Eureka Models

 

WELL, SO MUCH FOR COVID:

Hi all, it has been four years since my last blog and four years since Covid came and sort of went. ( I had  five days in hospital with it last year.)
In a way, much has happened in those four years and in another way not much has happened at all in that time.
For the first two years virtually nothing happened with Eureka Models in China and it was not until late 2023 that things began to move again. Visits to China resumed in 2024 and it is only now that anything like a normal routine is occurring between Eureka Models and its manufacturers in China.
There were a number of factors that contributed to this state of affairs and a number of these factors will be touched on in future blogs but for the moment suffice is to say that our two main manufacturers are each currently working on several projects with more on the horizon. Again, future blogs will deal with these.

On the subject of future communications, The Eureka Times will remain our main vehicle for maintaining contact with the over 4500 customers on our database. Due to the costs involved it will not be generally posted out and will be distributed almost entirely by email. Issues have been a little bit in-frequent these past few years but ET will certainly continue to be published hopefully on a more regular basis now that more is happening in China.

The NSWGR AD60 class Beyer-Garratt locomotive 2nd Re-run.   

One of the things encouraging the preparation of this blog has been the arrival by air of 200 units from the latest re-run of Eureka Model's popular AD60 class Beyer-Garratt locomotive. These units have largely gone to pre-orders however, the remaining 800 units of the run are due to arrive in Post Botany  on the 17th of October which means they should be in our hands the following week in time to be on had at the Rosehill exhibition.

As allways, given the team here at the Eureka Offices' interest in things shipping, below is a photo of TS Chennai, the container ship bringing its cargo from a port on the Pearl River (Shenzhen) which includes the AD60s to Port Botany. TS Chennai today arrived at Fisherman's Island Wharf in Morton Bay and is unloading containers before making its way down the east coast to Port Botany later this week  

For those who are interested, the following are those units available in the current re-run. As always, I suspect that I got the break-up of the production run wrong as we are being swamped with orders for 6029 in NSW Transport Heritage livery. This will almost certainly be the first number to sell out.

6001 Black with red lining.
6007 and 6016 "ex works" black with red lining.
6020 Centenary Colours.
6027, 6032 and 6036 Plain black, long bunker, sound tubes.
6029 As preserved ACT ARHS.  ACT herald, City of Canberra and ARHS name boards. 
6029 As preserved NSW Transport Heritage in plain black OR black with red lining. Both                                                                                                                            with name boards.

All the above units are available with or without sound. 

Here is a nice video of some of the units available in this run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jyNmI6tVFE. 

Plenty of good feed back coming in already with the most pleasing being comments on the improved sound  in this run. The better sound was one of the first impressions that I had of this re-run and this I think is due to the Zimo decoder which utilises 20 year newer technology and as importantly, the improved sound files put together by long time Friday-night Rambler, Terry Flynn who did an excellent job. Thanks Terry.

Future blogs will deal with projects underway in China as news comes from the manufacturers. The next project to arrive will be the 38 class re-run which the factory said this week they are aiming to deliver before the end of the year. (Chinese New Year that is.)
As part of this process the factory has this week forwarded another engineering sample which should be on display at Rosehill exhibition.