24th May 2018

Some Future Changes

We read with interest Auscision’s comments on changes to both our shrinking hobby and production requirements that have been requested from their factory.

“Contributing factors to product delays that our factory brought up with us were the number of body versions and liveries with many of our projects. Nowadays with a smaller workforce at the factory it’s much harder and more time consuming to produce highly detailed fine scale models with many body versions/liveries in small quantities. They would much prefer to produce a model with one or two body versions/liveries in quantities of 1000 models per version – this in turn causes issues because Australian customer demand for that quantity of one type is non-existent. This compares to our 48/830 Class project where we have 94 different body versions/liveries with an average quantity of 50 units per version/livery. Total production time, set-up time and overall instructions for the factory floor is a sheer nightmare for a production run like ours and takes so much longer to set up and complete, hence the lengthy delays with the 48/830 models.

Moving forward we are going to have to simplify future models by reducing the number of body versions/liveries during the first production run and look at making different versions over 2-3 production runs. This will streamline the delivery of a model and ensure we can deliver closer to our predicted delivery date.”

This issue was raised coincidentally with our own factory after placing the 2300/2170 order. All told, including the 2300 / 2170 / 1550 & 2400 series of locomotives we have tooled for 13 versions, created 26 decoration files for 38 numbers and there is more tooling to be made. Our factory thinks we are crazy.

 Part of the issue of course is that the factories see Australia as the same size as Continental USA and think we have a similar population. But it is 25M verses 326M. in terms of order quantity this would make our order quantity somewhere in the vicinity of 15000 + units.

We are not changing the composition of the 2300/2170 class production, but we have reviewed the 1550/2400 class and as a result, we have made two changes to our 1550/2400 production.

Eagle model Q24/13 has been cancelled. All customers with this model have been contacted to change their order. The good news is that after the Brisbane Exhibition, having been approached by so many customers after seeing & hearing the samples, we have decided to add a 2470 CLASS HIGH NOSE BLUE #2498. PRODUCT CODE Q24/15. This model is now available to order from our online store.

ORDER YOURS HERE

YOU’VE SEEN THE REST – NOW SEE THE BEST

In order to fulfil our promise to our factory to drive the quantities higher we are offering an EXTENDED & INCREASED pre-delivery price on our 2400 & 1550 class loco’s for a very short time.

Not only will you get your 5% – 20% membership discount, you will get an EXTRA PRE-DELIVERY discount of 10%. That means you can save up to a huge 30% – WOW!

This discount will automatically be applied to your cart.

ORDER YOUR 2400 CLASS MODEL ORDER YOUR 1550 CLASS MODEL

OUR PRODUCTION RUN

There has been some confusion as to which models we will be releasing when so – to clear it up – we are releasing the 2300 & 2170 Class together, including the South African models, first. This will be followed by the 2400 & 1550 Class together shortly after.

Private Owner ‘LL’ coal Wagons

Our last blog referred to the’ LL’ samples as “Production Samples”. They were in fact “Tooling Samples”. These arrived just before leaving for the Brisbane exhibition and the model is as we said, quite excellent although the issue with the buffers stood out immediately. One other major issue for us was the weight factor, the model came in at around 17 grams, about what a Eureka CCH coal wagon weighs. We felt that this was not enough and have asked the factory to redesign the bottom section to add another 17 grams. The compromise for this is that there is less internal space, not an issue with a coal load. Speaking of coal loads, the load shown is not what the final model will use. It really will look like a coal load.

All the other corrections were minor. Of interest the wheels are slightly away from our standard specification of AUST RP100 for a HO Scale 16.5mm gauge. By way of explanation, we try to cater for the average modeller that makes up the majority of the hobby in Australia that do not build their layouts to the exacting standards set by a few. This allows for better running operations through frogs on points and trackwork.

Having said that we thought the finer scale RP88 wheels would look better on these small wagons and have asked the factory to adjust the tooling for the wheel centre & turn the metal to RP88. We will see what happens.

STOP PRESS

THE FACTORY HAS AGREED OVERNIGHT TO ALL OUR CHANGES

We cannot get a production slot until after the 2300 Class is released.

ORDER YOURS HERE

OLO/OVO/RTC/AMPOL TANK CARS

These arrived directly into Brisbane on the Friday before the Brisbane Exhibition and we were able to display them at the show.

As yet we have not given these tooling samples a going over. They look pretty good and at least we will have two dome, three dome & three dome rounds with their correct numbers. There will be one or two changes to be made. As noted above, we cannot get a production slot until after the 2300 Class. More on these in our next update.

ORDER YOURS HERE

SANDING TOWER & STOCK RACE

Our TS7 & TS8 trackside models are coming along nicely. Just a few minor changes needed to the Stock Race and they’ll be on their way!

ORDER A TS7 SANDING TOWER ORDER A TS8 STOCK RACE

SOUTHERN SPIRIT CLUB CAR

We’re glad to see so many people jumping on board with our FREE membership! You will instantly save 5% on all orders and it costs you NOTHING! If you still haven’t joined – why wait? Join today and save save save!

BECOME A MEMBER!

OFFICE HOURS

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

Phone & email facilities are available.

A special call back time can be arranged by email or by sending a text message.

Helping to keep your dream alive

-Rocket