Newsletter No. 34
Good evening,
I hope you're all well and, for those who attended, recovered from Warley!
It's never a "relaxed" run up to the UK's largest Model Rail Event and coupled with the grand opening of our showroom the week before it has meant a few late nights!
Never-the-less, the weekend came, went and was filled with an air of optimism, excitement and new product announcements.
A couple of years back Steve Flint approached me and asked if I would write an article for 'The Railway Modeller' on how I felt about the future of the hobby. I warned him of my poor English skills and that I seldom put pen to paper, but still he welcomed my thoughts and published my finished article (I still need to send a copy of this to my old English teacher!)
It's very encouraging to see that my thoughts were not mis-placed and bucked the trend of some concerns within the hobby at the time. I managed to escape my stall a few times of the weekend and was inspired to see so many announcements from a range of different companies in a host of different scales and gauges.
To aid the above, I spoke to the show manager who was happy to inform me that the show had a large increase in attendance this year - fantastic news!
This air of positiveness seems to be flowing within the hobby currently. Every exhibition I attend I speak to many traders and punters alike, who all come back with positive feedback and successful weekends, and I'm sure this will continue into Reading next weekend, and throughout shows in the years to come.
The Grand Opening
Firstly I would like to take this opportunity to thank all who attended and/or called to congratulate and wish me all the best on the showroom opening. I was both flattered and humbled by the comments and as I have said to many, I really couldn't have come this far without you.
One of the great things about this hobby is that everyone is so passionate to lend there skills and knowledge to aid another in a venture or problem. Take for example the Darstaed coaches, they wouldn't be half the model had it not been for your constructive comments, knowledge and advice, so thank you.
The showroom is now fully open from 9am - 5pm weekdays and by appointment on Weekends - for further info, please call, email or visit the website.
Mk1 Suburban Sample
Ok, ok - I'm sure by now you must be wondering when I would mention the picture at the top of this email?
Well, you guessed it! This is our latest Mk1 Suburban sample which has come from Darstaed early last week.
What do you think?
There is still plenty to add and change including brass door handles, seat patterns, carriage pictures and much more.
Within this sample were also the brass luggage racks! More pictures to follow on the website soon...
At this stage we are now expecting the first coaches to arrived with us around March/April time - we do realise that we originally said Q4 of this year, so very sorry for any inconvenience caused.
HO Continental
For all those who follow our eBay site, you may have noticed a spike in stock over the past couple of weeks.
This is due to a stunning single owner collection of HO stock which we recently purchased. There's plenty more to come, so certainly worth keeping an eye on!
Reading O Gauge Show
We've now started prep for the Reading O Gauge show this coming Saturday.
As always we'll have plenty of O gauge pre-owned stock accompanied by the full range of Darstaed finescale products.
If there is anything from the website you would like us to bring along then please send either myself or Paddy an email and we will be happy to bring it along for your viewing pleasure!
Darstaed Mk1s
We always like to keep you in the loop with current expected release dates, so please see below:
Catering vehicles in SR Green: within 1 week
Catering vehicles in Choc & Cream and Blue/Grey: Mid December
57' BGs: January/February
Sleepers: January/February
Intercity Stock and West Highland Liveries: February/March
We do apologise for any inconvenience caused by late deliveries, but we do hope you understand.
That's it for this week - I hope to see plenty of you down at Reading this Saturday or if not then, in the showroom sometime soon!
All the best,
Ellis.
