All Activity

Little activity on the garden railway during Sept and Nov mainly as a result of unpredicatble (high winds & heavy rain) weather on most weekends. Although forecast was not great Sunday was dry and I needed to move the Large Scale stock out of the garage/workshop to get some work done. A bit like the prototype I tend to run a series of trains out from one terminus (earlyish) in the morning to return to their starting point by supper time! All all tracks occupied in the yard at Jackson City, with almost all locos and every piece of freight stock. K27 #464 had earlier worked a mixed freight to Jackson City droping its train of Box & Tank cars & Caboose on the Freight House (goods shed) spur before returning light to pick up a train of flats and gondolas. Another K27 463 waits on the far side of the water tower with a mixed freight, while a C16 2-8-0 masquerading as C19 349 waits to work a stock train to Arboles a small wayside depot qand stock loading point. #464 passes the storck train at Arboles (should change to Arboles as one of several dwarf conifers planted no longer appears to be a dwarf species) In its final years the Colorado narrow gauge mainly hung on (ealy-mid 60) by transporting steel pipes used in the construction of pipelines from local oil fields. To handle this traffic the DRGW used a mixture of converted gondolas (open cars) and Idler Cars (flats) often cut down from old box cars. Someday hopefully (finances comitting) the Jackson County will pick up some "Pipe Gondolas" (Gons with ends removed and handbrake wheels re-located) I am not going to butcher my existing Gondolas into Pipe cars! With the Pipe and Stock trains out of the way "Works Goose" RGS #6 got out for a run. Interestingly although bodged together from used automobile parts almost 90 years ago the entire RGS Goose fleet of 7 "Motors" survives mainly in operating condition in Museums & Tourist railroads in the West. Managed to turn #348 between photos and place her train on a spur line ready for departure. One of the drawbacks with knuckle couplers on the loco pilots are derailments with the loco pushing stock through No4 (medium radius (Peco speak) turnouts. So I basically avoid pushing stock through No4 points used in a number of place on the railroad. Had planned to use our oldest loco a battery RC conversion of a Bachmann "Connie" 2-8-0 purchased almost 18 years ago to help work our trains home to our garage staging at the end of the day, but like the Drumm battery trains and todays EVs her batteries seem to have reached the end of their life after 4-5 years, charged up ok but only managed one lap of the circuit!

Lovely stuff!! The station building is superb!

Not in my budget!!!!

No need for a caption!

Have been inside the building more times than I'd like in it's current guise but it still has many of the original features, such as the big wide doors and open fireplaces.

Nicely done, Ballinhassig Station Master house was up for sale in last Saturday Examiner

Day 2 in Japan was intended to get some classic photos in front of Mount Fuji near Yoshiwara, but weather prevented that. Instead, a nice wander around part of the Tōkaidō Main Line with some freight movements and more unusual private operator vehicles. Click on the photo to view them all Regards, Kieran

Let me know how you get on, I am very much learning as I go,

Thank you Sean. I will have a play when I get the printer back up and running. Rob

One thing ive been trying to do this year is to get round to finishing off some of those kits that have been part/mostly built and have been sat in boxes for a while ( Years in some cases ). One i have not got to the paint stage is this Slaters Midland Railway 10T fruit van. One of the layoust i own is Wainthrop Brdige which is Lanchaisre and Yorkshire Railway set in the 1920s and it has a few out of area items. The model its self has had a few extra bits added like wire handrails and some car wheel weights to take it to 60 ish grams. Next up is a coat of primer to check for any stray bits of glue or something that should be there and then on to the top coat.

Happy Bithday looking forward to the party Great achievement from a small start to bringing to market many fantastic models ballast wagons,bubbles,ferts, A Class, MK 2 coaches, Class 37, Deltic raising the standard and challenging the market leaders Looking forward to the 800s and ICRs Well done IRM

Great stuff, happy birthday! Intriguing, two new somethings I'll be watching with interest cheers, Keith

Wow, ten years! Congratulations all around! I remember, vaguely, the A Class being announced. I’d been suspicious of the Ballast Wagons - if something seems too good to be true….. And I missed out, so decided to take the plunge and pre-order an A Class or two.

Hi everyone, As the village elders of this forum and the hobby may know, it's 10 years ago this very weekend since IRM first broke cover at the South Dublin Model Railway Show at Blackrock College. We were buoyed with a dream; to bring a detailed, accurate and Irish specific model railway wagon to market as good as any other Ready-to-Run manufacturer anywhere in the world could muster. We set out and dared to dream, with some banners and leaflets and a spot at the show very kindly provided to us at the last minute by @DartStation at the SDMRC Blackrock show. Soon our humble CIE ballast wagon was born, and with the support of many of you on this forum and beyond, IRM snowballed from a little acorn to a company with 20 full time employees today. We've come a long way, and that's thanks to your support and custom for our efforts. We've produced a multitude of wagons, coaches, locomotives and accessories in that 10 years, and there is more to come. Earlier this year, we said we would mark our 10 years with a very special announcement. We held a special evening at the Fry Model Railway in Malahide, where the first sample of our 800 class was unveiled. So, what else have we got planned to mark this milestone this weekend? Well, we have a new announcement on Thursday that will not be a surprise to many of you (and compliments our range quite well) at 11am, with samples available to view at the show this weekend. On Saturday morning as the doors open at the show, we will unveil another small new announcement, something very limited and very special indeed. Again, you will be able to see it in the flesh at the show. Dying to see our new Palvans, bubbles and unfitted H Vans? They will be there, along with decorated Hunslet locos, which are almost finished production at the factory. "But what about the 800s?" Well, if you come to the show you will see the first couple of decorated samples. They arrive on Thursday being specially completed for the show this weekend, so we wont have time to photograph them before the show to share online. Sorry. "Hold on, what about the Park Royals?" See the latest samples in the flesh as production motors on and is due to be stock in the new year. "Right, fine. But come on, what about these ICRs? It's taking forever." Yes, you have a point there. However, after much hard work behind the scenes, on the one project that techno wizards and lord of the DCC world ESU have said "is the most complex model we have ever worked on" a working sample will be on show too with a full update provided. It has more light shows than Las Vegas, and all off one decoder. It's rather special.... So, there will be lots to see and catch up on as we push on with providing the Irish outline model railway world with the latest and best models we can possibly produce, and are the envy of any market across the world. We can't wait to see you this weekend, please stop by and say hi. We won't be taking your money though, as we will no longer be retailing at shows. We will be there just to chat, answer your questions and shoot the breeze. Marks and Dave Bracken will have everything IRM you need on their stands if you have a few quid to spend. See you there!

Noting the use of the plural there re announcementS......... happy days!

Hi folks, Nope, they're in production at the moment. We are sure we are correct on our roof radius and it checks out against our measurements. Granted you may have a point about the X bracing on those ends. People can see them in the flesh this weekend at the show and make their minds up themselves. Cheers! Fran

Same here.

I have once seen a layout where the builder very carefully made all the stock with suspension or compensation capable of coping with really terrible track quality, and then deliberately built the track to be prototypically awful. It did work, derailments were avoided, and the locos and wagons rocked and rolled over the uneven weedy track in a very convincing way. In its own way, it was a remarkable piece of modelling and really stood out at an exhibition. But I think you would struggle to achieve that in the small scale you're working with - not enough space for the suspension and the rolling stock wouldn't have enough inertia to rock and roll convincingly. Mass and inertia don't scale very well. MIP has enough character of its own in the locos, wagons and scenery!

it has actually crossed my mind but derailments annoy me way more than they should https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5028562 these wheels kind of give the impression of running on bog track in the example video when compared to the torfbahn video i posted earlier, so anything is possible

https://www.printables.com/model/678039-h0f-track-65mm-spacing-code-80-rail https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6683822 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5028536 There are a couple of approaches, I am using the tim1mw variant because the chairs seem to be the easiest to reproduce on a filament type 3d printer.

Those locos and stock are very characterful! I can see the appeal of modelling MIP and look forward to watching your progress. Are you going to try and replicate the terrible track quality? Could be a challenge keeping things on those rails in such a small scale.

Ive stumbled on a couple of 2' bogs in my research. Most of the original rolling stock from MIP was sourced second hand. some of which even came from other 2' irish systems No.7 was built in 1983 for Tirconnell Peat in Pettigo Co. Donegal and moved to Rathowen in 1988, it was sold for preservation in 2009 to the UK. No.2 Ransomes & Rapier 20HP 4wDM (built 1938, works no. 84): Originally delivered new to Murphy Bros Ltd, a Dublin-based construction contractor, it later moved to Shamrock Machine Turf Co. in Shane Valley near Edenderry (acquired around 1963) and then to Midland Irish Peat at Rathowen bog in County Westmeath by 1987. It was fitted with an Ailsa Craig diesel engine and accompanied by peat wagons when moved to the UK for preservation in 2011. Motor Rail 4wDM (built 1938, works no. 7304): Acquired from Erin Peat Products Ltd in Birr, County Offaly, which had operated a 2ft gauge peat railway since around 1959 before closing. The running number was not known however I am led to believe that it was re numbered to 3 sometime and any photos online featuring loco 3 are incorrectly captioned as Alan Keef Works number 9 which was originally number 3 but sold around 1993 meaning any post 1993 photos of loco 3 cannot be AK9 Others included; Two F.C. Hibberd 'Planet' 4wDM locomotives (build details unknown): Also acquired from Erin Peat Products Ltd in Birr. Ruston & Hornsby 4wDM locomotive (build details unknown): Acquired from Erin Peat Products Ltd in Birr. Theres also 006.5 which would represent 18 inch gauge. There were a lot of smaller gauges in industrial use all throughout the country but they are not so well documented. I hit gold by asking grok about some of these systems as it was able to look into resources I did not even know existed online. https://www.irsociety.co.uk/Archives/13/bord_na_mona.htm I believe this was a first jumping off point for me.

I know they survived the flight. Did they survive that thing?

Try the Lartigue Museum if you're ever nearby, they sell old railway mags, Ive a few hundred to bring them next time I'm down!