The Kernow Model Centre have today made the following announcement about their exclusive models and commissions and I post it below in full.
In our determination to provide high-quality detailed models we are constantly reviewing progress of our projects. Sometimes this can reveal that changes need to be made, most of which are invisible to our customers.
After careful consideration we have decided to manage the production of our Adams O2 and LSWR Gate Stock OO Gauge models directly with the factory in China, this being the same factory that built our award-winning OO Gauge Beattie Well Tank. We have asked Dave Jones of DJModels to oversee these projects which will continue the close working relationship we have had since we started commissioning exclusive models.
Work on the OO Gauge Tiger Clay Wagons, Bulleid Diesel locos and D6xx Warships also continues as well as other yet-to-be announced projects, all of which will be produced under a new commercial agreement of which details will be given in due course.
All existing orders for these products will be held and there is no need for customers to contact us about this change unless they have changed their phone number, email address or house address and not previously advised us.
A consequence of this decision is that Dapol no longer feel able to progress the O Gauge Beattie Well Tank project and associated clay wagons. We had been working with Dapol to find alternative ways of producing this model, but the pre-orders have been disappointingly low with fewer than 200 orders placed. This is despite a huge discount being offered to encourage and reward customers who placed a pre-order and it being made clear that the pre-order could be cancelled at any time. While we may look at this again in the future for the time being we are going to concentrate on our core OO gauge market. We have already emailed and written to all customers who still held a pre-order for the O Gauge models with details of a special offer to reward their loyalty and patience.
Even after the above changes we had around £275k of special projects remaining with Dapol and it was our intention to continue with these, but Dapol have cancelled all of these with the exception of the OO Gauge models of D1003V Western Ruler and B850ZA and B850ZB Weathered Silver Bullets which are already in production. Our exclusive Class 73s, Bubble Cars, Turbots and Class 22s have all been cancelled and we are obviously very sorry and disappointed that Dapol have chosen to do this. This unexpected act means that we have had to remove these models from our website and have not yet had chance to contact everybody who placed pre-orders but will do so as soon as possible.
We thank all our customers for their patience and understanding for bearing with us and with our new agreement in place we expect rapid progress to be made on the Gate Stock and O2 models and look forward to sharing positive news about these very soon.
Regular updates are available by subscribing to our weekly email newsletter at http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com
I will not make any personal comment on the above other to state that I continue to assist Chris Terise at the Kernow Model Centre with respect to their Southern related models.
I wonder if the LSWR Gate Stock will be released before Hornby’s Maunsell Pull-Push sets become generally available as R4534A and B. I missed out on R4534 and the train pack. I am not surprised that the 0 gauge items have been discontinued. Only a small percentage of modellers model 0 gauge and these are split between coarse scale like Ace and finescale like Golden Age. Despite this the 0 gauge market seems to be expanding.