UPDATE

We were all able to see the progress of the`1550/2400 class project whilst in China. The project is progressing well with all the injection moulding complete and painting due to commence shortly after our departure. There have been a couple of  holdups. At the last minute we needed  to add a slide to some tooling that had been overlooked.

As many of you know, ESU have introduced the new V5 decoder and we have only just been able to complete testing of our existing sound file for the 2400 class (these are the same as the 2170 class but quite different to the 2300 class) to ensure that the sounds translated to the new decoder accurately and that there was compatibility of operation with the 2170/2300 class.

So, shipping is now expected in June rather than this month and we expect to be despatching models to our customers in July.

RRAY/RRBY/RRGY PROJECT UPDATE

Due to the serious version complexities with the OLO/OVO/Ampol & RTC tank cars, the RRAY/RRBY project is being brought forward with the tooling corrections about to commence and an expected shipping in September.

This is a great project, especially with the new Pacific National versions as noted  in our last blog.

OLO/OVO – AMPOL & RTC TANK CARS PROJECT UPDATE

Our factory is still coming to terms with the complexity of this project. We have identified a new way of conveying all the variations so the engineers can have a comprehensive understanding of the  project.

As always, we will keep you fully informed of the progress.

OFFICE HOURS

OUR OFFICE HOURS ARE 9AM – 5PM MONDAY TO FRIDAY

Email & SMS facilities are available and a special call back time can be arranged via these services.

Helping to keep your dream alive