tuby

Would'nt worry too much about Cork as a port. Relative to the rest of the country it is not a bit convenient and the road network around it is poor.The old Tivoli container terminal was never really that busy with import/export traffic and the port has a very mixed history with it's shipping services.

You can really see how major a role the Bell Company played in keeping the IE liner train network in business, huge disaster for IE Railfreight when they went bankrupt. Throw in the closure of Asahi and Nitrogen Eireann and over half the freight on that video has literally disappeared.

Hey Blaine guess who was in the All Ireland Final last year? Noel has it right. If you want to model Irish then you have to accept compromises and in the current climate I suspect it will be a while before MM bring out a complete new model. A spot of weathering can hide a multitude.

I find the livery quite fetching. It has the feel of a real railway livery as opposed to the rainbows on wheels that are all too frequent in recent times. Colour schemes should be simple and understated such as the old GNER on the east coast mainline or Strathclyde's maroon and cream. The old UTA/NIR red and white was probably the best livery on the island to date.

Getting like Germany 10 years ago. They only succeeded in cannibalising each other and look at the outcome. Little point in new entrants if they are only going to replicate existing models or compete with minor models of only limited appeal.

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Sorry ,wrong urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRhseqTP3Uk

Happy days

The Garrett looks great on your layout A4Mallard. You say that it is running on your old layout, did you have to dismantle it? If so that's a pity because it looks like a really great piece of work.

For anyone modelling narrow guage he has a few of Co Donegal including Barnesmore Gap

The back scene comes from a crowd called Backdrop Junction. He has put up a load of European back scenes on his website and they are based on photos he took in Ireland, could be very usefull for anyone modelling the Irish scene. Heirflick the loco in the photo is a 32 Class. There were 180 in the class and could be seen all over New South Wales up to the end of steam in 1972

Thanks for the comments and tips Noel and my gratitude to Garfieldghost for the tidy up

You are spot on Warbonnet. I bought one and became hooked on New South Wales prototype

Sorry Dave they appear to be too big, will have to try something else

Not sure where to post theses photos. Putting them here as the Aussies still have the Union Jack on their flag, maybe the moderator will have other ideas. Anyway this is my attempt to model the railways of New South Wales in the 1960 - 70 period.

Thanks for the memory Noel. Got my first Hornby for my 10th birthday in 1963 from Great Southern Models in Leeson St. Bought most of the stuff after from Hely's store in Dame St as they had the best selection of Hornby in Dublin. Remember paying something like £2 for the SR 0-6-0T. Unfortunatly my mother got very ill and had to store the whole thing. After she passed away 2 of my aunts cleaned the house and to this day I do not know what they did with the trains, have never forgiven them.

The economics of the retail trade are also having a major effect. Rents in High St locations and shopping centres are so high that only shops with huge turnovers can survive in them and model shops are not in that league, they now tend to be in obscure locations hence the hobby is losing it's public profile. Before I retired I was a regular visitor to London on business. In the late 80's there were at least 4 model railway shops in the centre of London and all went in the 90's, there were probably more but they were the handiest for me.

I was commuting daily from Kildare to Heuston at the time and disruption was minimal. There were some delays but the service never stopped and the controlers generally did a very good job in ensuring that everybody got home at a reasonable time. Colleagues dependent on cars and buses had a far worse time.

Evrybody both proposers and potential purchasers needs to be carefull here. I model Australian prototype and crowd funding is big over there given the small size of the market.There have been problems with delivery times which are seldom met, I am waiting nearly 4 years for delivery of a loco which I prepaid. Some of the bigger operators have influence but smaller less established ones can be left high and dry by the Chinese who seem to be all over the place at the moment. If the proposers place their order in say January 2015 it is extremely unlikely the model will be available until sometime in 2016. Just saying everybody should go into this with their eyes wide open.

Evrybody both proposers and potential purchasers needs to be carefull here. I model Australian prototype and crowd funding is big over there given the small size of the market.There have been problems with delivery times which are seldom met, I am waiting nearly 4 years for delivery of a loco which I prepaid. Some of the bigger operators have influence but smaller less established ones can be left high and dry by the Chinese who seem to be all over the place at the moment. If the proposers place their order in say January 2015 it is extremely unlikely the model will be available until sometime in 2016. Just saying everybody should go into this with their eyes wide open.

Evrybody both proposers and potential purchasers needs to be carefull here. I model Australian prototype and crowd funding is big over there given the small size of the market.There have been problems with delivery times which are seldom met, I am waiting nearly 4 years for delivery of a loco which I prepaid. Some of the bigger operators have influence but smaller less established ones can be left high and dry by the Chinese who seem to be all over the place at the moment. If the proposers place their order in say January 2015 it is extremely unlikely the model will be available until sometime in 2016. Just saying everybody should go into this with their eyes wide open.